Easy or difficult?

I can't decide if the above puzzle is easy or difficult. Certainly it took me several sittings to solve, and in fact, I had to get a board and pieces out to be really satisfied with that I had solved it.

Solution below

The annoying thing to me was that the first moves of the solution are pretty obvious. The motif is clearly back rank mating, but the jumble of black's pieces make it hard. I think by inspection (I.e. at first glance) I saw 1b4 diverting the queen from its control of d8, and after 1…b4 2 Rd8. It was then that I struggled.

I think in practice I would have played 1b4, partly for want of something better, but also because after 2 Rd8 my position hasn't worsened much….though I would be nervous that the pc4 will fall, and my position collapse. I struggled more with the response to 2…Bd7, but once spotted, the continuation 3 Re8+ Be8 4 Qd8 looks in hindsight fairly obvious. So, 2…Re7 instead, and then 3 Rf6 is the natural follow up, and indeed was played, followed by 3…Ncd7 4 Nd5 and game over. Also, after 2…Re7, 3 Qd6 wins, for if 3…Ncd3 4 Rf6! and if Qd6 5 Rf8+ mates quite nicely, or 4…Nf7 drops the Nd3.

So, all told, the disturbing thing for me and my chess is the lack of clarity of calculation. The intuition was right, but I clearly find calculating through a tangle of pieces hard.

Well done, Gunina, for finding the win.

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