I solved it first try, but only becasue I knew there was a knockout. I probably would have gone for your line in the game. What a spectacular puzzle
There was MATE IN 4??? Everyone would've missed it... (OTB Match, Round 3, Argyle Invitational)
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What were the time controls? In classical or a longer rapid game, there’s no way I wouldn’t have found it, but in a faster rapid game or a blitz I definitely would have missed that.
May 24, 2023
0
#26
Ethan_Brollier wrote:
What were the time controls? In classical or a longer rapid game, there’s no way I wouldn’t have found it, but in a faster rapid game or a blitz I definitely would have missed that.
why you always lyin'
Found it in the first go!! Just beacuse the title said there is mate in 4...
GMDerekOwusu16 wrote:
Ethan_Brollier wrote:
What were the time controls? In classical or a longer rapid game, there’s no way I wouldn’t have found it, but in a faster rapid game or a blitz I definitely would have missed that.
why you always lyin'
You’re telling me that as a 1500 player, when you see that many pieces aimed at a king that weak with… let’s say… 10 minutes left on the clock that you wouldn’t spend at least a solid 5 of them hunting for checkmate? Qxf2+ is just so tantalizing, and then from there the mate can easily be found in five minutes.
May 24, 2023
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#29
DoYouLikeCurry wrote:
Hey all! Figured I'd share with you this Insane Mate in 4 sequence that I missed. I'm playing an OTB Match with my friend @Danbranch7. We are rated 1414 and 1512 over the board (ECF) and I'm obviously higher rated than that online. This game featured a Catalan (which we both know very well), and, after the game, while doing computer analysis I was shocked to see that I had missed M4 on the board. Let me know if you would've seen this, because I had looked for mates and failed to find it.... (The full game is featured at the bottom, the M4 is the puzzle)
For anyone interested, the score of our match is 1.5/3 each, with 11 games to play. I'll probably do a blog post about it at one point... Anyway, let me know below if you solved the puzzle (I can't imagine anyone did first try...)
damn... that has to be one of the better mates I've seen... 
May 25, 2023
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#31
Always nice when titled players comment on my forum posts! Glad he’s on the side of “tricky to find”. Possibly cos he realises that we had only been out of theory for about 5/6 moves at that point, so weren’t exactly looking for mates!
May 25, 2023
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#32
I guessed every move and solved it in ~5 seconds (without any wrong moves) so... yes, I would have been able to verify this worked via calculation OTB lol.
Obviously would have taken me longer OTB because you carefully calculate each step... but the point is the main line is all very obvious moves that are the first moves you'd check so... this is very easy to find in a long game.
May 25, 2023
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#33
Optimissed wrote:
Where was the Argyle Invitational played?
Argyll Road, Exeter. It's a world-champ style format
May 26, 2023
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#34
OP--
Congrats on your match; your success is not surprising. Well done Adam!
Commentary on your post has been great!
My follow-up question is offered with no disrespect intended: accepting that Black failed to find the M4 identified in this post (move 21), how does Black justify 25...Qg5 over Qf1+? This is a forced M4.
Regards
May 27, 2023
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#35
mirroredragon wrote:
found it, only because i knew it was m4
same here lol
May 27, 2023
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#36
Found it within a few seconds. Forcing moves are easy to calculate and once you see the double check and realize the white king has nowhere to go, it's pretty simple.
Optimissed wrote:
Yes but not necessarily to a 1500 on Chess.com and that's the point. It would take most people at least several seconds to spot that it was a forced mate. It took me 2 minutes but I'm completely out of practice.
Well, the issue is that this was an OTB game, and he’s 1500 ECF, 1700 Chess.com. We don’t know the time controls, missing Qxf2+ as a 1700 in a blitz or rapid game makes a lot of sense, but if this was a classical game… well…
From the available information, one can find that OP is a positional player, and most decidedly not a tactical player, so it’s not entirely unreasonable to miss this, even in classical.
Я согласен с вами!
Optimissed wrote:
Ethan_Brollier wrote:
Optimissed wrote:
Yes but not necessarily to a 1500 on Chess.com and that's the point. It would take most people at least several seconds to spot that it was a forced mate. It took me 2 minutes but I'm completely out of practice.
Well, the issue is that this was an OTB game, and he’s 1500 ECF, 1700 Chess.com. We don’t know the time controls, missing Qxf2+ as a 1700 in a blitz or rapid game makes a lot of sense, but if this was a classical game… well…
From the available information, one can find that OP is a positional player, and most decidedly not a tactical player, so it’s not entirely unreasonable to miss this, even in classical.
The point was that he wouldn't be expected to find it right away but if this was a slowplay game than that's bad news, to miss two wins. It really is necessary to use this game and others like it to learn to recognise the types of position where a bit of effort in the right place should lead to a quick win or an advantage. A lot of people commenting here say they wouldn't have got it if they hadn't known it was a win in four. That means they wouldn't recognise winning positions for themselves. It makes me think that chess.com's puzzles may be a waste of time. Too much hand-holding, like the entire great move/brilliant move thing and the comments on their Game Review, which are useless and very badly written. Things like "its good to get your pieces off the starting squares" or even worse, "its good to get your pieces off of the starting squares". That's instead of something like "Nf3 is developing, supports d4 and pressurises e5. I used game review yesterday, first time for months and a response to Bb4 by black is was "the Nc3 is pinned, making it immobile" or some such. If that's useful to anyone above FIDE 200 then I'd be surprised.
I agree.
This is a fantastic learning opportunity, whether or not it was a slow play game.
Some of the chess.com puzzles do seem like a waste of time, but I’ve found that a plurality, if not a majority, tend to be difficult, realistic middlegame scenarios where the solution isn’t merely “spot the mate-in-1 along the h-file”. If nothing else, they’re useful for teaching beginners how tactics work in the first place, if not how to spot them in a real game. It’s an important first step, but I agree that the puzzles should be better.
I check game review for accuracy, estimated rating, and to check why moves were blunders or missed wins. Everything else is useless. The brilliant system is a joke. I can’t recall I’ve ever gotten a ‘brilliant’, yet I see 800s making ‘brilliancies’ left and right for easy-to-spot only moves and back rank checkmates.
May 27, 2023
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#40
Ethan_Brollier wrote:
Optimissed wrote:
Yes but not necessarily to a 1500 on Chess.com and that's the point. It would take most people at least several seconds to spot that it was a forced mate. It took me 2 minutes but I'm completely out of practice.
Well, the issue is that this was an OTB game, and he’s 1500 ECF, 1700 Chess.com. We don’t know the time controls, missing Qxf2+ as a 1700 in a blitz or rapid game makes a lot of sense, but if this was a classical game… well…
From the available information, one can find that OP is a positional player, and most decidedly not a tactical player, so it’s not entirely unreasonable to miss this, even in classical.
Unfortunately this is not the case, I normally am pretty tactical. The problem here is that up until literally 5 moves prior we were still in theory as far as we were concerned. I'm not necessarily one to immediately evaluate a position as winning that soon after it was nils (out of respect to my opponent if nothing else!). If someone had told me I was better, even, I probably could've found this sequence, but I was under the impression it would be very even... My mistake, I suppose!
the M4 wasn't too hard, I mean, I'm 900 and I got it
Yes, it's a bit easier when you know there's M4 on the board, I think. Rest assured, if my opponent played a Catalan against you at the level he is you would lose before that M4 was on the board
If you had the eval bar and It showed M4, You would instantly put your attention on the variations after Qxf2+, same in that case.
That's a bit of a big "if" seeing as this was played OTB x