...Subtlety...Can you find the mate in one?

Did you know that after 40 moves, there are more possible chess moves than stars in the known universe?!!  It's some crazy number with a whole lot of zeroes.  Is each position really that different?  Mrs Jessica E Prescott (aka BoundingOwl) will test your vision with 9 positions that are very similar, but subtly different.  Subtle means not obvious.

Your job is to find the mate in one.  And, no, the positions and answers will not be identical!  Many of these puzzles all have something in common:  the super powerful double rooks on the 7th.

White to move in all puzzles.

1.  Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.  Careful!

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.  Which one?

 

 

 

 

 

 

4.  Choices...

 

 

 

 

 

 

5.  Sneaky!  Don't forget about the discovery tactic...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6.  Helper...

 

 

 

 

 

 

7.  Tricky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

8.  Unusual.

 

 

 

 

 

 

9.  Very hard!

 

 

 

 

 

Hey guess what?  You didn't need a queen to checkmate in any of these puzzles!  How about that!  How quickly did you find the subtle difference in each position?  Hopefully this showed you that you need to look carefully at the board when you play chess.  But often the same pattern can be used to make a checkmate.  Does that make sense?

Tip:  Be flexible and look carefully at subtleties on the board!