Question

Black to move. Identify the least possible moves to check mate. Remember that white can counter-play and check mate black also.

Answer 1

@Kainui

Answer 2

whoa! @Hero

Answer 3

Knight h4 to g2

Answer 4

then what batman? kings not in check.

Answer 5

do you have to check the king right away?

Answer 6

sacrifice the knight by letting placing it at f3 and let it get eaten by the bishop so the queen eats the bishop, and settles at f3
if the bishop doesnt eat the knight then let the knight eat rookie at d4

Answer 7

how is that a check mate?

Answer 8

the first plan i suggested will allow the queen to settle at f3 after she stabs the bishop, in that way the king has no place to go. It's not a checkmate but just closing the spaces around the king or just a tease to the king

Answer 9

I'm gonna guess it involves doing some tricky combination with the bishop, knight, and queen such that you force them into making moves. Otherwise, I can't really see it as being a legitimate puzzle since there's a lot of room for possibilities. Unless of course all those possible moves can be ruled out as equivalently useless I guess. I dunno.

Answer 10

remember the white has counter-plays and can mate the black as well.

you can mitigate or eliminate the threat by
defending
evading
attacking

Answer 11

well, the bishop can threaten the king, but the rook can take it (or the knight
The queen could take the rook but it is protected by the pawn

... one of your rooks can get into the action by moving to above the gap
I'm really not all that great at chess :/

Answer 12

i believe it's impossible to make a checkmate with a single step >.<

Answer 13

right, there is no single step to checkmate =)

Answer 14

if you move your pawn forward then his pawn takes yours
then your pawn takes his or it could be his knight
if he moves his rook, you can advance your queen to take the knight
if you can get your rook over somewhere along the line
then if the king takes your queen, he is still in checkmate by rook

Answer 15

not perfect, as the king can retreat... oh well

Answer 16

I think a little bit of math will work here

Answer 17

I'm not seeing a math way to do chess >.<

Answer 18

oh, the king is down... I just realized
so the knight could put the king in check

Answer 19

positions are like real-estates and pieces are like houses... they all have values

Answer 20

Can we plug this into a matrix? And by that I mean, can _someone else_ plug this garbage into a matrix and do something fancy with it while I watch lol.

Answer 21

then the bishop could take the knight
(or the king moves

Answer 22

if bishop takes knight, the queen takes bishop

Answer 23

the other player can move something but the pawns are mostly stuck
the queen can move diagonally down 1

Answer 24

The king would have to take the queen, but
the queen is covered by the biship

Answer 25

the other option is the king moves forward

Answer 26

in which case the kif that happens the knight can take the rook, and the kig is in check again by the bishop.. As you can see, there are a lot of different decision tree paths you can follow

Answer 27

so how do we make each move as the "best" move so we're not so bogged down by every options?

Answer 28

Well, you need to make moves that force your opponent to make a specific counter move to defend the problem is finding a way to limit the number of possible counter moves

Answer 29

@Kainui the matrix idea...hmm well, you'd have to take a look at every possible move
so not really

Answer 30

Ok, I think I got it. You have to move the Knight or the pawn will take it. So we move it next to the white Bishop, Check. He has to defend, which leaves him with either taking it with the bishop or moving the king one of two places. Let's look at these movement options later, let's continue on, but we'll address these later.

So case of where the bishop takes knight, then we simply slide in with the queen to take the bishop. Any other move white does isn't going to matter much because the next move involves the queen moving diagonally towards the king for check.

Similarly, those other moves the king could have done would simply allow you to replace the knight where it originally was leaving the king in check by the black bishop, so it restarts the process.

Solved?

Answer 31

"queen moving diagonally towards the king for checkmate***"

Answer 32

right, if the king moves forward or to the left, the knight gambit doesn't work.

Answer 33

well... if it moves up or left, the knight could take the pawn-leaving the king a target of the bishop, he would have to move back to the starting position in either case.

Answer 34

Yeah, @Miracrown but we can simply choose not to and perpetually put the king back into check by moving the knight back to the original position forcing the king to go back to its original position out of check. If he tries to kill the knight with a pawn, we have the bishop safely there.

