queen takes pawn, checkmate<\/b>!\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nIn each case, Black can’t recapture, because the pieces needed to do the job are pinned. So near, and yet so far! (Do you see why, after White plays queen takes pawn, neither Black’s rook nor bishop can capture the queen?)<\/p>\n
Now, on to the real<\/i> problems. Each is a “forced mate in two”: White moves, then Black moves, then White checkmates no matter what Black tries to do:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n1<\/b>. Here, White’s winning move is one that you might not consider if you weren’t thinking about pins.<\/p>\n\n[SetUp “1”]
\n[FEN “2b2rk1\/1q3pp1\/2pR3\/8\/1PBQ4\/7P\/5PP1\/6K1 w – – 0 1”]
\n[Result “*”]\n<\/div>\n
2<\/b>. White has given up the queen to surround black’s king with other pieces; now the trick is to close the net.<\/p>\n\n[SetUp “1”]
\n[FEN “1R1bkr2\/p2r1pB1\/2B1p3\/5b1p\/8\/6P1\/P2NqPPK\/5R2 w – – 0 1”]
\n[Result “*”]\n<\/div>\n
3<\/b>. Again, White has given up the queen to get a mating net. It’s worth it, though, because checkmate is all that matters.<\/p>\n\n[SetUp “1”]
\n[FEN “r3kb1r\/1p3p1p\/p1p1bp2\/1q4B1\/4N3\/1P6\/P1P2PPP\/3RR1K1 w – – 0 1”]
\n[Result “*”]\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The theme for this problem set is pins: situations in which a piece cannot move, because it screens a player’s king from check. (Under the rules of chess, you’re never allowed to make a move that puts your own king in check.) In this simplified position, for example, Black’s rook, bishop, and pawn are all … Continue reading “Chess Problems, Set 3: Checkmate in Two Moves”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chess"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musefanpage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musefanpage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musefanpage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musefanpage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musefanpage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7410"}],"version-history":[{"count":37,"href":"https:\/\/musefanpage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7461,"href":"https:\/\/musefanpage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7410\/revisions\/7461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musefanpage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musefanpage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musefanpage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}