Chess.com Daily Puzzle #3: Mate in Four, A Modified Anastasia's Mate



This puzzle might be a little tricky at first glance but once you play it out in your head and after several iterations, you will get the right solution. The first move is quite obvious, Nf6+, forcing the king in the corner. Now, for the next move, I tried a few moves based on the mating patterns I've encountered before. But the reason why I named this puzzle a modified Anastasia's mate is because it shares similar aspects to that checkmate. It is also quite clear that this puzzle involves a sacrifice of the queen and a knight which has a two-fold purpose.

After Nf6+ and then Kh8, the next move in the solution is Qg6!! which threatens Qxh7#. The only move is fxg6 as hxg6 would lead to an immediate checkmate with Rh3. However, this move only delays the inevitable as after fxg6, we sacrifice the other knight with Nxg6+ which clears the h-file. Then, the rook once again swoops in to deliver mate with Rh3#. It's a simple but aesthetically pleasing checkmate and you can check it out below:

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