More than one winning continuation?

Hello all,

I was just solving this puzzle, and noticed that there is more than one winning continuation:

https://www.chess.com/puzzles/problem/174183

It's a mate in 3, but there is also a mate in 4!  I played for the mate in 4 and got the puzzle wrong.  Shouldn't a good puzzle have only one winning continuation?  Thoughts?

Mate in 3 is "correct" as mate in 4 is not the "faster mate." In tactic problems on chess.com, have you ever been curious enough to check the tags (e.g. pin, fork, mate in 3+, and so on)? If you ever have, or will now  , then I believe you will notice that one tag is called something like "faster mate" and this is what this problem has here. Some positions are crushing, but when solving: our job is to navigate the "best" continuation. Sometimes chess.com problems assign partial credit to incorrect, but still winning, moves - but it varies from problem to problem.

One time I created a puzzle that had three continuations that all won in 4 moves.  So that's my question:  How do you get the puzzle to recognize more than one continuation?

Thanks for this puzz;e

It was fun to solve

It's actually not that hard to program more than one outcome, I think it's just a commom sense in chess world that problems have only one right answer.

Also, I dont think it would be a hard/really instructive problem if it has 3 possible answers. 

It depends on whether the multiple continuations are based on the defender varying moves (common in puzzle compositions) or on the attacker varying moves (not so good).

Yeah, but in either way, I don't think it would be so hard.  Maybe easier to program on these forced mates puzzles, but definetely harder on positional puzzle.

The puzzle system is not coded for that.

nice

Assuming the variable is the computer move then you could have multiple versions with the different computer moves.

Both are good points.  Anyway I have a way of modifying the puzzle such that there is only one correct move.