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legohead

For an actual legal and cool puzzle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSKtG-8TwI0

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Also cool: white to move and NOT mate

http://www.chess.com/blog/AaronGo/white-to-move-and-not-mate

I can't figure it out but I'm positive that 12 year old me would have lost from this position.

Fools mate in an inter-school tournament, the only player on my team to lose his game and thus the only one who didn't get ice cream on the drive home. Still hurts.

EDIT: actually it isn't that hard! I really could cock it up from that position.

Not giving icecream to a 12 year old because he lost a game is just outright cruel. :(

In Dutch high level youth chess it's usual for there to be a target score for the entire team based on the strength of the opposition that day (say the goal of that day is to score at least 6/10), and then _the entire team_ gets icecream or not depending.

Nah, I was 12. That's old enough to learn about failure in a fairly direct way. It was a good lesson and I'm glad my teacher stuck to it/

Sure, if I'd put up a good fight and lost because he was better, perhaps I'd be a bit sadder, but I really failed. (I still remember it clearly: I was distracted by my opponent's disgusting acne. I also had a turns-out-justified case of impostor syndrome about my place on the team).

It certainly helps to set a pattern of unhealthy eating.

"You loser! Go eat an apple. Us winners are enjoying this delicious ice-cream".

SPOILER: Move WhiteRook (G6>C6) thereby giving a check to black King with Knight at (H7). It also blocks WhiteKnight (A8)'s view of the Black King thereby freeing the BlackRook(B7>H7) to kill the WhiteKnight at H7

It's a bishop, not knight.

Sorry mistyped

That was cool - are there any more of these?

Reminds me of Desktop Dungeons for some reason.

Chess problems are a whole field of puzzles. I don't often see ones that are quite as cool as that but there are absolutely tons of them out there.

Would someone like to post a ROT13 of the solution to that, if they have it?

Ebbx gb P fvk

Zbir gur Ebbx gb n fcbg jurer vg eryrnfrf gur cva ba gur bccbaragf Ebbx, juvpu pna gura pncgher gur ovfubc juvpu unf perngrq gur qvfpbirerq purpx.

Thank you.

zbir gur gbjre

Qbrfa'g gung serr gur ovfubc gb zngr gur xvat? Gur bayl zbirf V pna frr gung jbhyqa'g qb vg ner gb zbir gur juvgr xvat.

Juvgr xvat pna'g zbir, oybpxrq ol oynpx ebbx naq ovfubc

Vs lbh zbir juvgr ebbx gb p6, gur oynpx xvat vf gura va purpx.

Ubjrire, oynpx pna pncgher gur ovfubc gb ab ybatre or va purpx.

Pna'g lbh zbir gur cnja ng o2 be u2 ol whzcvat bire gur cvrprf va sebag bs gurz fvapr vg'q or gurve svefg zbir? Gur ortvaare ehyrf ba gur fvgr lbh yvaxrq qba'g zragvba jurgure guvf vf n yrtny zbir be abg, fb V'z abg fher.

Except that there aren't any legal moves for the white king, he's caught between the black square bishop and rook on 7th rank.

Is a castle legal in this case?

No. Castling can only occur if the king has not moved. By convention, white's pieces start at the bottom of the depicted board - the first row. In this puzzle, the king is in the last row, which means it has moved at least 7 steps.

Forfeit?

I'm sorry for derailing this, but

a) I didn't know that 'Zugzwang' is a word that is used in English, ever

b) That pronounciation reminded me of watching the 'Grimm' TV Series, where everything is German based and the actors talk .. just like that

It's a specific term in chess like castling or checkmate.

I haven't played for ages, but I know the meaning of the word bot in Chess and in general.

It was news to me that this word is used outside of Germany. Looking over localized Chess terms they're either German or French. Interesting export.

i don't get it, maybe its because i'm not a huge chess player, but hear me out. The the key to the puzzle was promoting to a bishop, but why not just promote to a queen? A queen can move directions just the same as a bishop. Am I missing something that required a bishop in order to complete this puzzle?

Edit: Thank you for the comment explaining this.

When the Queen is placed, it becomes Black's turn. Black is not in check, but is in a situation where there are no legal moves for Black to play (his pawns cannot advance, and the king has no legal squares to land on. Because of this, Black can claim a draw instead of a loss.

Promoting to a queen would result in a stalemate as the black player would have no legal moves. Promoting to a bishop allows the king to move to the the 8th row, allowing the final checkmate by white

If white promotes to a queen, black will have no legal moves because the king can't move into check, and the pawns can't move at all. If a player can't move, the game is a draw.

I'm a total newbie at chess... but what's the problem with promoting to a queen?

If white promotes to Queen there are no legal moves for any of blacks' pieces because all the pawns are blocked and the King cannot move into check. It's a stalemate at that point and a draw.

Actually, wouldn't it be that the black King would just capture the Queen?

What moves do you see leading to that?

The king is at C7 and the Queen is at A8 in the video. They king can't do anything. The whole reason to under promote is for white to avoid stalemate when he/she has a winning checkmate.

The only other moves are after white pawn b7 would be to just run the king out of the fork (legal) but then black's whole position collapses and white just cleans up the same as if black plays king B8.

Once the king is tucked in and the D file pawns are blocked he can ONLY move to C7. If he moves out of the fork earlier to C7 or D8 he still loses the rook and the two pawns are still trapped. Against white's D pawn.

edit: We're also talking about this puzzle instead of the original. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSKtG-8TwI0 Which is different and doesn't use old rule loop holes.

As I said elsewhere, you might be responding to a different puzzle (the original) from the one now being discussed (from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10240289 )

Didn't think about that being the reason so many people are talking about capturing the queen.

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You might be responding to a different puzzle (the original) from the one now being discussed (from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10240289 )

Stalemate.

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