Black pawns matter

Purples and greens

I’m rather preoccupied at the moment, but I’ll be back eventually. In the meantime, here’s a chess problem to amuse you. There is something wrong with this position. Find the problem, correct it, and then find a mate-in-one for white, no matter how you fix it. You can find solutions in the comments here.

What's wrong?

Clockwise or widdershins?

(If the animation isn’t working, click on the gif.)

Yep

Cat woman

Hogwarts

6 thoughts on “Black pawns matter”

  1. Black can postpone checkmate with pawn to C-3. However, there is something subtly wrong with the position, and once you see it and correct it, mate in one move is easy.

  2. Yes, there are two black pawns on the F column, but that can happen.

    I assume the proposed solution is simply to remove the black pawn at F2, after which the white pawn at D2 can take the black pawn at E3, which would be checkmate. But it’s possible for there to be two pawns of the same color on a single column.

  3. Doubled pawns aren’t the problem. If you have a chessboard handy, I’d suggest getting it out and setting up the pieces. Any further hint will give it away.

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