AMAZING Chess Puzzle From Reddit 

In 1995, John Nunn shortened a study by Matous to produce this position, as an engine-stumper. It's interesting that it continues to stump engines today, almost 30 years later.

This is perhaps the most insane puzzle I've ever seen.

I've seen thousands of chess puzzles but this one may be the most amazing of all. Nelson's perfect commentary enhances the beauty of the composition.

Really crazy how Stockfish does not focus on "wayward" moves (like the move that it does not detect) but rather "direct" moves that are straight to the point but creates a draw in this instance! This is for Stockfish to be resourceful on memory by eliminating "wayward" moves that have less chance to generate a win and giving more depth to the moves that seem more "winning". Good to see you back after disappearing from my recommendations for 3+ years! Time flies so fast!

Mario Mattous was the composer... he made a lot of problems like this one

I saw this puzzle in gauri chess before....

There's another interesting line where white has to be very careful -- if, when the queen and knight are keeping the white king from moving black can play Nd5+, and if white moves anywhere except Ke6, Nc3 blocks the bishop *and* delivers a check on white's king. Black can then perpetually check until a 3-fold draw is reached.

I suggest you should have continued analyzing. In the last position after Bxa1 if Qf8, Kf5+! Qg7, f8=R/Q+ and mate.

I wish wish wish wish wish that Nelson would run through the full puzzle once quickly at the end of the video, just so we can see the wonderful solution in full motion. Love the channel!!

2:30 -- Cue Eric Rosen: gxf7+, a pin and a fork, a pork!! 🤣🤣

One of the coolest puzzles I have ever seen! Thank you for sharing and breaking this down!

This is THE best chess puzzle I've ever seen 🤩🤩 Thank you very Nelson for bringing this up!

Absolutely fantastic, thank you for showing this

The power of Reddit and communities.

Not only did I checkmate with a king once, I checkmated by moving out of an opponent’s check.

Hats off to whoever developed this puzzle! Can you imagine how much effort had to go into figuring something like this out?

I love how stockfish offers the draw and then afterwards is all like, “of course this is winning for white. Wasn’t it obvious?”

I like how Stockfish suddenly realizes: "Oh yeah!... there is a checkmate there" 😅So sad, poor Stockfish cant talk to us, he would have so much to say.

Me, a 900 rated player, after hearing stockfish see no win, still pauses to have a look.

First time you would see Kxy#

Black queen to F8 at the 10:30 mark kills this.

Try analysing positions with Stockfish 16 instead of Stockfish 16 lite. The lite version is often a bit off. Stockfish 16 will find this mate before reaching depth 30. It's always frustrating to me to hear "Stockfish can't find it" and see "Stockfish 16 lite depth 22" in the corner. Amazing puzzle btw

To answer the question at 4:52, I once checkmated by castling.

This is a phenomenal puzzle, and I would never have figured it out within the time constraints of an actual game. I'm not even sure I could have firgured it out given unlimited time. Thanks for showing this to us, especially the part about delivering the checkmate by moving the King.

Stockfish also finds the move if you expand the search until Bc7 comes onto the analysis screen as one of the candidates.

Incredible puzzle, Thank you Nelson !

Thank you for your clear explanation!

This was truly amazing. You never fail to deliver.

Nelson, this is one of the most popular puzzles ever. I know the solution before watching the video since I have and many others have seen it

This is by far the most fascinating puzzle I have ever seen!

That moment when the king was in a mating net with barely any adjacent pieces, preventing him from delivering checkmate, was magnificent

You're right, I've never seen a mechanism like that. Amazing.

This is the most amazing puzzle I have ever seen!

This is one of if not the best and craziest chess puzzle I've ever seen.

4:53 I have. I've even delivered checkmate by castling.

This is the only puzzle I have saved on my hard disc for years, since no comps could find the solution for me. Still the most impressive and hard puzzle I have seen. What a genius puzzle!!

Truly a mind-blowing and life-changing puzzle!

Wonderful puzzle and video. Easily equals if not surpasses your underpromotion videos. I’m a beginner but can still appreciate how mind-blowing this puzzle is on some level.

Amazing puzzle! Thank you so much! 🤍

Chess was so much better before engines. Now every 1200 player acts like they know every solution

What a great puzzle. I can't think that far ahead

Genuinely impressed with this

Nelson this one was amazing. Though the one where the oppenenets king was forced to move to one of 3 squares was my favorite and better than this one. There it looked like a real endgame AND which of the 3 squares lead to a different underpromotion, one with each of knight, bishop, rook to win and prevent perpetual checks or stalemates

Would magnus Carlsen see bishop c7?

This puzzle is absolutely beautiful.

That was some mindfook, just beauty

From the last position both knight to g8 and queen to f8 prolong the defence...

it also confuses stockfish in the beginning which is incredible

Why doesn't black move Q to f8? When the K moves for the check he has to move away from the pawn. The Q steps in and sacs but the king can retake and move to f8

Imagine getting this in puzzle rush

Too good, thanks for sharing

Bishop B2 is the only winning move because black can push the pawn and you can position the bishop between a1 and b2 without being attacked. If bishop goes to a1 you will get attacked by the pawn and black can deflect the bishop

I feel like I've just watched a 2 hours action movie. Very unique puzzle.

