Today in chess club two of the students reached this position with black two move. It's a pretty straightforward position with a huge material advantage to black. I have two puzzle questions?
1. What is the best move for black?
2. What did black play?
Should the day come when I ever get around to writing and publishing a book, a free copy goes to the first person to correctly answer both of these questions correctly in the comments.
Well, the best move is obviously b1/N#
ReplyDeleteBut the move played? Well, it depends on the age/skill of the students and the time left. Obviously the kicker is to queen with stalemate; but if I was in time trouble and just didn't visualize the under-promotion, I'd probably just play Ka4 and then queen with check on the next move.
That should be Ka5, not a4... :-)
ReplyDeleteI'll predict b1/N for both
ReplyDeletepreface: dont know the terminology for this biz
ReplyDelete1. queen to C3
2. pawn to B1 and promote to queen
1 b1=N
ReplyDelete2 b1=Q
1. The best move is b1=N with immediate checkmate.
ReplyDelete2. The student (a young one, as most of mine are)played b1=Q stalemate.
I think that Leon and Steve are co-winners of the theoretical book.