Initial position - 27 pieces - Mate in 22 moves?

[peter]

With 11.d4! it is one move shorter, so currently mate in 21 moves. Maybe there are still improvements for black before move 10.

1. e4 g6 2. Nc3 c6 3. Qe2 h5 4. Qe3 b6 5. Qd4 f6 6. Qa4 a6 7. Qd4 Bh6 8. Qxb6 Bf4 9. Nf3 a5 10. Qxa5 Bb7 11. d4 g5 12. Bxf4 gxf4 13. Qc7 e6 14. Qxb7 Ke7 15. Ne5 fxe5 16. dxe5 Ke8 17. O-O-O Kf7 18. Rxd7+ Kg6 19. Qc8 h4 20. Qg8+ Kh6 21. Rh7#

Could well be, but then I'd go back to the one improvement for White at 2.Qe2 instead of 2.Nc3.

http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.p ... 07#p881307

2b1kb2/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQ - 0 1

1. e4 g6 2. Qe2 d6 3. e5 e6 4. Nf3 Be7 5. Qc4 Kd7 6. d4 a6 7. Ng5 b5 8. Qb3 h6
9. Nc3 hxg5 10. Nxb5 axb5 11. Qf3 d5 12. Qxf7 Kd8 13. h4 gxh4 14. Bxb5 c6 15.
Bxc6 Kc7 16. Qxe7+ Kxc6 17. Rxh4 Bd7 18. Qc5+ Kb7 19. Rh7 Kb8 20. Rxd7 g5 21. Qf8#

Why 2.Qe2 is better then 2.Nc3: Because it helps the white e-pawn to advance even faster, if Black doesn't stop it with 2...e5(?! without 2...d6 before, otherwise making the mate even shorter), and thus it enables the Queen to reduce its way to fourth rank without the detour over e3 regards

[Jouni]

I was yesterday surprised in mate solving test for 10-19 movers. The best was SF dev version with classical evaluation! Crystal is good in zugzwang positions, but normal SF reached much bigger search depth and solves more.