02 Mar 04
here is a silly example which also was shown in chess life a long time ago:
8/4P3/8/NN6/8/1k6/4K2R
white mates in two.
the "solution" is: 1. e8r, any; 2. 00000(!!) #
that is, the king has never moved, and the rook on e8 has not either since it was born there, so king moves two squares toward rook and rook hops over.
the ultimate in ridiculousness!
03 Mar 04
Here's a composed puzzle which illustrates a couple of the themes introduced by our thread's originator. This is by one H. Kamstra, and it is a two-in-one:
Black: Ke8, Rh8, Ph7
White: Kg1, Rb7, Rf1, Pg6
A) White mates in two against any defense.
B) Put the Black Pawn on h6 instead of h7 and White mates in two with a different key.
05 Mar 04
7 edits
Originally posted by huntingbeardon't read on in this one if you are still working on the chess problem above as the answer is in it!
[text shortened]. This is by one H. Kamstra, and it is a two-in-one:
Black: Ke8, Rh8, Ph7
White: Kg1, Rb7, Rf1, Pg6
A) White mates in two against any defense
B)Black pawn on h6 instead of h7 and White mates in two with a different key.
the first thing to figure out in any chess composition is why a piece is where it is as every piece is necessary. (i do the "key krackers" in chess life every month, and am almost to my first ascent; we all got a whopping bonus last month when the magazine mislabeled three helpmates as directmates.)
i got the (b) part before the (a) one because the solution to that is obvious.
the one thing i could not figure out is whether white's b7-rook could be on a7 and produce the same result. as far as i can tell, it could.
here are the solutions:
(a) ra1. i can hear you gasp and say, "what if black castles?". ah, the joy of retrograde analysis! look at the position. what was black's last move? since the pawn has not moved, the last move had to have been made with either the king or the rook, making 1. ..., 00 illegal. of course, white's second move is 2. ra8#.
(b) rff7. here, black's last move could have been h6, and thus castling would still be legal. in this example, it is necessary to restrain the king and prevent 00, which this and no other move does (1. ..., any; 2. rb8# ). that's why i got this part first.
so why doesn't 1. rff7 work for (a)? because black can take the pawn!
as for my earlier question (about putting the rook from b7 on a7), this seems to alter the result only slightly. the first part would be 1. rb1 with the mate coming on b8, and the second would mate on a8. of course, you could not start the b7-rook on c7 since 1. ..., kd8 spoils the mate.
hope the rest of you found these problems amusing!