I haven’t offered you a problem for a long time. Here’s a helpmate for you to try.

For a few years now the Problemist Supplement has been publishing homebase problems (where all the pieces in the problem are on their starting squares) and inverted homebase problems (where they’re all on their opposite numbers’ starting squares).

This is a helpmate in two moves, composed by the Problemist Supplement editor Geoff Foster (Australia) and first published there in May 2019.

In a helpmate Black moves first, and both sides work together to reach a position where White delivers mate on his second move. So: Black moves, White moves, Black moves, and White moves with mate.

In this puzzle there are two distinct solutions. You need to find both to qualify for this week’s prize. You never know: our sponsors might put up another £1000 (in the same way that, in the very early days of RJCC, Mike Fox used to offer a million pounds in a Swiss bank account to the first person to solve one of his puzzles). It shouldn’t be too challenging, so, even if you’re not familiar with the helpmate genre, why not give it a go?