Lovely puzzle from my game

Reminds me of this game:

The hint helped me quite a lot. I found it!

@nhl_1

I was looking at that game and noticed the player had a 13 cpl on 54 moves and 0-0-0 errors of any kind, and I thought What???? Then I saw his name...

Well, not quite the same situation. No sacrifice, and it wouldn't have been a forced mate if black hadn't played 53...a2. Also, black is down a piece. But yes, it is a mate with R and B, with some help from pawns.

@AbhirupPal

Congrats.

@Sanctuary_of_Loss

It's "easy" when you're told there's a mate in 3. Would you have seen it in a game? But I think one can learn from it.

@Sanctuary_of_Loss

Ok, you didn't see that hint, but I presented it as a puzzle so that kind of tips you off that it's a mate. I only learnt it from the post-game analysis, when stockfish told me I missed a forced mate. Which pissed me off! Then I saw how beautiful it was.

@Zubbubu said in #5:
> @MrPushwood
>
> It's always good to see these things; you never know when you'll need them.

Hopefully in a real game you would've seen it in advance (if there was no other way to win). ;)

@MrPushwood

Umm, honestly? Not at all certain I would have seen it even if I needed to. It looks deceptively simple, but actually has a complex structure: you're throwing away a piece just to displace his king, but you also need to see that if he doesn't take the bishop it's mate in one, but if he does take it it's still two more moves until mate, yet he can't prevent it.
But I'll certainly be alerted to this kind of mate in the future. Analysis of one's own games is really a treasure.

yes, all of that is kind of the point... ;)