A beautiful mate in 3 rook ending

Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make men happy. This quote by Siegbert Tarrasch is certainly true for the problem below. Solving it, which took me hours, became a moment of joy and beauty.

Thank you, Leonard Barden, who continues to be able to pick interesting problems in his FT column, Many I can solve more or less instantly, or after brief thought. But some prove more challenging, and my habit is to cut them out, and have them with me in my travel bag, for spare moments; or also on my iPad for the same reason.

White to play and mate in 3

Solving this problem took hours, spread over various sessions, with or without the board. I almost gave up, thinking perhaps there was a misprint. I almost put the position into my SmallFish iPad app, but fortunately gave it one more try as the sun went down here in Turkey.

Beautiful, stunningly beautiful, I won’t give the solution in the hope that others can also enjoy Erich Brunner’s 1907 puzzle which Leonard says has stumped solvers for over a century.

Give it a try, it is worth it.