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Comment by Max_Horstmann | Hacker News Reader

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. :(

It certainly helps to set a pattern of unhealthy eating.

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

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).

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?

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.

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.

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?

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