White to move.. Find white’s only move that does not immediately checkmate black!
How long did that take you?
NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.
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Ju Wenjun won a wild final game defeating Lei Tingjie for the 2023 FIDE Women’s World Championship. It’s her fourth title which she has held since 2018. She won €300000. Hikaru Nakamura won the Bullet Chess Championship 2023 on Friday beating Magnus Carlsen despite his comeback in overtime. The speed is… scary.
The Tour comes to a close today.
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Rg6-c6
Mrs. JonPatrick figured this out. Rc6 which puts king in check but then RxB and your rook prevents the bishop on a8 from giving check.
Clever puzzle – has to be a king move, as moving any other movable piece results in check (either directly or by discovered check). King is stuck on the back rank by the black rook, so Kf8 is the move.
Took longer than it should. My wild checkmate in the middle of the board are not up to Hikaru levels yet, alas.
Yes, the correct move is
1. Rc6
That move discover-check’s the black king by white’s bishop on h7. Black’s only option is to take
1. … Rxh7
However, at this point, white c6 rook is now blocking the scope of white’s a8 bishop on black’s king.
Hence, the only move which white can make that does NOT immediately checkmate black’s king is indeed Rc6.
Of possible tangential interest:
I see that there are scans of Willard Fiske, Chess in Iceland and in Icelandic literature : with historical notes on other table-games (1905) in the Internet Archive. “Similar Items” at the bottom of the page led to a 1975 anthology of stories by Marcello Truzzi, Chess in Literature!
Technically, any move of the rook on g6 would avoid an immediate check mate. Instead, it would be checkmate in 2, with the discovered check on the king blocked by pawn to c6. Then Bc6 is checkmate.