As we are beginning the merry month of May, some fun is in order. This past week, on facebook, IM Jovan Petronic offered an unusual puzzle task and GM Alex Fishbein chipped in to provide a good bit of amusement for their friends. Today’s position is a “task problem.” Your task, from the starting position, is to have White and Black cooperate to help White mate in 5 moves with the additional stipulation being that the mate on the 5th move be delivered by the rook from the square h1. There are a lot of silly moves by both sides to accomplish this, but that rook giving mate on move 5 is required.

What’s nice about this puzzle is that a chess engine is of no help, although I must confess, I did find it helpful to use the board on the engine to play through all my tries. There is more than one solution, but here’s the one I came up with: 1.h4 g5 2.hxg5 Nf6 3.Rxh7 Bh6 4.Rxh6 Ng4 5.Rxh8#

Send questions and comments to PTamburro@aol.com.