Black to move, win in the fewest possible moves:

lol, this looks like a gameknot position. Win your game yourself. :P

Not sure if you've made a mistake here - there's no immediate 2-3 move "the end" but obviously black has the game completely won unless he does something insane.

I don't know what you are trying to get at, i.e., are you trying to find the
"minimal path" to checkmate? If so, only a "bot" might be able to answer
that (BobJoeJim's post might be what you were looking for).

Just about any move still wins: even 1...Qd8+ results in a clearly winning
pawn ending.

black wins...but it will take quite a few moves!

when is Qb4 playable?

1.. Qh6 2. Qb4

It's mate in 13. With the help of Rybka 2.2, I worked out the folllowing mess:

1. ... Rd1 2. e4 (2. f4 Qd5 3. Ke7 Qa8 4. Kf6 Qf8 5. Qc6 (5. Ke5 5. .. f6+
6. Ke4 Qa8+ 7. Qb7 Qxb7#) (5. Kg5 Qe7+ 6. Kh6 Qh4#) 5. .. e5 6. f5 (6. fxe5
6. .. Qd8#) (6. Kxe5 Qe7+ 7. Qe6 Qxe6#) 6. .. Rd6+ 7. Kxe5 (7. Qxd6 Qxd6+
8. Kg5 e4 9. Kh4 (9. fxg6 f6+ 10. Kf5 (10. Kh4 Qh2#) 10. .. Qe5#) 9. ..
Qh2+ 10. Kg5 h6+ 11. Kf6 Qd6#) 7. .. Qe7+ 8. Kf4 Rxc6 9. g5 (9. fxg6 9. ..
Rf6+ 10. Kg3 Qxe3+ 11. Kg2 Rf2+ 12. Kg1 Qe1#) (9. Kf3 Rc3) 9. .. Rc3 10.
fxg6 Qxe3+ 11. Kf5 hxg6+ 12. Kf6 Qe6#) 2. .. e5 3. Qc7 (3. Qb8 Qf6 4. Qc8
Qd6 5. g5 Qf8#) 3. .. Qf6 4. Qd7 (4. Qb6 Rd6 5. Qxd6 Qxd6 6. g5 Kg7 7. f4
exf4 8. e5 Qc7 9. e6 f6 10. gxf6+ Kxf6 11. Kf8 Qc8#) 4. .. Rb1 5. Qd5 (5.
Qc7 Qe6+ 6. Kd8 Rd1+ 7. Qd6 Rxd6+ 8. Kc7 Rd7+ 9. Kb8 Qe8#) 5. .. Rb8+ 6.
Kd7 Qd8+ 7. Kc6 Rc8+ 8. Kb7 Rc7+ 9. Kxa6 Qb8 10. Qa8 Qxa8+ 11. Kb5 Qb7+ 12.
Ka4 Rc1 13. f4 Ra1# 0-1

Nothing particularly aesthetic or instructional about it, so I don't understand your interest in this. Either you misanalysed your way to something more interesting than the above or I'm the one who misanalysed my way to something less interesting.

corrected highlighting of main line

So what happens if we start with Rb5, threatening a line like Rb8+ Kd7 Qd5+?

Qd6.

But seriously, why is this position still being analysed, am I missing something or is this whole thread a huge level?

White to move, Force a draw for Black in as few possible moves





go

Bishop jumps queen
Pawns jump queen
I'm running the next move through BrooksBot right now.

Hey, is that Anna Kournikova over there?



There. One move.

Alexandria Kosteniuk woulda made more sense

Clearly you have no sense of the unexpected.