The BDS Website

Jörg Kuhlmann & BDS

harmonie, 1999

#2
Vogtländer

1.Kf4!   (2.Ke4#)

1...Sf1  2.Kxf3#
1...Sh1  2.Kg3#
1...Sxf5 2.Kxf5#
1...Se4  2.Kg5#
1...d4   2.Ke3#

With the key, White threatens to move his king on to e4, where it would be under a double threat of capture (by pawn d5 and knight g3) that Black couldn’t withdraw. As such this would be mate. Black can defend by moving either that knight or that pawn. 1...Sf1 blocks the black bishop on e2, so that White can mate by 2.Kxf3; 1...Sh1 allows 2.Kg3, as Black can't move his knight except to capture the white king; 1...Sf5 is followed by 2.Kxf5, where the white king is under attack from two black pawns; 1...Se4 leads to 2.Kg5, with the white king attacked by the knight and the bishop on f6; finally 1...d4 immobilises that pawn so that White can mate by 2.Ke3.

There is no real theme as such (except the Durbar), but the idea was to show a selection of error types that Black could make in a directmate Vogtländer problem.