White to play and mate in 24

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Avatar of MARattigan
 

 White has a single winning move.

 

(Yes I know the position is illegal.)

 

No use asking Stockfish by the way. It does this:

 

 

Avatar of EndgameEnthusiast2357

So what's the winning sequence?

Avatar of EndgameEnthusiast2357

What white should try to do is get a knight in front of a line of bishops and then was the undefended bishops until there is more than enough space left

Avatar of MARattigan
EndgameStudier wrote:

So what's the winning sequence?

That's the puzzle.

 

EndgameStudier also wrote;

What white should try to do is get a knight in front of a line of bishops and then was the undefended bishops until there is more than enough space left

 

Clue: With this material you can't have undefended bishops; you can have only undefended bishop. 

 

If nobody's got it in a week I'll post a solution.

Avatar of EndgameEnthusiast2357

ok, great! I look foward to seeing it!

Avatar of Jasper_C

I think the key is with losing one or several of the bishops, whereupon the knights and bishops can actually function and mate easily. The way to do this is to force the king to a7 or g8 and have a knight on g7 when your king is either on c7 or g6. The black king is stalemated - or not, as the bishop on a8 is now capturable. This allows for knights to move, and checkmate soon follows.

Of course I know that this line is nowhere near forcing but this seems to be the only logical method, since 1 moveable knight alone really isn't enough to mate.

(Am I on the right track??)

Avatar of MARattigan

You're on the right track, just overrun a bit on the second half of the puzzle. There are duals from the point you start (e.g. 12...Kd6).

 

There are in fact no enforceable mates with 31 same colour bishops and 0 or more knights so you have to force a bishop capture from the initial position.

 (Of course, 1 moveable knight is enough to mate so long as you get rid of 30 bishops.)

 

But doesn't 15.Kc5 in your example draw after 15...Kc7 (and king escapes to h8)? I don't know for sure, but I suspect so. After 15...Ka7 you have mate by move 20 at latest.

 

Avatar of smartykids
Not bad
Avatar of EndgameEnthusiast2357

I KNEW u could sac multiple bishops...