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Joke Chess Problem
Joke chess problems are puzzles in chess that use humor as a primary or secondary element. Although most chess problems, like other creative forms, are appreciated for serious artistic themes ( Grimshaw, Novotny, and Lacny), joke chess problems are enjoyed for some twist. In some cases the composer plays a trick to prevent a solver from succeeding with typical analysis. In other cases, the humor derives from an unusual final position. Unlike in ordinary chess puzzles, joke problems can involve a solution which violates the inner logic or rules of the game. Self-solving problems Some chess puzzles are not really puzzles at all. In the diagram, White is asked to checkmate Black in six moves. The joke in this case is that, by the rules of chess, White has no choice in the matter; the only legal moves lead directly to the "solution": :1. d4 b5 2. d5 b4 3. axb4 a3 4. b5 a2 5. b6 a1=any 6. b7 Tim Krabbé provides other examples on his chess website. Offbeat interpretations of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to distinguish it from related games, such as xiangqi (Chinese chess) and shogi (Japanese chess). The recorded history of chess goes back at least to the emergence of a similar game, chaturanga, in seventh-century India. The rules of chess as we know them today emerged in Europe at the end of the 15th century, with standardization and universal acceptance by the end of the 19th century. Today, chess is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide. Chess is an abstract strategy game that involves no hidden information and no use of dice or cards. It is played on a chessboard with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. At the start, each player controls sixteen pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Castling
Castling is a move in chess. It consists of moving the king two squares toward a rook on the same and then moving the rook to the square that the king passed over. Castling is permitted only if neither the king nor the rook has previously moved; the squares between the king and the rook are vacant; and the king does not leave, cross over, or finish on a square attacked by an enemy piece. Castling is the only move in chess in which two pieces are moved at once. Castling with the is called ''kingside castling'', and castling with the is called ''queenside castling''. In both algebraic and descriptive notations, castling kingside is written as 0-0 and castling queenside as 0-0-0. Castling originates from the ''king's leap'', a two-square king move added to European chess between the 14th and 15th centuries, and took on its present form in the 17th century. Local variations in castling rules were common, however, persisting in Italy until the late 19th century. Castling does no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sam Loyd
Samuel Loyd (January 30, 1841 – April 10, 1911), was an American chess player, chess composer, puzzle author, and recreational mathematician. Loyd was born in Philadelphia but raised in New York City. As a chess composer, he authored a number of chess problems, often with interesting themes. At his peak, Loyd was one of the best chess players in the US, and was ranked 15th in the world, according to chessmetrics.com. He played in the strong Paris 1867 chess tournament (won by Ignatz von Kolisch) with little success, placing near the bottom of the field. Following his death, his book ''Cyclopedia of 5000 Puzzles'' was published (1914) by his son. His son, named after his father, dropped the "Jr" from his name and started publishing reprints of his father's puzzles. Loyd (senior) was inducted into the US Chess Hall of Fame in 1987. Reputation Loyd is widely acknowledged as one of America's great puzzle writers and popularizers, often mentioned as ''the greatest.'' Martin G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riddle
A riddle is a statement, question or phrase having a double or veiled meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved. Riddles are of two types: ''enigmas'', which are problems generally expressed in metaphorical or allegorical language that require ingenuity and careful thinking for their solution, and ''conundra'', which are questions relying for their effects on punning in either the question or the answer. Archer Taylor says that "we can probably say that riddling is a universal art" and cites riddles from hundreds of different cultures including Finnish, Hungarian, American Indian, Chinese, Russian, Dutch and Filipino sources amongst many others. Many riddles and riddle-themes are internationally widespread. In the assessment of Elli Köngäs-Maranda (originally writing about Malaitian riddles, but with an insight that has been taken up more widely), whereas myths serve to encode and establish social norms, "riddles make a point of playing with conceptual boundaries and cr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Rayner Dawson
Thomas Rayner Dawson (28 November 1889 – 16 December 1951) was an English chess problemist and is acknowledged as "the father of Fairy Chess". He invented many fairy pieces and new conditions. He introduced the popular fairy pieces grasshopper, nightrider, and many other fairy chess ideas. Career Dawson published his first problem, a two-mover, in 1907. His chess problem compositions include 5,320 fairies, 885 , 97 selfmates, and 138 endings. 120 of his problems have been awarded prizes and 211 honourably mentioned or otherwise commended. He cooperated in chess composition with Charles Masson Fox. Dawson was founder-editor (1922–1931) of '' The Problemist'', the journal of the British Chess Problem Society. He subsequently produced ''The Fairy Chess Review'' (1930–1951), which began as ''The Problemist Fairy Chess Supplement''. At the same time he edited the problem pages of '' The British Chess Magazine'' (1931–1951). Motivation and personality From '' The O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endgame Study
In the game of chess, an endgame study, or just study, is a composed position—that is, one that has been made up rather than played in an actual game—presented as a sort of puzzle, in which the aim of the solver is to find the essentially unique way for one side (usually White) to win or draw, as stipulated, against any moves the other side plays. If the study does not end in a mate or stalemate, it should be obvious that the game is either won or drawn, and White can have a selection of many different moves. There is no limit to the number of moves which are allowed to achieve the win; this distinguishes studies from the genre of direct mate problems (e.g. "mate in 2"). Such problems also differ qualitatively from the very common genre of tactical puzzles based around the middlegame, often based on an actual game, where a decisive tactic must be found. Composed studies Composed studies predate the modern form of chess. Shatranj studies exist in manuscripts from the 9th cent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Excelsior (chess Problem)
