The issues of Conflictio by Juraj Lörinc can be found in the ARTICLES menu of JF, Conflictio section.
Conflictio No.48 (Nov.23): “For some time, I have neglected looking into PAT A MAT issues. It was possible thanks to the fact that I have been receiving a lot of input from other authors of articles. Now the time has come to review three PAT A MAT issues at once 123-125.” (J.L.)
The problem by O. Schmitt can be done without black Bishop, as follows:
8/5p2/3p4/pK1k1pN1/P1R3pp/1p6/1B2P1p1/4rn1r
#15 1.Rd4+
Dear Paul, thanks for studying Conflictio attentively! For others – Paul refers to diagram 1162 in this Conflictio issue 48.
I have to admit that I miss some details in your suggestion. Cannot now Black mousetrap wR by 5…Rh3!? 6.Rxh3 Sg3!? Or does the longer stipulation #15 instead of #12 avoid this pitfall? Is your version also tested? Please, can you give the whole main variation of your solution?
The solution is 1.Rd4+ Ke5 2.Rxg4 Kd5 3.Rd4 Ke5 4.Rxh4 Kd5 5.Kd4 Ke5 6.Rc4 Kd5 7.Rc3 g1=Q 8.Rd3 Qd4 9.Rxd4 Ke5 10.Rc4 Kd5 11.Bf6 Rh4 12.Rxh4 Rd1 13.Rf4 Se,g3 14.Rxf5 Sxf5 15.e4# Verified with Stockfish.
Thank you very much Paul… so I see your solution avoids the mousetrap I was afraid of, fine. Another question might be whether Stockfish as not-problem-dedicated software detects the duals, at least in the main variation. If yes and everything is fine, it would make sense to get in touch with Olivier to know his opinion.
Paul’s version can be tested with Popeye using “option threat 2”. On my PC it takes less than 3 minutes. There are no duals in the main line. Further testing (for cooks) could easily be done using “option threat 3”, and so on.
Thank you Geoff. In the meantime I have submitted the position to the full test by Gustav and it is already running, we might see tomorrow (in Central European sense 🙂 )
To avoid messy output, ‘nothreat’ and ‘noshortvariations’ can also be added. The only branching in the solution is 7… g1=Q/B and 13… Se3/g3
Indeed, Gustav also confirms the uniqueness of the main full-length variation. Well done, Paul.
Does anybody here have a contact to Olivier Schmitt, please?
I have got some e-mail contacts to Mr. Schmitt, so I have written him about Paul’s position. We will see…
Here is the diagram: