Spot the Genius Move! ♛♚

Can you solve this puzzle? White to play and mate! ♛♚

Did you managed to solve it? 👀

Yup. Good deflection puzzle. IMO the key thing to know is that once a rook is no longer on your back rank it can't defend the back rank. (unless it is also defended by another piece) I actually recently had a Daily game where I had to keep my rook on back rank due to back rank threats.

I did end up winning the game, but kept wanting to get my back rank rook into play. :-) I ended up using Q and pawn advance and finally getting my King an escape square but all that took quite a few moves.

got it!

got it good puzzle

hard