The BDS Website

BDS & John Beasley

The Independent, 1991

H#5

1.Rb7 c4 2.Ra8 c5 3.Bb8 c6 4.Ka7 c7 5.Ba6 c8=S#

I visited John Beasley at his home in Harpenden in 1991. As so often happens when problemists visit each other, a chess problem is composed. I remember that we used a program written in Pascal by Ofer Comay to test the problem. As far as I know, that program was the first to feature an “intelligent” mode for testing helpmates.

A very simple excelsior where everything on the board except the wK moves. Neither John nor I were (or are now) helpmate experts, and we were told that this problem was almost certainly anticipated.