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Can You Beat the Champs? Fri, May 21, 1971 – 4 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com
Chess : Can You Beat the Champs? by Leonard Barden
The Guardian London, Greater London, England Friday, May 21, 1971 [Bad copy.] Chess : Can You Beat the Champs? by...
Posted by Bobby Fischer's True History on Saturday, May 23, 2020
Black plays and helps White mate in three moves (by Pal Benko.) Successful solvers of this week's problem will have the rare distinction of beating Fischer, Keres, Botvinnik, and Geller!
The mating sequence consists of three black moves and three white moves. Black moves first and both sides then cooperate so that White mates on his third move.
FEN 8/8/8/8/4n3/8/4K3/k1NR4 w - - 0 1
Benko comments on his problem in Chess Life and Review that it is “seemingly a simple position. Black's king is already cornered, so the solution should be a cinch. If the first move belonged to White he would not even need the rook: 1. K-Q3 N-B6; 2. K-B2 N-R7; 3. N-N3 mate. There are also other possibilities to mate, e.g., Black's knight could occupy his QN8, after which either R-QR2 or N-N3 would suffice.
“However it is Black to move, and even a cursory examination will show that Black's knight intereferes with White's pieces either by giving check or by blocking the Q2 square. If the reader has some difficulty in finding the solution, he should not feel exasperated: Fischer, Keres, Botvinnik and Geller have given up the task, the latter two having spent more than an hour each on it. I have even won many bets. . . ” writes Benko.
Solution No. 1141: 1. K-N7 R-Q5; 2. K-B6 R-B5ch; 3. K-Q4 N-N3 mate.
