Selfmate in 4
MAXIMUMMER
Jean-Pierre Boyer
3rd Prize, Thèmes-64, 1967
Selfmate in 4
MAXIMUMMER
White plays and forces Black to mate on his fourth move. Under the maximummer condition Black must play his geometrically longest move each time, hence in the diagram he must play 1…Qf1 (a move is regarded as being from and to the centre of a square, hence moving five squares along a diagonal is a longer move than moving seven squares along a rank). A good starting point for the solver is to visualise the mate. The solution is highly thematic.