Truly Forced Mates

This is one of my first serious blog posts. Most of the readers already know what a 'forced mate' is. But, sincethe checkmating side can usually play another move which allows the would-be checkmatee to escape, I think the phrase would be a misnomer.

But not always.

Look at the following position.  Black's pretty good. There's only two blunders he can make to lose his winning chances.

The next two diagrams show this.