A helpmate is a type of chess problem in which both sides cooperate in order to achieve the goal of checkmating Black.
The example problem illustrated is a helpmate in 8 (or h#8) by Zdravko Maslar, published in Die Schwalbe in 1981.
In The Chess Monthly, November 1860, American puzzle inventor Sam Loyd published the first helpmate with Black to move as is now standard, one intended main line, and an attractive but false solution (a try) to mislead solvers.
However, this problem too had a minor dual, and also had the major flaw (or cook) of having a second, completely separate solution, not noted by the author.
Even so, it was a much better problem than Lange's and its presentation, incorporating a story written by D. W. Fiske, established the genre.
[4] The helpmate problem task has since increased in popularity to be second only to the directmate and is no longer considered to be part of fairy chess.
It has been noted by Jean Oudot that "helpmates are the purest form of all the chess arts".
It was published in the June 1975 issue of Schach and is by the helpmate specialist Chris J. Feather.
The example shown is a helpmate in 2 by Henry Forsberg (published in 1935 in Revista Romana de Şah).
The first problem is a normal helpmate; the second starts from the same position but has White moving first and helping Black to checkmate him.