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Sinse the solve rate was so low (46%) I first assumed that there was no Q sac. My mistake. Therefore it took me almost 1½ min to solve  

@mrfery
Thank you for your kind words. You think too much of me  
I am just a humble chess problem friend with some experience and I mentioned your name here, only because you asked "What else is new?".

I hope "Brede's square clearance" -theme was that new thing. (Not that you need to bother about it - but knowing it will not hurt either).

I like the words of 'donnaclara': "Q moves away and gives room to N".

The Queen really was in the way...

it was very straight forward, like the first post another queen sac another day.

Q sac wasn't that obvious to me. The thing that "seemed" obvious was that if I could distract the bishop on e1, then b4 is mate ... but of course it didn't take long to rule out that possibility, so then I started looking at Queen sacs, and rook sacs, still keeping b4 in the back of mind ... I find sometimes once my mind settles on an idea, it's hard to let go of it. Once it became clear that the knight was to do the honors (and not the pawn), then it became an exercise in finding the right Queen sac that did not disturb the position and create an escape square.

The skill is in setting up the position to be able to play the queen sacrifices,there is different ideas behind sacrifices,sometimes it might be to expose the king,another time it may be to take away a flight square away from the king,it seems a too easy to say just another queen sacrifice,when in our games ,mine included ,that is players under 2000 rating probably don't have many if any in there games database.It is not that we can not work them out when told solve for mate but none of us seem good enough to play for them in our own games.Jon Speelman said it could not get into these positions like alekhine where his games were full of queen sacrifices.The point is are chess players missing the point,the skill is in playing for these positions,I believe fezzik said this so I am not taking credit for it.

Queen sacs again. Pretty simple, but I don't know if I'd have seen it in a real game. Also, I'm guessing donnaclara is a Doctor Who fan aka "Whovian"?

1Nd3, b5 seems good "defense" to avoid mate in 3 I´d say (have not spent much time thinking, though). you block 5 row and can sacrifice bishop to make room in a6.

Even better, in the same line: 2...Bxb4

What´s the other alternative?

Black can respond 1, - b5.

Ah ... b5 is a good defender there. The alternative I found isn't as sound, but it was:

1. a4 Bxc4
2. Nxc4+ Kb4
3. Qb5#

Hoping the king moves to the wrong square.

after a 12 hr shift, to get a nice easy puzzle was a small pleasure at the end of a long day.

when I saw the solve rate, I thought I was in for a long think, yet no, it was really easy, so why did so many fail to solve?

any ideas?

If your eye is trained to expect a Qsac+ as the usual solution to every puzzle, it is not even semi-worth bothering to solve.

It's a noble intention to improve one's skill. Hopefully, all participants have this in mind, and are not here merely to ridicule strangers, which only raises questions about their character. As for being in a game, in my experience, my style changes if it's a blitz game or a postal chess game. Non-chess players have trouble grasping the difference.

They say all the world champions have been experts in speed chess. I find satisfaction in playing well fast or slow, but I make the worst blunders playing fast, so there's a trade-off.

In this puzzle, the Q was really in the way, but without the e4 Bishop, and a3, b2 & c4 Pawns to push Black back to a5, sacking the Q would've been useless. Playing fast, one has to assess nuances like this quickly and accurately, or else face dire consequences.

Before your Comment, all 25 previous posts were all made within 17 hours of one day, 11 years ago, on April 27th!