A very special puzzle for a very special day

Today, I had a lovely day at work. I made a keeping-in-touch call to a former colleague, had a really nice chat, including talking about another colleague who is about to return from her maternity leave, at which point my former colleague told me that within a month, he too would be a father.

Not remarkable, unless you know that his wife had had a life threatening illness, and I had presumed that, alas, there marriage would be childless. No, fortune has smiled, and I sailed through today on a wave of happiness. By sheer coincidence, my soon-to-return colleague also called in with her baby, rounding off a red letter day.

Less remarkably, my former colleague reads my blog and tries the chess puzzles. In discussing their level or difficulty, he mentioned it would be nice to have a puzzle with a queen sacrifice and mate. So, if that is taken as a hint, here is today's special puzzle.

White to play and win

(Level of difficulty: first move, fairly easy; calculating it to the end: hard)

Solution

1 Qf6+!! Bf6 2 Bf6+ Kh6 3 Rf5 when if 3….Ng7: [3…Ng5 loses to Bg5+/Bf6+/Rh5 mate, for instance]

4 Rh5+!! Nh5 5 g5mate. Spectacular, and fitting for today's news.

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