Move Order

The exercises at the end of each chapter in Victor Henkin, 1000 Checkmate Combinations (2011)* are not sequenced in order of difficulty. Rather, as the author explains in the introduction:

Easy examples deliberately alternate with more complicated ones. The "lottery" principle of the lucky ticket makes the solving of exercises more like the process of searching for a combination in a tournament game. (9)

Preceding two that were solved easily in only a few seconds were one that I failed with the wrong move order, missing a key subtlety, and then one that I made more complicated than it was.

The first was Vladimirov -- Kharitonov 1977 from the Soviet Young Masters.

White to move

I started with the bishop check, failing to consider that capturing the bishop is not obligatory.

Then one of Henkin's own games against Mudrov, 1956. I could not find this game in a database. In fact, Viktor Khenkin's games in the Chessbase database are limited to ten games from a single event.

White to move

This first move that I considered is correct, but I talked myself out of it as I examined Black's choices and defensive resources against one mate threat, completely missing the other mate threat.


*See "Two Old Books (and one new)", which also has a note on the variability of the spelling of Henkin/Khenkin.