Question about solutions given in a chess book for mate-in-two and mate-in-three I recently purchased the book "Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations, and Games" by Laszlo Polgar, just to learn more about moves.

This book has 3411 "Mate in two" problems and 743 "Mate in three" problems. The book is great but I have a question about the solutions to these problems.

For example, the solution to this mate-in-two (white to move first) problem # 1135 (from p. 247)...

[FEN "rkn5/pp1R4/2pn4/2N5/8/8/8/K w - - 0 1"]


...is given (in figurine algebraic notation) as:

Rb7

The solutions to both the mate-in-two and the mate-in-three problems list only one step (the book does not explain the reason for this).

How should a person read this solution? Is it the supposed final location of the white rook? And is this way of listing solutions common practice in chess books?
I think it's slightly unusual to only give the first move, or a little outdated. But it saves space and the assumption is that if you found the right solution, you can confirm it by seeing the first move.

I also think that Polgar originally intended this book (and his other "big books") as a collection of problems for coaches to select problems for their students from, because doing 5000+ mate in 2 and mate in 3 problems is a bit much for self-study. The coaches are expected to be of sufficient strength already, and to be able to select some problems with a common theme that they need for some lesson.

The whole answer, in this case, is of course 1.Rxb7+ Nxb7 (forced) 2.Na6#.

The 'x' and '+' in Rxb7+ are strictly speaking not necessary, so some books omit it. Again, that's a bit of an outdated practice since it's just not that user friendly.