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Frustration, elation, inspiration...
December 29, 2003 |
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how I spent my Summer Vacation
By Ron Fenton
I’m an average player but I love a good puzzle,
especially an unorthodox one... however, I was never too
excited by helpmates. I reasoned that if God really wanted
the opponents in a chess game to help each other, Kings
would wear blindfolds and Rooks would wear roller-skates.
That all changed last December when I discovered the Chessbase
puzzle archives and the fascinating story of Dr. Nunn's
famous little 1.e4
conundrum. Somehow, he had seen in that innocent-looking
position, a way to stage a solution-resistant helpmate
if he gave away the ending! This is the story of how I
tried it, developed an appreciation for it, gave up on
it, solved it, and then composed one of my own
John Nunn's puzzle (not actually composed by him) simply
states: "A game begins with 1.e4 and ends in the
fifth move with knight takes rook mate". Many
of the top players in the world were unable to solve it.
Any puzzle that appeared so simple, yet gave GM’s
a rough time was something I had to try. As most doubtless
remember... it sounded easy; you and a helpful adversary
had only to reach a specified checkmate in a specified
number of moves... but it wasn’t easy! And
the fact that the author hadn’t revealed which direction
the puzzle worked, wasn’t exactly helpful. When I
failed to reach the required ending in a few hours I joined
a distinguished list.... but hours became days, and days
turned into weeks. Just when I was about to declare it
impossible, I solved it!
Inspired by my hard-won victory, I wondered: “could
I reverse the goal [RxN instead of NxR] and create a very
different, but still challenging puzzle? A closer look
at 1.e4 revealed that there were multiple ways to reach
RxN# in 5 moves and it could happen in either direction.
Eventually, I was able to prevent the most obvious RxN
mates while keeping a [hopefully] less-obvious one for
the solver. I also couldn’t help trying to mimic
the ambiguity of Dr. Nunn’s puzzle by constructing
positions that worked both ways... a choice I would live
to regret.
With great zeal, I sent a few compositions to Frederic
Friedel and was gratified when he replied that, although
busy in New York covering Kasparov – Deep Junior,
he had passed them on to an expert. A few weeks later,
panic would set in when I learned his ‘expert’
was none other than the John Nunn!
I set out to learn if the noted Grandmaster had authored
anything specific to chess puzzles and needless to say,
he had. In fact, one book: “Solving
in Style” is a quintessential work on the subject
(the bibliography alone is a treasure). This revelation
brought with it a rude awakening. In the introduction to
chapter six, he wrote: "There is no special reason
why black should move first in helpmates and not in any
other type of problem”. Mine all started ‘White
to move’ – even when Black was the victim!
It was time for some professional advice. Despite reassuring
words from Dr. Nunn that I shouldn’t worry who moved
first, and Frederic, who continued to encourage my little
project, I soon began to regard my early efforts as unworthy.
Not only did they start with the wrong color half the time,
they were all beginning to look contrived and ugly compared
to the beautiful simplicity I was trying to emulate.
Back at square one, I set out to identify just which RxN#
scenarios could co-exist in a duplex format where the losing
side always moved first. By late June, I thought I had
a good prospect and submitted it only to have GM Nunn cook
it with embarrassing ease. The desire to have the puzzle
work in both directions was compounding my headaches, and
despite a better understanding of helpmate dynamics [blindfolds
and roller-skates] at a depth of ten ply, I could never
be absolutely certain that a given position was sound.
Feedback from the original article revealed that some
solvers were able to use computers to confirm that 1.e4
had only one solution. I made contact with Frederic’s
compatriot Heiner Marxen [who had successfully done so
with his ‘Chest’ program] and asked if he would
test my positions. With his generous help, a lot of trial
and error – and a few months of computer time –
I am finally able to present a computer-verified, duplex
RxN conditional helpmate. I hope the many fans of John’s
terrific puzzle will enjoy it.
Ron K. Fenton, Christmas 2003
Helpmate in five moves by RxN# (duplex)
In a helpmate both sides cooperate to achieve the goal.
In the above position White will start and Black will help
construct a mate on move five, the stipulation being that
it ends by rook takes knight. A "duplex" problem
is one that works both ways, i.e. in the above position
Black can also start and, with White's assistance, lose
in five moves by rook takes knight.
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.
Tommy's Christmas Repton
"Amazing game!! Its ingenuity lies in the visual
simplicity of the goal and the maze," wrote Srinath
from Pune, India. "I got the solution [to level
three] in around five mins. Took a lot more time to take
all the diamonds due to careless mistakes. One little
suggestion, and it may be easy to implement for maybe
the last two levels. There's some redundancy in the solution
of the maze. It will be a lot more thrilling if there
were only one solution (I mean the way in which boulders
have to be moved) for at least one section of the maze.
Anyway, thanks a zillion!! You are the funnest chess
website – aw, what the heck – the funnest
site around."
Srinath, what you are currently getting in our Chrismas
edition of Repton 1 is just the beginnings of a highly
sophisticated game. One can only compare it with a chess
teacher showing you some elementary mates. Later levels
bring more complexity, and many new elements, like wall-hugging
spirits, cages, fungus, death heads. Later editions of
the game (Repton 2, Repton 3, Repton Around the World,
Life of Repton, Repton through Time) become so difficult
that even experienced chess players will admit that it
rivals their beloved game as a challenge to the human intellect.
Naturally there are many levels where you have to work
out a sequence of unique moves, which must then be executed
with great precision, sometimes under very tight time constraints
The beauty of Repton (as well, to some extent, chess)
is that you can teach it to a three-year-old. We actually
mean a child that has just turned three, as
we experience back in 1985. A year later my four-year-old
was solving Repton 2, together with his 11-year-old brother
and John Nunn, who had come for ten days specifically to
solve the game. John brought copious notes with him, and
the three discussed everything as peers. Except of course
that one of the three could not express himself too well
yet. Still, there were a number of situations where the
solution came from Tommy, and not the others.
Tim Tyler
The original author of Repton was Tim Tyler. Edge
Online wrote: "The summer of 1985 saw a game slip
onto the market which was to become the start of a best-selling
franchise and, after Elite, probably the best-known
game ever to be released for the BBC family of home computers.
Its 15-year-old creator earned telephone-number royalties
from its publication, and that of its sequel. The game:
Repton, the author: a now reflective Tim Tyler. Was it
just a Boulderdash rip-off? It seems unfair given that
Tyler (still) has never played Boulderdash. But he acknowledges
that while having a similar idea in his head, he’d
read a review of Boulderdash and declared it his inspiration."
Today Tim creates new games, including the amazing Rockz,
which you can play in your browser window. He has also
written some interesting utilities
and simulations. One of his big hobbies is sprouting
(growing young vegetables) and he has a domain dedicated
to this. Tim's name appears in diamonds and earth in screen
four of Repton 1.
Screen five
You can upgrade your Christmas Repton to screen five by
downloading the following file, repton1.rep (8537 bytes
long). Save it in the subdirectory Christmas Repton\data\maps\,
overwriting the previous repton1.rep file there.
The new file contains the first five 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.
 The
latest Repton game is available from the Superior Interactive
site. Click on the logo on the right to download a trial
version. For $19.95 you can get a key that upgrades it
to the full version. You may also want to try the PDA and
cell-phone versions of Repton from Masabi.
The Superior site also has the games Galaforce and Ravenskull.
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.
Superior has donated three
dual prizes of Galaforce Worlds and Ravenskull
for the best solutions and comments to Tommy's Christmas
Repton.
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