"Excelsior" is one of Sam Loyd's most famous chess problems, originally published in ''London Era'' in 1861. In 1867, it participated together with five other problems as a set in an international problem tournament. The motto for the full set was "Excelsior" (eng. 'Ever upward'), generally known as the title of the poem "Excelsior (Longfellow), Excelsior" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and as that term is very fitting for this particular problem, it is generally associated with it. It is not to be confused by a popular 1958 study of the same name by Russian chess composer Vladimir Korolkov, which has a similar thematic motif. Backstory Loyd had a friend who was willing to wager that he could always find the piece which delivered the principal mate of a chess problem. Loyd composed this problem as a joke and bet his friend dinner that he could not pick a piece that ''didn't'' give mate in the main line (his friend immediately identified the pawn on b2 as being the least likely ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grotesque (chess)
In chess, a grotesque is a problem or endgame study which features a particularly unlikely or impossible initial position, especially one in which White fights with a very small force against a much larger black army.Hooper & Whyld (1996), p. 160 Grotesques are generally intended to be humorous. Examples Ottó Bláthy A particularly extreme example by Ottó Bláthy is illustrated in the adjacent diagram. In the initial position Black has all sixteen pieces remaining and White has just a single pawn on its starting square, yet it is White who will deliver checkmate. This position in Forsyth-Edwards Notation (FEN) is : 8/8/8/2p5/1pp5/brpp4/qpprpK1P/1nkbn3 w - - 0 1 The solution is: :1. Kxe1 Qa1 2. h3 Qa2 3. h4 Qa1 4. h5 Qa2 5. h6 Qa1 6. h7 Qa2 7. h8=N Qa1 8. Nf7 Qa2 9. Nd8 Qa1 10. Ne6 Qa2 11. Nxc5 Qa1 12. Ne4 Qa2 13. Nd6 Qa1 14. Nxc4 Qa2 15. Na5 Qa1 16. Nxb3 The fact that the black queen must be on a1 rather than a2 when White plays Nxb3 explains why 2.h4 does not work. Simil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proof Game
A proof game is a type of retrograde analysis chess problem. The solver must construct a game starting from the initial chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ... position, which ends with a given position (thus proving that that position is reachable) after a specified number of moves. A proof game is called a shortest proof game if no shorter solution exists. In this case the task is simply to construct a shortest possible game ending with the given position. When published, shortest proof games will normally present the solver with a diagram - which is the final position to be reached - and a caption such as "SPG in 9.0". "SPG" here is short for "shortest proof game" and the "9.0" indicates how many moves must be played to reach the position; 9.0 means the position ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Selfmate
A selfmate is a chess problem in which White, moving first, must force Black to deliver checkmate within a specified number of moves against their will. Selfmates were once known as sui-mates. Example The problem shown is a relatively simple example. It is a selfmate in two by Wolfgang Pauly from ''The Theory of Pawn Promotion'', 1912: White moves first and compels Black to deliver checkmate on or before Black's second move. If White can leave Black with no option but to play Bxg2#, the problem is solved. * White might try moving the bishop, but this is no good, as it will allow Black to play a non-capturing bishop move himself, delaying the mate beyond move two; * moving the knight allows the king to move; * 1.e6 allows 1...exf6 and 2...f5; * 1.f7 or 1.fxe7 allows 1...Kxg7; * 1.g8=Q or 1.g8=R are no good after 1...Bxg2+ 2.Q/Rxg2; * 1.g8=N# checkmates Black, which is entirely wrong; * 1.g8=B is also no good, since after 1...exf6 2.exf6 Bxg2+ the bishop can interpose with 3.Bd5. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helpmate
A helpmate is a type of chess problem in which both sides cooperate in order to achieve the goal of checkmating Black. In a helpmate in ''n'' moves, Black moves first, then White, each side moving ''n'' times, to culminate in White's ''nth'' move checkmating Black. (In a helpmate in 2 for example, sometimes abbreviated ''h#2'', the solution consists of a Black move, a White move, a second Black move, then a second White move, giving checkmate.) Although the two sides cooperate, all moves must be legal according to the rules of chess. The example problem illustrated is a helpmate in 8 (or ''h#8'') by Z. Maslar, published in ''Die Schwalbe'' in 1981. The solution is (''recall that in helpmate solutions, Black's move is given first''): :1. Kf3 Kd3 2. Bb3 Kc3 3. Ke4+ Kd2 4. Kd4 Ke2 5. Kc3 Nb4 6. Kb2 Kd2 7. Ka1 Kc1 8. Ba2 Nc2 History The first helpmate problem was by the German chess master Max Lange, published in ''Deutsche Schachzeitung'', December 1854. The problem had Whit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rook (chess)
The rook (; ♖, ♜) is a piece in the game of chess. It may move any number of squares horizontally or vertically without jumping, and it may an enemy piece on its path; additionally, it may participate in castling. Each player starts the game with two rooks, one in each corner on their own side of the board. Formerly, the rook (from Persian رخ ''rokh''/''rukh'', meaning "chariot") was alternatively called the tower, marquess, rector, and comes (count or earl). The term "castle" is considered to be informal, incorrect, or old-fashioned. Placement and movement The white rooks start on squares a1 and h1, while the black rooks start on a8 and h8. The rook moves horizontally or vertically, through any number of unoccupied squares (see diagram). The rook cannot jump over pieces. The rook may capture an enemy piece by moving to the square on which the enemy piece stands, removing it from play. The rook also participates with the king in a special move called castling, wherein it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
