Now try to create one where the king is checkmated in the middle of the board.
Queen/King Checkmate
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Jul 10, 2019
0
#23
Ziryab wrote:
Now try to create one where the king is checkmated in the middle of the board.
(Edited to leave Black no option 22/8/20)
Jul 10, 2019
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#25
Yes, but I checked with Wilhelm before I posted.
I'm still looking for a (forced) mate in the centre.
Jul 10, 2019
0
#26
I check mine by playing against Stockfish. Of course, these usually have multiple solutions. I don't know if a position is possible that has only one first move.
(...from 25.) There's also 4. Qcf7# or 4. Qfe5# or 4. Qff7# and one other one.
Jul 10, 2019
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#28
....I'll 4give u Ziryab 
.
Jul 10, 2019
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#30
Ziryab wrote:
I check mine by playing against Stockfish. Of course, these usually have multiple solutions. I don't know if a position is possible that has only one first move.
I don't trust Stockfish. It doesn't play KBNK accurately.
I've edited my mate in the middle so it's now in the centre.
My first position has only one move. I doubt if anything respectable has, because the difficulty is not having shorter mates.
Aug 4, 2020
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#32
Ziryab wrote:
...
And this challenge from Five Days to Better Chess:
Create a position that requires four moves to checkmate with two queens and a king against a lone king. It's not easy (and yet I've seen many 1900+ who need six moves with two queens from a position that should require two).
Stockfish obviously finds it easy:
Aug 11, 2020
0
#33
This afternoon in a king and pawn endgame where I had five pawns to my opponent’s three, he offered a draw. I told him the color of the resign button and resolved that I would checkmate his king on e5.
He let his time run out.
This was on a free site that spammers keep trying to promote in these forums.
...u cant # in less than (6) moves.
Aug 21, 2020
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#37
MARattigan wrote:
Ziryab wrote:
...
And this challenge from Five Days to Better Chess:
Create a position that requires four moves to checkmate with two queens and a king against a lone king. It's not easy (and yet I've seen many 1900+ who need six moves with two queens from a position that should require two).
Stockfish obviously finds it easy:
I didn’t know stockfish composes position. Of course the checkmate is easy, it’s the composition that most people find challenging. I put this problem before a group of youth players last summer. For thirty minutes, every position they showed me I was able to checkmate in three moves. Finally, they found one that took four.
Five, I believe, is impossible.
Aug 22, 2020
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#38
Yes five is impossible.
A few years ago I spend a whole day playing "Black to play and White to mate in 4" positions (small things etc.). You have to specify BK not adjacent to either WQ to Wilhelm or you get a string of positions like my first in post #23. There are less than 5000 such positions out of ca 5.5 million and less than 500 with the mating side to play. It took some time to dawn on me that I'd accidentally finished up in one when I played the snippet in my post.
SF was trying to delay the inevitable as long as possible, which is no doubt how we finished up there, but who was most responsible for the "composition" it's difficult to say.
Incidentally the position that I came up with in post #23 seems to be atypical in so much as mate can also be forced in the centre in the shortest number of moves against any defence (see edit to #25), so maybe you could add that to your challenge at the next summer session.
Aug 23, 2020
0
#39
Another variation to @Ziryab's puzzle is to find a KRRK position that is White to play and mate in 4 in which none of the pieces is at the edge of the board. (There is a unique position if you count rotations and reflections as the same.)
And this challenge from Five Days to Better Chess:
Create a position that requires four moves to checkmate with two queens and a king against a lone king. It's not easy (and yet I've seen many 1900+ who need six moves with two queens from a position that should require two).
The challenge is pretty easy so long as the lone king gets first move (and I think I have a position in the other case).
White to move. Mate in four. That's the exercise.
Either of these