Ok so you think mate in 2s are a breeze now huh? Not so fast, I will now test your abilities with the world's hardest mate in 2 puzzle! Legend has it that this puzzle stumps GMs and even Kimmy Liu herself! Anyways, even though this puzzle is practically impossible to solve even amongst GMs, I encourage you all to take a stab at it!
SPOILER ALERT IN THE PARAGRAPH BELOW
Ok so that was pretty tough huh? There were many tempting moves that looked promising but in fact that is the only mate in 2 in the position. I encourage you all to find refutations to your own attempts (it will help you improve)! It seemed like white could not move his Queen because that would undefend his knight, which would be taken by the black king with a discovered check! But to Black's surprise, Qf1 works! We have to find the invisible refutation of Ke6+ followed by Qf5 Countercheckmate! Crazy how everything is pinned right? After 1. Qf1 white is not actually threatening mate in 1 and black is not forced to take the knight but Black is in zugzwang and anything he does will help white achieve checkmate! What a puzzle!
SPOILER ALERT IN THE PARAGRAPH BELOW
Ok so that was pretty tough huh? There were many tempting moves that looked promising but in fact that is the only mate in 2 in the position. I encourage you all to find refutations to your own attempts (it will help you improve)! It seemed like white could not move his Queen because that would undefend his knight, which would be taken by the black king with a discovered check! But to Black's surprise, Qf1 works! We have to find the invisible refutation of Ke6+ followed by Qf5 Countercheckmate! Crazy how everything is pinned right? After 1. Qf1 white is not actually threatening mate in 1 and black is not forced to take the knight but Black is in zugzwang and anything he does will help white achieve checkmate! What a puzzle!