Ancestor by Scott Sigler

Hi Chaps,

Just posted this the Chess Forum, I popped into here to see if anything like it
had been posted before and noticed you seem to be struggling for a chess type problem.

So this is today's challenge,

(It's from the book - 'Ancestor' by Scott Sigler )

Colding, the man is playing White, Jian, the female is playing Black.

Page 204:

"Colding moved his Queen's knight and smiled. "Check"

Page 206 (no other moves had been played in-between)

She set her rook in a new space that blocked his check.

Colding smiled and started to move his knight into attack position,when he
saw that by moving her rook, she had put his king in check with her bishop.

"Checkmate in two moves." said Jian.

(hmmm...blocking a knight check with a rook, that's clever.)

OK. Set up a position and play it our via a PGN where all this is legal.

Adding, when Colding was planning to move his Knight 'into attack
position.' he was actually going to mate Jian on that move.

I don't understand. How can Jian have a forced mate in 2 if it is possible for Colding to mate in 1?

Originally posted by Zuggy
I don't understand. How can Jian have a forced mate in 2 if it is possible for Colding to mate in 1?

Colding would have attacked had he not been check...so it is no mate in one.

Then GP34 has tried to lead us on a wrong trail: Of course the rook diodn't block a check by the Knight (which would have been the next move) but the one by the figure which was previulsy blocked by the Knight.

Here is the answer.