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Subject: Re: Mate the Royal Couple

Author: Heiner Marxen

Date: 11:14:39 11/15/98

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On November 15, 1998 at 11:46:50, Heiner Marxen wrote:

>On November 14, 1998 at 10:37:55, Hans Havermann wrote:
>
>>Valentin Albillo, more than a year ago, posted his "unsolved"
>>3qk3/8/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQ - (Test #91:
>><http://www.multimania.com/albillo/ajedre9a.htm>). Computationally intensive,
>>Albillo conjectured "it's a mate in 12". A number of chess engines had a go at
>>it, but the attempts are old and seem dated. I wonder if this problem has since
>>been solved.
>
>This problem is really hard to solve.  According to my problem solving
>program this is most probably not solvable in 9 moves (or less).
>[ "most probably" because I accidentally turned castling off ]
>That computation took 4.5 hours on a fast machine.  Trying to solve
>(or disprove) a mate in ten would take 15x that time.  I didn't try,
>and now I don't have access to that fast/big box anymore.
>
>>I thought I should let MacChess (5.0b3) try this on my 300 MHz G3. After 56
>>hours, toward the end of 13-ply, MacChess came up with:
>>
>> 1. e4 Qd4
>> 2. Bb5+ Ke7
>> 3. Qg4 Qe5
>> 4. Qd7+ Kf8
>> 5. d3 Qh5

Starting from here, (FEN 5k2/3Q4/8/1B5q/4P3/3P4/PPP2PPP/RNB1K1NR w KQ -),
I get two `mate in 6' solutions, namely 6.Nf3 and 6.Nh3.
Hence, 6.Bf4 is not optimal, and 5. ...Qh5 may be questionable.

>> 6. Bf4 Qf7
>
>Well, starting from here, I can confirm, that 1.Bh6+ is a mate in 6,
>that there is no faster way to force mate, nor any other way to mate in 6.
>I'm working on more, but don't hold your breath.
>
>> 7. Bh6+ Kg8
[rest snipped]



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