Chess Online

Seriously, this is getting boring.

jonellis is right. As I saw this puzzle, I spontaneously sacrificed my queen. Based on my experiences here I assumed that must be the right way to solve a chess puzzle in gameknot.com  

I liked this puzzle where you could see the mathe lines for the castles. The queen had to be sacrificed.

Several months ago, it felt as if every puzzle was a Q-sac, and each one seemed more obvious than the last.

Lately, there have been many positions where there was a choice of Q-sacs, and sometimes the Q-sac didn't even work!

I don't mind the latest spate of Q-sacs because they still require accurate calculation. For instance, this time, we had to work out what happens if White doesn't take the Queen, and what happens if white does take the Q.

The 82% solve rate is pretty high, especially considering yesterday's puzzle (which did not involve any sacrifices at all) scored ~39%.

So yeah, the players here are tuned into Q-sacs. That is not all bad though, especially if they look for Q-sacs in their own games!

I didn't notice you two making any comments on the hard puzzle today on how boring it was, What another mate in 2, I was looking so forward to another mate in 15. But then only 9% have gotten that one correct.

If the objective is just to solve the puzzle, then you will start with a Q sac, since that seems to be the trend. If your objective is to train your playing skills and be more aware of how you can accomplish a mate -no matter what the opponent plays- then you don't mind so many exercises that involve a Q sac, because you look for different possibilities, not just sacrificing the queen.

These exercises have helped me a lot. I used to be one that had to deplete the board of almost all pieces and mate my opponent with 2 rooks or the Q & a Rook.
Thanks to GameKnot for you help to improve my skills.

Despite the insecurity. Comments are the most interesting part of a puzzle.

The interesting part of this puzzle for me was move order. Since you clearly want a mate with the 2 rooks you need to capture the bishop with the knight. So why not do that first? I haven't figured this out yet, but my point is that knee-jerk Q sac solving the puzzle doesn't exhaust the interesting questions posed by the puzzle.