Need Help, Mate, with this Self-Mate

Haha, yeah, missed that. 

With a help mate, Black is forced to mate White , despite attempts not to! Looks to me like both given moves achieve that aim, but Qg6 is prettier, as the author has built in 1...c5, 2.Qc2. 

The board cannot be inverted.

The original text seen by batgirl has two possible moves suggested: "Q-Kt6"   or "Q-R5 ch".  If the board were inverted there is no way the white Q could move to any of those two squares.

Descriptive notation has its uses still !

You're welcome. Nice site, bookmarked. 

I don't have anything to add to Peter's (Rocky64) excellent comments, but I was curious where this selfmate was first published and who composed it.  I queried Yet Another Chess Problem Database and discovered it was published in the British Chess Magazine; nothing unusual there.  But then I looked at the name of the composer and was shocked to discover it was Aleister Crowley, one of the most peculiar, bizarre figures of the late 19th and early to mid 20th century.  I knew he took up chess, but I had no idea he composed problems; now that is bizarre.

Thanks, fightingbob! I vaguely remember Crowley mentioned in The Complete Chess Addict, which has a comprehensive section on famous people who played chess. But I didn't realise he was a problemist either.

That the problem was created by Crowley has absolutely nothing to do with the problem itself as it mostly predates his occultism.  He created a handful or more problems (of different genres) during these years.  The problem is straightforward, as far as a self-mate genre allows and makes perfect sense under the rules of self-mating as we learned earlier. So there's no need to look for some devilish trick, so to speak.

It's not a puzzle but a composed problem.  Compositions fall into genres and each have their own rules.  Actually, it's quite logical, even if counter-intuitive.  White WANTS Black to mate him. Black WANTS to avoid mate at all costs. So mate must be forced in some way.  Black will not cooperate unless forced to.   It's a bit like Suicide chess.  

In your game White missed mate in 2.

I don't understand the allusion or your consternation.

I didn't go back that far. Working backwards from the end (where the board opened up), I saw 32. Bf7+ Kh7 33.Qg8# and quit looking.

I still don't understand the allusion to this game.

Hey, Mr. Estenssoro, do you practice being a know-it-all or does it come easily to you?  You know nothing of the history of the various compositional disciplines of chess, orthodox problems and endgames studies being just two.  In fact, when chess was still called Shatranj and its center was Persia, mansūbāt or chess problems were just as important as practical play.

May I suggest using the links above to read about these aesthetic disciplines and then ask something knowledgeable instead of wasting everyone's time with your assumptions.

Did you bother to read the links I recommended, or are you just trolling because you're bored with life?  What do you not understand about composed problems with traditional stipulations that were developed and perfected over time?  No "chess player missed it."

If you can't understand the stipulations of this art, or dismiss the constraints put on these composed problems, move on and develop your own, unique "puzzles;" perhaps you'll be famous.  However, if you continue on this path I'd say you've found your own special form of selfmate.

You really are a man for our times, kindlestenssoro, a complete and utter narcissist putting your games in a thread where they don't belong.  Next time start your own thread.

I just unchecked the Follow box, so the thread is all yours, and I imagine yours alone.

The reason for the original query: https://www.chess.com/article/view/bad-boys-i