Observe, Observe, Observe (2)

White to move, mate in 2

Now, how to observe?

First, we just do a survey to confirm several points: 

• is it a man-made problem?
• is our King safe (no check from our opponent at all)?
• where is our opponent King (black King)?

Second, look around black King, checking each square.

• Who is controlling it?
• How many times are we guarding it?
• Any piece on the square? If it's white piece, is it protected? how many times? If it's black piece blocking his King, can it move away?

For this position, c3 is our  Knight, protected twice, by our pawn and Queen.
c4 is guarded once by our Queen.
c5 is guarded once by our Queen.
d5 is guarded once by our Knight.
e5 is guarded once by our Queen.
e4 is guarded twice by our Knight and Bishop.
e3 is black pawn, can take our d2 pawn. But the square is still guarded by our Rook.
d3 is guarded once by Bishop.

Any square guarded only once will be our concern. Overall this is a very weak position, because there are too many squares that are only guarded once.

Our Bishop on b1 will not move, because it doesn't help anything and expose our King to  a check, which will delay our mate in 2. And no one can block b1-e4 diagonal. So d3 and e4 can be considered as completely guarded.

(to be continued)