Your mission: Find the quickest finish!
Tactics: Bukic-Stull, Pula 1975
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The lucky pawn variation! ;-)
The opening was interesting, too... a King's Indian where, instead of the usual ...e5 or ...c5, Black kept a laser focus on d4 and eventually White's pawn structure cracked and it became a Ns vs Bs battle. I knew Black was in dire straits, but the finale surprised me. :)
"the expert spends his life learning how to win a won game; the master concentrates on reaching a won game" - Larry Evans [in Chess Life in the 1960s, reprinted in Chess Catechism] ;)
Hey Larry said that not me - i am just the messenger! :)
Solution: none.
reason: problem is 'find the quickest finish'. That is 'find a finish such that no other finish is as quick or quicker." NM Tonydal has shown there is none such [since there is no mate-in-1-or-2]. So the problem is impossible.
(a = (the) (x) Px) <=def=> (Pa and ((forall) (x) (Px=> x=a))) - Bertrand Russell & A. N. Whitehead, Principia mathematica.
normajeanyates, tonydal's solution did not mate in 3.
uh oh <embarrassicon>
egg all over my face :(
sorry likesforests, Russell, Whitehead, and Mahmoud Derwish 
normajeanyates> "the expert spends his life learning how to win a won game; the master concentrates on reaching a won game"
Hehe. :)
The difference between Rf8+ and Tony's Qa8+ line is small (mate-in-3 vs mate-in-5), but the maybe the 'lucky pawn' tactical pattern will be useful elsewhere. I spent most of my time examining the initial bishop vs knight trade and Black's ill-fated d-file penetration. I think it is an interesting game strategically.
Okay i'll try my best to convey that to larry evans - i am only the postwoman here ;)
The "lucky pawn mate" came up in a blitz game today. What are the chances?
Nice! ** SPOILER ALERT: Non-contact queen mates have a particular beauty.
how
It happens to me all the time - I talk about something and there is something about it in the papers the next day, or something related to it crops up in my personal life ..
In my rational mode I think - the chance of no-such-coincidence is infinitesimal --- and we only tend to rember the coincidences. When did one of us last say "wow I posted this mating pattern [in chess] / this endplay [in bridge] last week and you know what - it HASN'T occurred in any of my games / (deals) since!
In my mystic mode I think - is obvious :)
