Cordingley puzzle 88

White to play and win

Solution

Clearly, the theme has to be back rank mate: and I more or less immediately spotted 1 Qh6! since the rook is tied to the 8th rank. The nice point is that after the only move 1… Re8, white has 2 Rd8+! which mates with 4 Qf8+.

Not too hard, but because of 2 Rd8+, quite pretty.

A small PS is that the above diagram is from Megabase; Cordingley's diagram has the Q at b6, which seems more natural. The solution is of course unchanged.

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