Comment I've actually solved it. (Score 1) 281
I worked on it for almost three hours, and had given up, when I had an idea. It didn't work, but I was in that state of mind where the inspirition was flowing, and the idea for the solution came to me. It was really slick. I stared and stared at the checkmate in disbelief, and began to almost get hysterical-- I had done in 3 hours what Kasparov and the other grand masters couldn't do at all. I checked the solution many times over. The pieces were set up correctly, the knight took the rook on the fifth move, and it really was checkmate- the king had no legal moves, and nothing could take the knight. But there it was. While I won't post the solution here until I get a confirmation back from ChessBase, trust me, it's the solution.
Here are a couple of minor hints:
- It's not a semantical trick- you can really solve this by playing through the five moves.
- Black wins
- Every move is essential-- there's no wasted half moves
- The knight does the mate-- no double or discovered checkmates
- No castling
- NO PAWN PROMOTION! >:
- No fancy or archaic rules were invoked-- it's just straitforward, legal chess!
Have Fun
Dan Rodgers