Quite long this one as I expect to be playing about 40+ games soon
in a Hardcore tournament and I am going for a 7-10 day holiday.
A live reconstruction of a 1992 British Chess Magazine cartoon.
From the same magazine a pitfall avoided by an opponent of
Mickey Adams only for a RHP player to fall into 15 years later.
A look at a batch of Red Hot Pawn stalemates and three different chess problems.
W.R. Todd, Stratford Express 1930 (White to play and mate in three.)
This is really good. Not too difficult and very rewarding.
The White King has just moved from f3 to g3. How? It was in check from both
the Queen and the Rook. It could not have been a double or discovered check.
The position is legal, but how did it happen.
J. Szabolcsi - M. Henttinen, Hungary 1981. (White to play and win)
(solutions in the blog)
That last problem leads to another RHP game where our man went wrong.
Quite long this one as I expect to be playing about 40+ games soon
in a Hardcore tournament and I am going for a 7-10 day holiday.
A live reconstruction of a 1992 British Chess Magazine cartoon.
From the same magazine a pitfall avoided by an opponent of
Mickey Adams only for a RHP player to fall into 15 years later.
A look at a batch of Red Hot Paw ...[text shortened]... lem leads to another RHP game where our man went wrong.
Yes - IMO one of the best retros of all time. En passant without a single pawn in the starting diagram, which causes many a solver to struggle in finding the solution, despite the simple-looking appearance.
That position is on the cover of 'The Chess Mysteries of the Arabian Knights'
by Raymond Smullyan! It's is in the Edinburgh Library. an autographed copy!
( I have the Sherlock Holmes book but not this one.)
You probably have it but I'll add (see page 168) that he showed a friend this problem who showed it to another friend, who showed it to another friend who
showed his father who sent it to the games editor of The Manchester Guardian.
It appeared uncredited, Raymond corresponded and his missing name was added.
However the slight damage had been done and it popped up again uncredited
in the 'Scientific American' (someone had seen the original Guardian version and
sent it in adding it was remarkable and wondering who composed it.
A reader and former fellow student of Raymond recognised it and wrote to the 'Scientific American'. The editor got in touch with Raymond and advised he do a
book of these creations - so that is why that position appears on the cover.
I am not too sure where I got my one from, (I recall it said 'Anon' )
I've been going through old Scotsman Weekly from the 1930's. It could have
come from there. But I also went through a load of old BCM's and a few other
books - I'll see if I can find and date my source.
It was in a column by Andy (sic) Soltis, he writes books as 'Andrew Soltis.'
'The Anti Problem' page 307 of the 'Chess Life and Review' May 1972.
You can view that edition online here;
http://uscf1-nyc1.aodhosting.com/CL-AND-CR-ALL/CL-ALL/1972/1972_05.pdf
'Andy' does not mention an author and he actually gives this position.
I was poking about the 1972 CL&R looking for something that Bob Wade
mentioned when I saw the plea by David Hooper asking for Capablanca games.
Then I spotted the problem. Solved it and a few weeks later blogged it.
I remembered the bones of it, forgot the pawns. I think my one is accidently
better as it gave me a chance to show that silly White win. I'm into silliness.
Is that the white pawn structure. There was nothing left to capture on a8 or c8.
Yes. The pawns in the diagram 'only' require five captures to get where they are, but a promoted pawn must have come from f2, requiring five more captures.