Hardworking Chess Queen Puzzle: Checkmate in Two
White is material up and is also set to promote another pawn to Queen. Black is totally lost, but there is always the stalemate escape. Can White checkmate in two? Cross-check your answer with the Chess King applet in the extended post.
Checkmate in two
Result: 1-0
Site: –
Date: –
[…] 1.£a8 ¦e7
(1…¦xd6 2.£d5# (0:00:15) 1.Qa8)
(1…f5 2.£d5# (0:00:28) 1.Qa8)
2.£d5# (0:00:07) 1. (0:00:28) 1.Qa8
Black loses for all moves after 1.Qa8. The f6 square is covered by the Knight on e4 so the f5-pawn by Black is of no use. When the Rook takes the pawn on d6, it gets pinned by the White Bishop and cannot stop the Queen from checkmating on d5!
Ah i get the surprise move – to a8 goes to show you have to keep track of the entire chess board all the time. the point is one doesn’t look for a checkmate in a winning position but maybe GMs do.
picked up the link in the @chessqueen tweet – well no one can beat Chess Queen Alexandra Kosteniuk in the amount of travel and chess promotion she packs in a single week – breathless. nice queen caper there
Nice unfortunately I didn’t get the hint I was calculating something like Qxf6 Rxf6 and some such variation!