Last week we offered you the chance to solve a mate in two composed by Surbiton Grandmaster John Rice (solution below).

The January 2019 British Chess Magazine also published a simple helpmate by the same composer.

If you’ve never solved a helpmate before, now’s your chance. This is a helpmate in 4 moves.

In a helpmate, Black plays the first move (unless there’s a half-move stipulation) and both sides cooperate to reach a position where White delivers checkmate.

So here you’re looking for a sequence which goes BWBWBWBW, with White’s fourth move being checkmate. What are you waiting for?

Here’s last week’s solution:

The only way for White to force mate in 2 moves is to play 1. Qf5!, meeting 1… b5/c4/d5/Kb5 with 2. Ra6#/Rxc4#/Qd7#/Qd7#. There are several ‘tries’: 1. Ra3?! d5!, 1. Rh4?! b5!, 1. Rb4?! d5!, 1. Qh7?! c4!