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Comment by thejteam | Hacker News Reader

Should that always be the case, though? We could try to force a position where 2 separate moves checkmate. Then only 1 (presumably the one that results from capturing the highest valued piece?) would be the engine result.

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If you can check your opponent, giving them only one legal move, you win (because it is the top engine move).

This is a good point. If you can check with your queen but hang it, the “best move” would be to take it. Make it so they have to take it, for example in a back rank, and you win.

This is explicitly addressed:

  When multiple moves have the top score, they are all top moves,

I wonder if a move that checkmates is scored lower than a move that checkmates and captures.

Forced mates are generally scored with the number of moves to mate, e.g. "M2"

So you can start down a sequence that gives check-mate, but once it is the shortest sequence to check-mate, you have to abandon the check-mate.

So you can never actually play a mate in one.

Checkmate .. with advantage!

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