Problem 191: Steven Dowd

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Problem 191: Steven Dowd - Selfmate

dowd (17.05.2013) Difficult and paradoxical selfmate by Steven Dowd from USA!

191

Set: 1…d4#
Sol: 1.Bh6! (unpin) f5! 2.Qf4+ Kf6 3.Qd6 (pin) d4+ (3…f4+ transposes)

4.Kf3 f4 5.Se4+ Kf5 6.Sg5+ Kf6 7.Bb1 d3 8.Sh7+ Kf5

9.Rg2 e5 (d3 is pinned and e6 no longer) 10.Ref2 e4#

I have been composing FM pawn mates in which the idea is to take a position in which one pawn (of three) mates in the setplay but in the end all three pawns take part in a model mate. These have been very difficult to construct, and take days to proof, often ending up cooked.

I have been working for some weeks on an idea of unpinning a back pawn and then pinning a front pawn to allow for this attractive mate. Here is the only one that ended up sound, with a second pinning as well, giving a pin on all three black pawns throughout the solution. (Author)

Comments

+3 #1 seetharaman 2013-05-17 12:00

I doubt if anyone will be able to solve it ! But the play is attractive with all three pawns being pinned in stages. With matching setplay this is a great achievement!

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+2 #2 Steven B. Dowd 2013-05-18 23:08

Thanks for the nice compliment and thanks to Diyan for publishing it. This was very difficult to construct (the pin/unpin method was a requirement) and I was unhappy that it took so much white material to achieve the aim, but could not find any way around that!

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