Breaking Down a Puzzle Step By Step #3
Hi, friends! In 2019, I started a series where I dedicated a whole post to analyzing a puzzle from Chess.com. The point is to explain my thought process to getting the puzzle right, and hopefully, this will be helpful for readers to understand tactical concepts.
Here's a link to PART ONE, and PART TWO! The position below is the problem in question. Black to play: If you want to solve the problem on your own, do so now, as I will be explaining all the details to my thought process with the commentary following:
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Alrighty! The very first thing I noticed is how weak the White King is, with Black's Queen and Knight swarming it. So we're probably achieving checkmate, or at least using the exposed King to our advantage.
The second thing I noticed is I asked myself "What are White's (opponent's) threats"? It's a huge practical question to ask, because if your opponent does not have a threat, you can take time to play a non-forcing, improving move. In this position, Qd8+ is a strong possibility. If Kb7, Qxd7. If Kc6, Qa8+ looking fine for White.
So the third thing I noted is if White has such a serious threat, what CHECKS do I have? After some scanning, I saw that Nd4+ is the only reasonable check. Queen checks do not work. Qe5+ for instance is covered. I also noticed that on Nd4+, the Queen is covering the entire thrid rank, which helps our pursuit of a King hunt.
White is extremely restricted. They only have three legal moves: Kf1, Ke1, and Kd1. It's extremely important that all of their legal moves are on the first rank, as this makes a checkmate more possible. Once I realized this, I went clockwise, and calculated each King move (VERY important to CALCULATE everything out before playing moves. If you miscalculate, Chess.com will give you the X).
On Kf1, I found Qd3+. If Ne2, I just take it with the Queen, followed by Qd1#. If Ke1, remember that Qe2 is NOT checkmate, as the Knight on g1 (who for whatever reason never left its starting square) covers. Important to find Qb1+, as Ke2 is covered by the Knight. Bc1, Qxc1#.
Back to after Nd4+, if Ke1, Qa1+, same theme as we saw in the previous variation. If Kd1, Qc2+ is important (Qa1, Bc1), Ke1, Qb1+, Bc1, Qxc1#.
That's essentially it! 
After Nd4+, we calculated all three King moves to mate.
Feel free to let me know what you think! Back in 2019, this series was a success... has it stood the test of time? 
And as always, feel free to give me some content ideas... otherwise, I'll see you for the next post!
(P.S. It took me about 1 minute 11 seconds to solve/calculate everything... in case you're curious about that sort of thing 
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