Well, in the end, when white captures the pawn in a1, black still can avoid a humiliating checkmate by the white moving his king, by 1) sacrificing the queen in e5, bishop takes, Ne8 check, fxe8=Q checkmate 2) directly go with Ne8 check, fxe8=Q check, Qf8, Qxf8 checkmate. And the second case is also a nice trick for black, because if white doesn't capture the knight directly with the pawn, but still want to checkmate by moving the king to e6, then Ng7 with check, BxNg7, KxBg7 and black now has a winning position since white cannot promote to f8.

I would have lost, thought that Ba1 was the winning move. Totally misded the knight move trapping the king. Wonderful puzzle.

Can you do a video of the hector gambit?

Best lines for black after Bxa1 are either ...Qc3+ or ...Nd5+ (delays mate the most)

I saw this 'checkmate battery' at once, but it's really OUT OF THIS WORLD Incredible!

I tried on 2 very engines (Stockfish an Lc0)on supercomputers, they are both blind for 1 minutes, but eventually Lc0 find mate in 12.

At 10:00 you are going through many of black's variations, but there is one important variation that you don't show. Black could play Qf8 intending both to block promotion and also to block the white bishop with Qg7 if the king moves. This also loses, but in a slightly different way than other moves. White doesn't capture the pinned queen on g7, but simply delivers mates by promoting on f8.

After the final zugzwang, when the Q or the N have to move, there's one last mind-blowing variation, which is Qf8, looking to block the bishop's check, let's say White plays Kf5+, then Qg7 blocking the bishop's check... but at the same time the Q's pinning herself so f8Q boom! beautiful mate.

Please check out Scramble, the best random chess variant ever invented.

very elegant win

Certainly the greatest puzzle I’ve ever seen

I've played chess since 1966. It's common courtesy to refer to the composer of a study when you present it. You don't just write "local newspaper", " a bloke in the pub", "reddit" or something like that. This study was originally presented by Mário Matouš in Szachy 1975. You are showing a shortened version, where the first moves by white and black have already been played.

10:57 the position looks cool after Qf8, the only winning move is Kf5+, because the Qg7 is not check and then White must promote to a queen or even coller: a rook. Thanks for the video it was really mindblowing.

I plugged this puzzle into Stockfish 16, It took it 92 plies and a few hours to solve. Stockfish had to look past a lot of forced moves find the solution. I was using a AMD 3.3Ghz 32 GB CPU on stockfish 16 with Arena UI.

This is not "from reddit" please credit the original composer when showcasing studies, this one is by Mario Matous from 1975. Also it is missing a move, being (with the white queen on a6 and the black king on f8) Qc8 Kg8, reaching the position showcased here

What happened to the bot rating climb?

The knight is not too far away

This was nuts

Qf8 still looks promising for me since pawn and horsie blocks both squares where white's king could move to side.

This is indeed a stroke of GENIUS!!

Stockfish does not calculate all moves. He chooses a few and checks them. So an algorithm for choosing candidate moves has some problems :D

this puzzle was covered in a daniel naroditsky video a while while back, title of video is "how to study chess" or something

5:56 what about q f2

A human can guess the first idea and the first move. But the full picture is much, much more beautiful. BTW, 1. Bxa5 and 1. Bb6 are the moves worth some analysis.

5:04 crosscheckmate 😂

Why does Stockfish not see that? I tried depth 42 and still thinks this is an equal position. This may be key to make Stockfish better! It disregards some crucial moves, instead of trying them

Beautiful use of the chessboard.

At 9:44 - consider if black moves queen to A3. Covers both the bishop and the promotion at f8... edit: Ok, if so, you move king, check, but queen takes bishop. You can *then* promote the pawn for mate...

I actually saw the Bc7 idea (I tried Be7 first but quickly saw that it didn't work) but I didn't find the whole solution.

Brilliant puzzle, wow. It just seems that the amount of chess puzzle possibilities is infinite!

When you first move bishop to b2, what’s stopping queen to f2 check, then take the bishop?

what i am hopeing for when i blundered all my pieces

Just wow, that's incredible!

7:48 again queen to f8 leads checkmate options for black.

Very cool. Thanks

Wow that’s insanely good

The first move is pretty hard to see, then it's ez since you threaten mate in 1.

But this endgame study by Mario Matous is world famous. All really good chessplayer should know this chess study. Matous died in 2013.

Amazing puzzle, demonstrates how intricate chess is. Fantastic teacher too

Mind belting

That is a puzzle of a different league. Or a different tier ! OMG

For the first one I thought about Qc4

Great puzzle!!!

Mind-blowing

Can you bring back the chess adventure series pls

It's not actually checkmate on the next move because black can move their queen to A5 and thus capture the bishop that would otherwise deliver the check mate. But it is check mate on the move after that because if white promotes to a queen then that delivers the checkmate.

I saw this recently on some compilation of positions where Stockfish broke, I think the Reddit guy got it from that.