2 pretty interesting puzzles

Hey, these are two puzzles inspired by games I just played on live chess (I say "inspired by" because I had to tweek the positions a little so that the solution would beat perfect play).  Enjoy!

In the first puzzle, 2. Qe1 is of course met with Qxe1+ Kxe1 h2.  In the second puzzle, white doesn't need to worry about black's Rc1+ skewer because c8=Q promotes with check.  If, however, black had played 1...Kxe5 instead of 1...axb6, white would have had to play Kc2 or a similar move after Rh1 to prevent Rc1+.

The first puzzle is mate after Qe2 :)

except of that- nice puzzles.

In the first puzzle, there's mate in 1 with 1... Qe2# unless I'm mistaken?

Heh, you're both right (you can tell that the position has been changed from the original game).  I'll try to fix that.

It's fixed now (for those who didn't see it before, there was no white pawn on c2.  Instead, there was a white rook on c1 and a black rook on b2, and the black pawn on e4 was on d5.) 

Here's an added "puzzle":  These are the positions from the original games.  Can you see why these exact positions could not be used as puzzles?  (the second one is harder):

(it's still black to move above, not white)

(here it's white to move)

well

Position #2 there's a forced mate with 1.c7

Hmm, white still has a winning line after c7 Kd7 Ne5+ Kc8 Ng6 (threatening both the rook and Ne7+), but I don't see the forced mate.  Could you post it?

Dang, I overlooked a move.  But this time I'm pretty sure that there is a forced mate with Nc5+.

Nc5+ Kd5 c7 Rc4+ Kb3 axb6 c8=Q Rxc5 Qd7+ Ke5 axb6 Rc1 Qe7+ Kd5 Qe4+ Kd6 Qf4+ Kc6 Qc7 Kd5 Qxc1 Kd6 b7 Ke7 Qg5 Ke6 b8=Q Kd7 Qf5 Kc6 Qfb5#

boring

huh..

when was it?