EDIT: Link added
One of my chess heroes, Hungarian GM Pal Benko, is no longer with us. He overcame many difficulties in his early life to live one which was rich and full, and reached the age of 91 with his faculties undimmed. I love the clarity and variety of his problems and puzzles, and am moved by an article by another Hungarian GM, Susan Polgar, to relay his new, final composition as a tribute. First I will quote Polgar verbatim, and then give some technical comments.
This was his final request to me, to share this Help Mate Composition with the Chess World!
This is the last chess composition Pal Benko shared with me when I visited him and his wife at their home in Budapest last week.
This is a a Help Mate Composition! From the starting position, White starts the game and checkmates Black by En Passant on the 9th move!
In addition, the game MUST include all the SPECIAL chess moves (at least from one side) such as Pawn Promotion, Castling, En Passant (in addition to the final checkmate), and Discovered Check. There is only one possible solution (according to Benko himself).
He was very proud of this Help Mate Masterpiece and asked me to share it with all of you! This was his final request to me.
Enjoy!
(1) This kind of problem is known as a "synthetic", and can be very hard to solve, "a real test of chess imagination", as the veteran chess columnist Len Barden would say. It's not a proof game, but a problem with constraints.
(2) It contains a "Valladao": i.e. castling + promotion + en passant. But beyond that there is a fourth thematic move here (Discovered Check) and the constraint that these four thematic moves should be played by the same player.
(3) There is a second en passant, which delivers mate. It seems consistent with the wording that this second en passant might be the thematic Discovered Check, in which case the player of all thematic moves would have to be White. However, then White has 5 moves for promotion including e.p., 3 for second pawn, 1 for 0-0 and maybe 2 to move B&N for 0-0. That makes 10 which seems to be too many. If it's Black doing the thematic stuff: 5 for promotion including e.p. which can be discovered check, 1 for 0-0, 1 for pawn to be eped, and 2 to move B&N for 0-0. That's 9 again too many. So kB or kN must have been captured on its starting square and then got right out of the way. Maybe N captures kN and then after moving is captured by bB? (EDITED for clarity)
(4) Normally in a proof game with e.p., one can reason by uniqueness that the double pawn move must have been blocking a check, because otherwise the move might as well have been a single pawn move. But here in this thematic synthetic, that constraint is not present.
And beyond that I currently have no idea of the solution! Good luck!