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Unexpected moves
December 27, 2003 |
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Yesterday we took a look at the wrong bishop, the one
who tragically cannot help its edge pawn to promote because
the colour of the promotion square is wrong. Unless the
opponent's king can be cleverly kept out of the corner.
You
read about it, didn't you? And tried to solve the world
champion puzzle, we hope. The solution to this will be
presented at the end of the ChessBase Christmas puzzle
week. There are two additional positions on the subject.
Fischer,J - N.N, Romanian Ch, 1961
White to play
White, a young player, resigned the game because he saw
that Black would queen first: 1.Qxb7+ 1...Kxb7 2.h4 a4
3.h5 a3 4.h6 a2 5.h7 a1Q –+. What he tragically overlooked
was 1.bxa5! Now Black cannot play 1...Bxf3+??
2.Kxf3 bxa5 3.Ke4 because the white king can catch the
black pawn, while its opposite is unable to reach the white
h-pawn in time. White would in fact win. So Black must
recapture: 1...bxa5 2.Kf2 Bxf3 3.Ke3!
(not 3.Kxf3?? a4 and Black wins).
Black cannot stop the white king from reaching a1 in time
to stop the black pawn. And since he has the "wrong
bishop" Black must share the point.
V. Kosek, Ceskoslovensky Sach,
1930
White to play and win
Some readers found our world champion puzzle "too
easy". Seems like they solved it much quicker than
Mikhail Botvinnik or the Polgar sisters. Well, for you
here's a tougher one above. Give yourself till New Year
to find the incredibly profound solution (we will be giving
a total of 11 exclamation marks for both sides in the solution).
Unexpected moves
Change of subject. In the winter months they switch off
the sun in Finland – we are talking like an hour
or two of proper sunlight per day. It is then that these
people come crawling south, as did one Mika
Korhonen a number of years ago. Mika is a chess problem
specialist, especially good at composing and solving helpmates.
But he is able to produce some fine studies as well.
Mika Korhonen, Suomen Tehtäväniekat
1979
White to play and draw
This study is hard, so we do not expect you to produce
full analysis by the New Year. Just to find the first move,
the only one that leads to a draw. If you haven't a clue,
simply guess.
But do we want to frustrate you with two difficult problems
in succession at Christmas time? Here's a much easier one,
which many of you should be able to work out without a
board. We know the study from the author given below (Dedrle),
but have seen it attributed to F. Cassidy in the Chess
Monthly of 1884.
F. Dedrle, Ceskoslovensky Sach,
1921
White to play and win
The typical reaction of strong players is to stare at
the postion with a frown, start nodding their heads while
they count squares and then suddenly break out in a smile.
What must White play in order to win this position? Funny,
but it somehow reminds us of the Repton puzzles we are
solving below.
Click
here to see the solutions to all puzzles.
The page contains all the unsolved problems. It includes
a link to a Javascript board on which you can can replay
the moves of each solution and download the positions.
On the Javascript page you will find all the positions
quoted in our 2003 Christmas Puzzle section, including
the ones for which solutions are already given in the text.
Frederic Friedel
Tommy's Christmas Repton
"Thanks for this game you guys! Solving Level 2 was
tough. Looking forward to level 3!" wrote Navin Sawalani
from Singapore. Navin described how he dealt with the egg
and the monster that hatches out of it. At first he decided
to leave the egg on the top part of the map alone all the
way till the end. "But then I killed the monster on
the left part of the map! Woohoo! I crushed it with a boulder.
Actually you can just trap it and leave it alone, but if
you want to be mean, just push the rock one step further
and you'll crush the poor fella." Indeed you can,
if you are that kind of a person.
Navin and a number of other readers had problems with
the bottom left-hand corner. Some, in fact, are convinced
that the game is flawed, and that there is no way to get
at the diamonds. There is.
As in all the Repton screens you just have to figure it
out. In the above position the first move is to move the
three rocks down.
After that you can move the first rock onto the three,
while still retaining an escape route out of the box on
the left.
Now remove the earth from below the first rock, move to
the right, allowing it to fall, then go all around to the
other side and remove two squares of earth from there.
The rest is easy: allow one rock to fall to the left,
push the other to a safe position on the ledge on the right,
and then retrieve the diamond at the bottom.
After this the path is clear to retrieve the remaining
diamonds and escape from the box. Believe us, all the
screens have been thoroughly tested and can be solved.
Just keep trying – of find some four-year-old kid
to show you how it can be done!
Screen three
To upgrade your Repton to screen three simply download
the following file, repton1.rep (8537 bytes long) and save
it in the subdirectory Christmas Repton\data\maps\, overwriting
the previous repton1.rep file there.
The new file contains the first three levels. The levels
can be accessed either by solving the previous level or
by entering the password you get when you solve it (click
File – Enter password).
If you have not started to play the game yet you can download
the whole thing (121 KB) and follow the instructions given
at the bottom of our Chistmas
Day page. Note that this contains all levels published
so far, so you don't have to retrieve the above file to
upgrade.
 We
remind you that you can get the latest Repton game in a
new version (just completed a week ago) from the Superior
Interactive site. Click on the logo on the right and download
a trial version. For $19.95 you can get a key that upgrades
it to the full version.
We will be providing new levels for Tommy's Christmas
Repton on a daily basis until the end of our Christmas
Puzzle week. Please make a note of the passwords, especially
the last one you get. You can send them in, together with
your comments, to take part in our Puzzle contest in which
you can win some interesting prizes. |
