Ribley! has always been a passionate chess problem solver, and he has composed and published a lot of chess problems himself, a lot of them with a jocular bias. Ribley! has also invented quite a few new fairy items in fairy chess, such as the Magician, the Hulk, Melodic Chess, and Copulation Chess … The most illustrative compilation of his chess problems is the collection of Chess Compostitions .

Let us see if you can solve the following Ribley! chess problem…

Ribley! Chess Problem 2 :

" Brother Jacob "

White to play and mate in 2 moves,

according to the added principles of

Melodic Chess : White must play

in harmony with a given melody.

This means that the length of his

moves must be equal to the length

of the corresponding intervals of

this melody.

The given melody of RCP2 has the following succession of intervals :

1 tone + 1 tone + 2 tones.

Therefore White must play a 1 - tone move, followed by another 1 - tone move,

giving checkmate in such a way that the Black King could be captured by a

2 - tone move, whatever Black would play.

½ - tone move = a move to the nearest square of the opposite colour

horizontally or vertically ;

1 - tone move = a move to the nearest square of the same colour

horizontally or vertically or diagonally;

2 - tone move = a move to the second nearest square of the same colour

horizontally or vertically or diagonally.

( to be continued…)