1 sec @nincompoop

Answer 35

at that point, the queen can take the pawn in front of the rook putting the king in check-the king can't move to the right or up due to the bishop, so the rook has to taken the queen

Answer 36

but we'd lose the knight to the king then

Answer 37

No, I'm not saying that. Here I'll write out the moves one sec.

Answer 38

Black Knight from H5 to F6 - Check
To get out of check, either White Bishop goes from E7 to F6 to kill B. Knight or W King moves from G8 to H8 or G7.
If the king moves, then we move B Knight from F6 back to H5, the original starting position since both H8 and G7 puts the W King in check by the B Bishop at B2. The only position the W King can move is back to his original position at G8. This is the exact starting position, so we can repeat this process over until White decides to end the loop and do the move described earlier, W Bishop from E7 to F6 to kill B Knight.

Now B Queen moves from F3 to F6 killing W Bishop. White moves any piece anywhere, but ultimately it doesn't matter since next move is checkmate.
BQueen moves from F6 to G7 where it is protected by the bishop at B2.

To explore some of the possibilities for that move, we could imagine the rook moving in or the queen moving in or perhaps even the knight to try to block it. I think either the bishop or the queen can handle it but I'm not sure but I have a feeling they can't. Without a chess board it's sort of complicated to think about in my mind haha.

Answer 39

IDK how Nf6+
that is N to f6 check

Answer 40

If the king doesn't move, then the knight will take the king next.

Answer 41

Qf3 is also a good move

Answer 42

1)___, Qf3
2) Bxf3, Nxf3+
...

Looks there is no way for White to counter attack in anyway - it's a sure win for Black

Answer 43

I dont like that original plan (nf3+).. after bxf3,Qxf3, ne4 puts a knocker on any plans to checkmate by blocking the diagonal, and white has enough force to hold while black has an isolated queen.

the queen sac Qf3 looks interesting because it leads to the loss of both the white rook and the queen after nxf3+
3. Kg2 , Nxd4+
4. Kg1 , Nxc2

Black is up a serious material advantage (16:8) and might even be able to hang on to that knight, worst case he'll sac the knight for a pawn advantage. by taking on e3 which will leave black with not only a +1 pawn advantage but white will have 3 pawn islands (3 1 2) and an isolated e pawn vs blacks (2 5).
So after Nxc2 white still doesnt get a break, and has to worry about how he's going to protect that pawn. Thats still a huge threat because once blacks rooks double up on the resulting open files, and his bishop (more mobile than the horse) gets centrally located they will control most of the space of the board, which means most moves by white will lose material.

With the black king mobilized the white rook and knight will be overworked and unable to protect the 3 islands, so black is going to take more material and march his pawns into a queen, but before that happens the bishop will probably swap for the horse, while the pawn advance and doubled rooks will force the white rook into back rank duty, and the game will probably end with a back rank mate by the rooks.

Answer 44

... Qf3
2. Be2xf3 Nh4xf3+
3. Kg1-g2 Nf3xd4+
4. Qc2-e4 Bb7xe4+
5. Nc3xe4 Nd4-b3 //up to here, white hasn't secured an easy end game either. From a positional advantage, the queen sacrifice seemed strong, but it only yielded a material advantage to one rook, and perhaps it may be a very HUGE advantage, but I think the game will drag on. There might be another way that do not lead to a queen-less game early.
6. Rf1-d1 Rf8-d8
7. Ne4-c3 Nb3-a5
8.

Answer 45

sorry I just woke up

Answer 46

white resigns right after Qf3 move @nincompoop :P

Answer 47

the black horse might be better off in the center rather than b3 .. say on e5 via f3, then it can be part of a pawn push onto the white knight.

Answer 48

5. ... Nf3 blunder
6. Kg2xf3

Answer 49

ah the kings back up there on g2.

well looking again at thge the immediate Nf3
if
1 --- , nf3
2 bxf3, Qxf3
now what?
3. ne4, pf5 now he loses the horse or the mate opens up

Answer 50

1. ... Nf3 //black has no power-play
2. Be2xNf3 Qf6xf3
3. e3-e4 // white maintains a center-play

Answer 51

what about
1 .... h7-h5 if white takes the horse they're lumbered with an open H file and black can unleash all hell.

Answer 52

please THINK if this candidate move has any substance at all.

Answer 53

not sure about mate but Qf3 wins a rook

Answer 54

hmm confusious chess stuff