We’ve been looking at a good many composed problems of late, and we will be ending that very soon to return to more practical game positions. Thus, our last look, from one we found in British Chess Magazine, this week will be one of those “drive you crazy” Friday problems. The diagrammed position is a composition by V. Dolgov in Shakhmaty v. SSSR in 1986. It requires some explaining. Based on past experience, the first thing to point out is that White is moving UP THE BOARD. The Black king is not in check.

This is a “task problem.” The composer set out to prove that something special could happen in one of the variations along the way to a win. You, then, have two challenges: to find the win and to find the variation that does something very unusual with four of the moves (that’s a hint of sorts).

If you take a close look at the bottom right hand corner, that will surely help you find the first move and will give you a clue to others.

Solution:

The composer’s task was to create a problem where one of the variations would include White underpromoting to a knight four times in order to win! Considering the dire threat of mate that White faces, every move had better be a check. Black doesn’t have to play into the four knights variation, but he gets mated all the same. The four knights variation is in bold and the other variations are there to show that, although the queens take over, the knights still play a role. 1.e8=N+ Kd7 [1...Kc6 2.a8=Q+ Kb5 3.f8=Q g2+ 4.Qxg2 hxg2+ 5.Kxg2 e4 6.g8=Q f1=Q+ 7.Qxf1+ Kc5 8.Qgf8+ Kb6 9.Qb4+ Ka7 10.Qa1#; 1...Kd5 2.a8=Q+] 2.f8=N+ Ke7 3.g8=N+ Kxf8 [3...Kxe8 4.a8Q#; 3...Kd8 4.a8=Q#] 4.g7+ Kf7 [4...Kxe8 5.a8Q+ Kd7 6.Nf6+ Kc7 7.Qa7+ Kc6 8.Qa6+ Kc5 9.Ne4+ Kd5 10.Nxg3 Kc5 11.h8=Q f1=Q+ 12.Nxf1 Kd4 13.Qd8+ Kc3 14.Qa3+ Kc4 15.Qdd3#] 5.h8=N+ Kxg8 6.Nf6+ Kxg7 7.Nh5+ Kxh8 8.a8=Q+ Kh7 9.Nxg3 and White mates as in the variations given above. Quite ingenious! Anybody for five knight promotions?

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