Finding elaborate mate sequences over the board is fun.
But, executing such mates online is even more fun!
Sometimes people are able to calculate all the moves till the very end, and other times it's the first move that strikes a chord. This is basically just intuition - that the first strike can lead to a domino effect, which eventually might result in checkmate.
Calculation is the hard part. The impulsive nature of a chess player might cause them trouble later if they've played out the first plausible move quickly, and then the attack falters. Intuition is useful, but behind that trust lies an acute eye for recognizing that this position is fragile for the opponent, and so a lot of practice and experience contributes in some way to developing razor sharp instincts.
So how could one go about calculating?
Well, there's plenty of suggestions from great players, but what worked in this game for me is noticing that the number of squares were reducing for the opponent's king, and that I could further restrict its movement. As the number of safe squares reduced, the mating pattern became slightly more clear, giving me the confidence to sacrifice a rook on the first move of the sequence!
https://lichess.org/study/4NE6hDK3/WYtD8WDD
You can try to solve the position from this interactive lesson, so have a go at it!
This snowballed into a 5 move mate that I found only after I made the first move, so trust your instincts, but make sure to nourish it everyday with tactics, bit by bit, like watering a plant.
