Mate in 78

I found an interesting positionin the Nalimov 6 man base, in a natural looking position, White can force mate in 78 moves, with a unique 1st move solution (meaning any other 1st move draws).

So, my question is, is there a player on this good earth that can confidently find the winning line?

Can (eg) Anand win this against the best Black response from the table base 100% of the time?

Okay, let me think...

EDIT: I only intended that to be funny, but after a quick calculation I got the correct answer on the first try. It had to be a forcing move, and there aren't that many available (two, in fact). Granted, I only calculated what would happen if black moved his queen in the way and found that it would result in a win for white in far less than 78 moves. I didn't bother with all the possible escape squares for the king. In other words, I got lucky.

I have seen win in something like 110 or 120

I found the first move very quickly and on my first try; but it is a very natural one.

Basically, I asked myself a question: how do I deliver a check so that black's interposing a queen and allowing a forced exchange also would allow white take the opposition?

I think that a more difficult postion occurs a couple moves later, when there is only one move that gets the white closer to the mate, and other winning moves just make the game run in circles:

I just clicked through the whole thing in Nalimov. It's amazing how slowly and carefully the pawn has to advance. I'd never get this, lol

don't worry me neither

Here's the entire line. Enjoy! And no, I did not figure it out. Nalimov did .

Thanx, LPS, you're a bit like me, too much time on your hands :)

Yeah, I am waiting for 3 millions lines of code to compile (my real job)...

After 24 d7? Qf5 draws, according to Nalimov

I, for one am REALLY grateful you didn't present the whole thing in the quiz mode :D

Question: Would this be Namilov thinking out the whole plot line beforehand or adapting three-turn by three-turn? Yes, I know nothing about pro chess! ;)

That's crazy to figure out such a complex list of moves

Even 1 stuff up and ur screwed...I think

White to play and mate in 262.

It is a draw after 50 moves....

This is, of course, ignoring the 50 move rule.

Yeah, no pawns to move, and not enough available captures, to reset the 50 move rule that many times.

The first couple moves were easy, they're forcing and have a clear cut idea. I'm struggling to calculate beyond that though, I can clearly see which position needs to be on the board for me to push my pawn, but actually getting there feels near impossible.