Test your chess: daily chess puzzle # 122

White to play and win – forced mate in 5

A Calitz v L Bouah 2000

Solution

Knowing that the problem is a mate in five, one has to look for forced lines. There are a few random checks which need to be looked at, such as 1 Rd4+?? 1 Qc6+?? 1 Re6+??, but one stands out as needing to be signed: 1 Nb5+!

Black's play is forced: 1…cb 2 Qa6+ Kc7[] (2…Bc6 3 Qc6 mate) 3 Qa7+ Kd6[] (3…Kc8 4 Qb7 mate) 4 Qb6+ Bc6[] 5 Qc6 mate.

A nice exercise, good practice for similar cases where you know there is a mate on board, just can't immediately find it.

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