Checkmate in six moves!

by Arne Kaehler
6/11/2020 – Stuart Rachels is not only a former chess prodigy and great writer, he also made some beautiful chess puzzles. We are happy to showcase four self-mate riddles which are worth looking at. They are creative in a way, that the white king has to be check-mated in as little moves as possible, on a certain square.
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Chess puzzles by Stuart Rachels

We recently had an interview with Rachels about his new book. He was kind enough to share some of his unique chess puzzles with us. They are construction tasks, and even if you aren't too big of a fan of such puzzles we highly recommend to look at them nonetheless. They are very creative!

Construct a chess game that ends in...

 
(1) Stuart Rachels
6…Be4 mate with White’s king on b1
 
(2) Stuart Rachels
7…Bxg7 mate with White’s king on b2

As you know you can move the pieces on each of the diagram boards and try to construct games that end in the way specified.

Construct a chess game that ends in...

 
(3) Stuart Rachels
8...Kxc8 mate with White’s king on d1
 
(4) Stuart Rachels
9.Ka3 mate with Black’s king on h8

In problem three the white king simply has to move to his queen's square and await a painful checkmate. In problem four, for a change, the black king will be checkmated in the corner. That he gets mated by the white king is indeed special.

Congratulations to any reader to find the solutions. These problems are very hard to solve!

Arne Kaehler, a creative mind who is passionate about board games in general, was born in Hamburg and learned to play chess at a young age. By teaching chess to youth teams and creating chess-related videos on YouTube, Arne was able to expand this passion and has even created an online course for anyone who wants to learn how to play chess. Arne writes for the English and German news sites, but focuses mainly on content for the ChessBase media channels.

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