Weekly Puzzle 1

I am starting to post weekly puzzles! These are going to be normal range-level puzzles (easy to hard) with varying objectives. Scroll down to see solutions and explanations.

Explanations will be provided for all puzzles I will be posting.

This week.... Mate in 5 as White.

Explore the moves yourself! You should understand the position easily.

This puzzle is from an actual game I played in the Autzen Stadium Tournament. If you read that post, you know the moves.

Below are explanations for each move, as each color.

1. Qd5

White playing Qd5 continues the checkmate threat. Of course there may be better moves, but this is the move I played since I saw the M5 (or M1, depending on his moves).

1. ... Qxc2

This move wasn't his best move, but none of his moves available were that good (his words not mine). Moving any other piece would have led to a faster mate (All but one M1 for White).

2. Be4+

This continues the checkmate threat since it is no longer M1 for White. The reason for this move is to force another move. Since he can't move his king, he is forced to move his g pawn (M1 for White after move) or take with the queen (M3 for White).

2. ... Qxe4

This makes the game last longer, though he is still losing in this position. By taking the bishop, he loses his queen, only to lose the game regardless. Even if he had his queen, he would have still lost, though both of us had mate threats had I not taken his queen (winner depends on whose move it is).

3. Qxe4+

This move is the only one that works. This move continues the checkmate threat, forcing the next move Black played.

3. ... g6

This is forced. This move is the only one that gets the king out of check.

4. Qb7+

This moves us down the road of checkmate. This forces one more move by Black, followed by checkmate.

4. ... Nc7

This move is forced.

5. Qxc7#

And the game is over. This is also the only move the works to finish off my opponent.

Also, there is one thing I did not explain in the above. There is a move that may have won Black the game. Can you find this one move? First move Black's queen to the right square (it was in that position prior to the puzzle position), then find the move.

And now suddenly Black has a different position. This would have made a trade of queens happen, which would have made the game last longer than it did.

However, even if this alternate happened, Black still would have lost the game, even playing better or different moves, as shows:

Thank you for playing my Weekly Puzzle! These will be posted every Thursday. So stay tuned for the next!

Consider dropping a follow and a comment if you have anything to say! Love the support and I love y'all's for it! Thank you so much for everything!