The solution to Monday’s mate in 2, composed by the late Michael Lipton (Comm., Deutsche Schachzeitung, 1987) is 1. Qh2!, threatening Qh8#. 1… Kd8 is met by 2. Rf8# and, most importantly, 1… O-O-O is met by 2. Rc4#.

Don’t forget that the convention in problems and studies is that castling is legal unless it can be proved otherwise. (Here, Black might have just made a pawn move.) En passant captures, on the other hand, are illegal unless it can be proved otherwise. Perhaps I’ll test you on that sometime.

The identical position was later published, no doubt innocently, by Givi Mosiashvili Die Schwalbe 2001), but Lipton got there first.

Congratulations to Chris, and to anyone else who solved this correctly.