For an actual legal and cool puzzle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSKtG-8TwI0
I'm a total newbie at chess... but what's the problem with promoting to a queen?
Stalemate.
The Hardest chess problem in the world?
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Re: The Hardest chess problem in the world?
#22From FIDE rules: > When a player, having the move, plays a pawn to the rank furthest from its starting position, he must exchange that pawn as part of the same move for a new queen, rook, bishop or knight of the same colour on the intended square of arrival. > promotion: 3.7e. Where a pawn reaches the eighth rank and is replaced by a new queen, rook, bishop or knight of the same colour. https://www.fide.com/fide/hand…
Thank you for the reference - appreciate that. I wonder when that explicit rule was introduced. It says in the article: "But in fact, at the time this game was played there was no specific rule stating that a pawn had to be promoted to a piece of the same colour!
I wonder why it was introduced.
Re: The Hardest chess problem in the world?
#23I enjoyed the solution...I played chess when I was young but obviously not at an elite level, as I did not know of this rule. But what amused me was -- legal or not -- that I just had never even thought of doing that kind of move, ever. Technicalities aside, it's a nice thinking-outside-of-the-box example.
Re: The Hardest chess problem in the world?
#24Re: The Hardest chess problem in the world?
#25For an actual legal and cool puzzle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSKtG-8TwI0
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.
Re: The Hardest chess problem in the world?
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
I, too, was curious about Lady Cynthia Blunderboro. It seems she's a fictional persona prone to hoaxes. https://www.google.com/search?q=lady+cynthia+blunderboro
The fact that she by chance happened to have the very same position during normal play gave it away. The probability would be astronomically low.
The coincidence isn't quite what you think it is.
In the story world, the puzzle probably took its precise form from that game. If the game hadn't happened, maybe Anderssen's unpublished notes would have included a similar puzzle, or maybe nothing along those lines. So the coincidence is "merely" that she's related to the person who played the game that begot the puzzle.
Re: The Hardest chess problem in the world?
#27Re: The Hardest chess problem in the world?
#28Poking around that site's replacement, I bumped into http://www.hebdenbridgechessclub.co.uk/2011/02/11/castling-v.... Also interesting, and involving no-longer-valid rules.
Re: The Hardest chess problem in the world?
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you for the reference - appreciate that. I wonder when that explicit rule was introduced. It says in the article: "But in fact, at the time this game was played there was no specific rule stating that a pawn had to be promoted to a piece of the same colour!
Sarratt in his Treatise on the Game of Chess (1808) says: "When a player has pushed a Pawn to Queen, he is at liberty to make a second Queen, a third Rook, or any other piece which he may deem more useful for his attack or defense". While this doesn't explicitly say that he must promote to a piece of the same color, it implies it. After all if the piece could be promoted to either color it would make sense to say a t…
That doesn't really imply much. Having a fifth rook does not correlate at all to having a piece of the same or opposite colour. Regardless, based off that rule, a piece of the opposing colour would be defined by "any other peice [sic] which he may deem more useful for his attack" in that play, so it sounds perfectly legal to me.