INFURIATING mate in 3!

Chess puzzle

Infuriating Mate in 3

Lyrics:
Can you see the mate in 3? before punching a hole in the wall?
The pawns go these ways.

This is one of the most infuriating puzzles i have come across, which of course makes the solution very satisfying! It looks so simple, but it’s really not!

The key to solving it, is to deduce a couple of things, first, if black can wriggle his king away from his fairly cornered position, we are not mating him in 3. This check looks tempting but actually just chases him into the open.
Next, if he moves his pawn down, and our queen has access to the a6 square, he has denied his own kings escape, and will be mated… using this, we can force him to move his king instead.
So, the queen needs to display her impressive cornering abilities and pivot all the way on the h6 square, in order that she then can access the c1 square to keep the black king penned in while also setting up a superb queen manoeuvre, no matter which square the king moves to, with a little help from our pawn, it’s Checkmate!

Chess puzzle, chess problems. candidates checkmate, with magnus carlsen and gothamchess.

Made on ‪@chess‬

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