That's not much of a challenge. White is already a rook and a knight ahead. You ought to think of a more realistic puzzle where white must conquer the queen to secure a point.
Yeah, I know, you will probably tell us this came from a game. Only this is a puzzle forum and not a game forum. Games are elsewhere.
That's not much of a challenge. White is already a rook and a knight ahead. You ought to think of a more realistic puzzle where white must conquer the queen to secure a point.
Yeah, I know, you will probably tell us this came from a game. Only this is a puzzle forum and not a game forum. Games are elsewhere.
What could be more realistic than a puzzle created from an actual game? Most Queens are lost due to a blunder or a desperado exchange tactic. This Queen was cleverly trapped. Yes, White already had a material advantage but capturing a Queen anytime will end the game sooner. If a Queen capture presents itself, why wouldn't you?
Game realism has nothing to do with puzzle realism. Most games are flawed and most game positions in the low level rating environment are totally unbalanced. A GM will laugh if you'd say your diagram is realistic as it should have been resigned long ago. Puzzles take place near the borderlines of game scores - is it a draw or is it a win? is it a draw or is it a loss? By objective analysis which means ELO 4000 level or thereabouts. By this standard your puzzle is senseless; going for the queen is not only unnecessary, it is not even the best thing white can do. 1.Rac1 is the best move found by SF and it probably checkmates faster than your first move.
To present your queen trap in a puzzle you need to clean up the position and narrow it down to one clearcut winning line that captures the queen. It takes a bit of work and that is why the art is called puzzle making. The only reason some puzzles can be copied straight from games is because they are played by titled players who's games are naturally closer to perfection than average games. Some puzzles are hard, others easy but all must be perfect.
You're right that this trap occurred in a low-level game, as the position of the pieces indicate. But, many low-level games contain flashes of brilliance. This Queen trap is one of those unexpected flashes of brilliance. To satisfy GMs though, I'm not sure how to arrange the pieces to reflect a GM game and still structure the trap in the same way. You're welcome to modify that puzzle if you can improve it.
Black Queen captured in 3 moves. White checks the Black King forcing the Black Queen to remove the checking piece and is captured.
Surely 1 …Rh3 delays the capture of the bQ? If the objective is to capture the bQ, then 1. Qf8 does it in 2.
Surely 1 …Rh3 delays the capture of the bQ? If the objective is to capture the bQ, then 1. Qf8 does it in 2.
Yes, 1. ... Rh3 does delay the Black Queen capture by one move but since the Black Rook will be immediately captured 2. gxh3 both Queen and Rook will be gone with a forced checkmate sooner than if 1. ...Rh3 wasn't played. In otherwords, Black sacrificed the Queen to keep the Black Rook alive to avoid a forced checkmate and prolong the game. 1. Qf8+ is considered a blunder by White because it leads to an exchange of Queens and equalises the game.
Surely 1 …Rh3 delays the capture of the bQ? If the objective is to capture the bQ, then 1. Qf8 does it in 2.
Yes, 1. ... Rh3 does delay the Black Queen capture by one move but since the Black Rook will be immediately captured 2. gxh3 both Queen and Rook will be gone with a forced checkmate sooner than if 1. ...Rh3 wasn't played. In otherwords, Black sacrificed the Queen to keep the Black Rook alive to avoid a forced checkmate and prolong the game. 1. Qf8+ is considered a blunder by White because it leads to an exchange of Queens and equalises the game.
The target is to capture the black queen in 3 moves, as you stated in post 6. Black can very well blunder mate as then the queen won’t be captured. It might as well be a regular puzzle for white to play and win, but I see you are assuming black will play the best defence.
That's why targets like "capture the queen in 'n' moves" are problematic. Nobody wants exactly what it says. Commonly the idea is to either capture the queen or to checkmate the king in no more than "n" moves. Much better is to produce a puzzle that simply wins - be it by queen capture or checkmate or by any other obviously winning method. The last diagram is close to becoming a standard puzzle. Just place Nb8 on c6 and command "white wins". The solution shows that white either captures the queen in exchange for a rook or a free rook or checkmates the king and that is a fair puzzle!
Both posts above make good points. However, I gave no specific instructions how to approach both puzzles. The wording for those puzzles were:
Black Queen Captured in 4 Moves
&
Black Queen captured in 3 moves.
That is different to: You must capture the Queen in x moves.
The goal in both puzzles was to play for a checkmate. The target in both puzzles was actually the King, not the Queen. In the first puzzle, by attacking the King, it was pushed onto the same file as the Queen. Only then did I notice a potential pin opportunity and switched my goal to win the Queen. So, the point of the first puzzle was to attack the Black King first and then respond to Black's move. Clearly, White had a superior material advantage leading Black to play defensively. The Black Queen was essentially impotent. It had to stay there in front of the King to block attackers. So, it was straightforward to pin the Queen and capture it.
