Plaskett's Puzzle is a

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 ...

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 uniq ...

created by the Dutch endgame composer Gijs van Breukelen (February 27, 1946 – December 21, 2022) around 1970, although not published at the time. Van Breukelen published the puzzle in 1997 in the Netherlands chess magazine '' Schakend Nederland''. It was presented by English grandmaster

James Plaskett Harold James Plaskett (born 18 March 1960) is a British chess grandmaster and writer. Biography Early life and personal life Plaskett was born in Dhekelia, Cyprus, on 18 March 1960 and was educated at Bedford Modern School, England. In the ...

, at a top-flight

chess tournament A chess tournament is a series of chess games played competitively to determine a winning individual or team. Since the first international chess tournament in London 1851 chess tournament, London, 1851, chess tournaments have become the standard ...

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

in 1987, hence the name "Plaskett's Puzzle". According to contemporary accounts, of the several strong grandmasters who analyzed the position, only former World Champion

Mikhail Tal Mikhail Nekhemyevich Tal; rus, Михаил Нехемьевич Таль, ''Mikhail Nekhem'yevich Tal' '', ; sometimes transliterated ''Mihails Tals'' or ''Mihail Tal'' (9 November 1936 – 28 June 1992) was a Soviet-Latvian chess player ...

was able to solve it. While the solution is striking, the study was found to be flawed in that White has no immediately decisive continuation if Black plays 4...Kg4 rather than the obvious 4...Nf7+. This issue may be fixed by instead placing Black's g5 knight on h8 or e5, or by adding a white pawn on h2, but the flawed version of the study demonstrated by Plaskett and published by van Breukelen remains the best known.

Solution

1.Nf6+ Kg7 :If 1...Kg6 2.Bh5+ followed by 3.d8=Q, as the bishop now covers the forking square f7. 2.Nh5+ Kg6 :If 2...Kf7 3.d8=Q wins; if 2...Kh7 3.Bc2+ forces the king on to the back rank, allowing d8=Q+ and mate in a few moves. 3.Bc2+!! :This move is difficult for most

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to find. 3...Kxh5 4.d8=Q! Nf7+ :The obvious move, and the intent of the composer; however, 4...Kg4 puts up much stiffer resistance. (5.Qf6 wins, according to Ehn and Kastner, but the win is not intuitively clear). If the problem is set with the knight on h8, then 4...Kg4 can be met by 5.Qh4+ with mate soon to follow. :Roberto Balzan suggests an alternative way to repair the study, by adding a white pawn on h2 in the initial position; then 4...Kg4 can be met with 5.Qf6! Kh3 6.Qxh6+ Kg2 7.Qxg5 and White wins easily. 5.Ke6 Nxd8+ 6.Kf5 :White threatens Bd1+. There now follows a remarkable

zigzag A zigzag is a pattern made up of small corners at variable angles, though constant within the zigzag, tracing a path between two parallel lines; it can be described as both jagged and fairly regular. In geometry, this pattern is described as ...

manoeuvre by the bishop, Black defending against the mating threats by twice to a knight to cover the mating square, until there is no further defence. 6...e2 7.Be4 e1=N 8.Bd5 c2 9.Bc4 c1=N 10.Bb5 Nc7 :Black can delay the inevitable mate by one move by 10...Nc6. 11.Ba4 1–0 Mate in 3 by Bd1 cannot be prevented, for example 11...Ne2 12.Bd1 Nf3 13.Bxe2 and 14.Bxf3# or 11...Nb3 12.Bxb3 Nc2 13.Bxc2 and 14.Bd1#.

References

External links

* Chess problems {{chess-stub