Daily Chess Puzzle

Today’s problem is from a fairly recent Financial Times article by Leonard Barden.

I very rarely look at “mate in x” problems, but something about this position caught my eye.

White to play: mate in 4

composer unknown; problem given in FT, 10/2019

Solution

Mate in 5 is easy- the one I found, thinking it was mate in 4 (i.e., I failed) was 1 Rc7, 2 Rc1 etc).

Mate in 4? Komodo solved it instantly, I failed despite many attempts, including putting the pieces onto the board.

1 Qd8! b6 (or 1…g5) 2 Rd7 g5

3 Rd2 ed[] 4 Qb6 mate.

Very pretty; I wonder how many, if any, of my readers solved it?

FEN

8/1p2R3/6p1/1K2p3/4PpNp/4pP1P/4P1B1/3QN1k1 w – – 0 1