The second puzzle was similar. In the game, My goal was to do a Rook Lift to attack the King. I could see that there was only one safe square to land on the h file and that was h5. Any other square, and the Rook could be captured. I had no idea that Black would play a Desperado move with Qh4. But, in hindsight, I should not have been surprised because desperado moves are played to avoid an imminent checkmate. In this case, Black thought it was appropriate to give up its Queen for a White Rook and avoid a forced checkmate. So, the takeaway from these puzzles is to assess the strength of the colour your playing and, if you have a superior advantage, don't be surprised if the opponent plays defensively with desperado moves and blocking moves.
Thanks for your valuable feedback. In future, I'll make it clearer what the goal of the puzzle is. Cheers 
White plays for a checkmate and forces a desperado move from the Black Queen. As White, take the Black Queen on move 3 to finish the puzzle.
The goal of White is to capture the Black Queen. Use a decoy move and a fork to achieve this. However, before capturing the Queen use an in-between move to check the Black King. The King will take back but finish the 5-move puzzle with a capture to check the Black King again.
This is a 6-move puzzle with the same setup as the previous puzzle. However, the Black Queen will be captured when it defends a checkmate threat. To make this puzzle slightly easier, the checkmate threat will be a double attack on the g7 pawn. White is keen to remove defenders of the g7 pawn.
The puzzle solution of #12 does not work. A puzzle should be solvable and you can't expect a solver to separate 2 moves which have almost the same SF evaluation score as is the case with Qxg5 and Bxg5 on the last move. Instead you should have played a black defense like 3. ... Qe4 after which white only wins by capturing the queen with the knight!
The situation is even worse for the puzzle in #13 and #14. The choice between approximately equal solution moves already occurs on the first move. 1.Rxd7+ and 1.Nxe5+ both win in similar fashion and both capture the black queen.
You need to look at puzzling as a "test of perfection". Even Magnus Carlsen could not solve your puzzles as he is faced with impossible choices. He can only attempt to read your mind or throw the dice and hope for luck!
The puzzle solution of #12 does not work. A puzzle should be solvable and you can't expect a solver to separate 2 moves which have almost the same SF evaluation score as is the case with Qxg5 and Bxg5 on the last move. Instead you should have played a black defense like 3. ... Qe4 after which white only wins by capturing the queen with the knight!
Thankyou for your feedback. I understand that the Black Queen could be captured by either the White Queen or the White Bishop on the final move and it does seem unfair to solvers because either move solves the puzzle. However, there is a benefit for White to capture with the Queen. The White Bishop is threatening Bxd6. If the White Queen captures the Black Queen it threatens Qxg4 on the next move. Logically, it makes sense to finish the puzzle with two capture threats for White on the next move instead of just one to ensure at least one of those pieces is taken on the next move.
The situation is even worse for the puzzle in #13 and #14. The choice between approximately equal solution moves already occurs on the first move. 1.Rxd7+ and 1.Nxe5+ both win in similar fashion and both capture the black queen.
You need to look at puzzling as a "test of perfection". Even Magnus Carlsen could not solve your puzzles as he is faced with impossible choices. He can only attempt to read your mind or throw the dice and hope for luck!
Let's agree to disagree on this point. I thought that I made it clear that the goal in #13 was to capture the Black Queen and the goal of #14 was to find a checkmate by attacking the Black King from the outset.
I agree that in #13 the Black Queen could have been captured earlier without the in-between move. However, I did explain in the description that the in-between move came before the capture which is added to make the puzzle more interesting.
In #14, White doesn't bother to setup a Queen/King fork because there already is a Knight/King fork. White is not bothered to capture the Black Queen at this point because it will get an easy Knight capture and push the Black King to the back rank. Once the Black King is on the back rank, the g7 pawn has to be setup with a double attack. But the Black Queen has to be deflected first by sacrificing a Bishop. With the White Queen out of the way temporarily, the White Knight captures the Black Bishop defending g7 and provides a discovered attack on g7 by the White Rook which is immediately blocked. The Black Rook could capture Rxf8 until White setup the double attack on g7 with Qa1. This forced the Black Queen to capture Qxf8 to prevent an immediate checkmate. I hope now you can see a clear difference between #13 & #14 in both intention and move order.
As White, find a way to check the Black King with a simultaneous revealed attack on the Black Queen and capture it with tempo in 4 moves. You'll need to deflect a couple of Black pieces away to make it work.
As White, capture the Black Queen in 4 moves. White must sacrifice a Rook to make it work.
Black Queen captured in 4 moves. White will skewer the Black King and Queen and capture the Queen.