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A Beautiful Endgame Study

ChessPuzzleEndgame
Learn a very cool trick to win this tricky endgame position.

Intro to the Puzzle

This is a famous endgame study position, where white has two extra pieces.
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The goal is for white to checkmate black in three moves. The position is easily winning for white because he has two extra pieces, but if the player with white does not find this move, they will have to rely on knowledge of the bishop + knight checkmate, which will take 20 - 30 moves to mate. However, in this position, can you find the only way for white to mate in three moves?

The Solution

You have to realise that Black is basically in a stalemate position. Any king move and most bishop moves will stalemate the black king. All knight moves will win, but it will be trickier and will require knowledge of the bishop + knight checkmate. This leaves us with only one option, and that is Bf6!!

This move essentially forces black to take the bishop, and after gxf6, the very crucial move Kf8!
image.png
Black's king is now in a box, and white is threatening Nf7#. As black has a pawn on f6, this is not stalemate, and Black has to play f5, after which white will play Nf7#.

Note: usually a lone knight is not able to mate a king, but with a rook pawn mating chances become available, and this is one such example of that.

Part 2 to the Puzzle

Here I have just reversed the orientation, but this is still from white's perspective and it is still white to move.

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Again, the goal is for white to checkmate the black king in three moves. This is from WHITE's PERSPECTIVE (I haven't just flipped the board). I.e. Bc3 would be stalemate as the black pawns are going down the board.

The Solution

While many moves win, the only way for white to mate in three moves is to play Kc3! This removes the pin on the b pawn and allows Black to promote the pawn. If they promote the pawn to a knight with check, then Kd3+ unleashes the Bishop, forcing black to play Nc3, after which Bxc3 will be checkmate.

If the player with Black promotes to a queen or bishop, then Nc2+ is the killer blow, forcing the capture on c2, and then Kxc2# is a beautiful checkmate by the king and bishop. Similar to the previous example, having a lone minor piece is impossible to win, unless a rook pawn is present, allowing mating chances.

Even better, b1=R allows a faster mate, with Nc2#.

Conclusion

Here are the chapter URLs to provide you with a visual representation of the whole solution, and here is the link to the study.

https://lichess.org/study/e7MLNCQY/lJgTfsfs

https://lichess.org/study/e7MLNCQY/VlpjbNEx#last

https://lichess.org/study/e7MLNCQY