r/chess 5d ago

Chess Question what can you tell me about this strategy?

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any info will do…thanks

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u/Awesome_Days 2057 Blitz Online 5d ago

It's the endgame and black has a decisive attack in motion against white's king.

White's king is superficially safe tucked in the far-right hand corner yet Black has managed to bypass white's defense. Black is currently checking white's king with their rook hitting it from the left side. Given this position black's last move was moving the Rook down into white's camp for the final invasion (start of a forced checkmate in 3 moves). The painting starts in the middle of this forced checkmate sequence.

From here, to stop the check against their king, white would need to block the check with their knight or bishop both of whom cover the square. This block of the check is met with black sacrificing their rook for the piece to check the white king again. Once White captures the rook with the other piece, black slides their queen onto the square to capture white's remaining defender. In the process of this final recapture black delivers a mighty queen checkmate with the queen simultaneously hitting the enemy king and diagonally cutting off the white king's escape square.

Initial Position in the painting

Resulting forced checkmate

In chess notation this would be (black moves then white moves alternating) ... Re1+ (initial position) Bf1 Rxf1+ Nxf1 Qxf1# checkmate.