He had a dream December 30, 2004
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There are logical puzzles that are very difficult, and some that are trivially easy. But there is one that is both. At least in my experience. I have told the following to a substantial number of people. About half look at me in bafflement and do not know what the question is. The solution is so obvious to them that they have to see someone ponder over it for an hour to believe that anyone could not see the solution instantaneously. Well, here's the problem, with apologies to those of you who have heard it before.

Recently a friend told me the following story about the death of his grandfather: "My grandparents used to go to church on Sundays. One day during the sermon, which was long and dry, my grandfather fell asleep. That week he had been reading a novel about the French Revolution and began to dream that he was a rich aristocrat living in a beautiful chateau in France.

Suddenly there was a commotion outside. A mob of peasants appeared, stormed the house, grabbed him and tied him up, dragged him to the market square, where there was a platform with a guillotine set up. My grandfather was led up the stairs, a priest muttered a few words to him and then his head was placed in the cradle of the guillotine. A hooded executioner approached and reached up for the lever that releases the blade. At that moment my grandfather was snoring quite loudly, so my grandmother reached out and pinched him on the back of his neck to wake him up. This was such a shock to my grandfather that he suffered a heart attack and died on the spot."

My reaction to the story of my friend: "I don't believe a word of that. You made it up." Why did I react in this way, how did I know the story is not true?

If you belong to the 50% of the population who get it immediately, try it on other members of your family, on friends and acquaintances. You will be amazed how thoroughly stumped some of them can be. Like the world-class chess player, whom out of politeness we will not identify. We gave him this puzzle during a Japanese lunch, and he mulled over it all through the Miso and Sushi. We discussed the history of the French Revolution and the mechanics of the guillotine and in particular the height of the lever. At one stage he made us repeat the puzzle in order to cleverly identify minor deviations from the original version ("That way I know that those details are irrelevant!"). As the meal came to an end he was becoming unpleasant and rude, so we had to tell him the solution. The Elo of our Super-GM friend is well above 2700.

Incidentally we will not be publishing the solution to this problem. You will know instantly and with complete certainty that you have the solution when you find it. There is no question or debate.

Back to chess. Our readers have been having a lot of, let us say, fun with John Nunn's proof games. "Proof Problem #6 was pretty tough," writes Richard Ashwell of Aurora, IL. "Any harder and I am gonna have to ask the wife for some extra chess time!" Stuart Wilson of Woy Woy, Australia, writes: "These problems have been teaching me the true meaning of Christmas – I've never said 'Jesus Christ!' so often before." Steven Monarrez tells us that he tried hard to solve the problems but failed. "I read somewhere about some genius who used to read about problems before he went to bed and let his mind solve them for him while he was asleep. So I looked at proof game three, and that night I 'saw' two black knights changing places. Next morning I put up the pieces on the board and... voila! In less than five minutes I found the solution!! Like Capablanca: I relate these facts for whatever deductions the psychologists may desire to draw!"

Proof game 7: Position after Black’s 8th move

This is another position that will become part of our Puzzle Contest. You do not need to do anything for the moment – except try to solve the problem. On January 1st all the contest positions will be given, and that is when you can start sending in your entries.

Here's an interesting little problem with an idea you may not have seen before.

Dr. Erich Zepler, Die Schwalbe 1929

White to play and mate in four moves

White would like to play 1.Qd6 and threaten 2.Qe7 mate. But unfortunately Black has the defence 1...0-0-0 (remember that in problems castling is always legal unless one can demonstrate that something in the history of the game must have destroyed castling rights). So how does White manage to mate in four?

H. Mattison, Atputa 1930

White to play and win

The problem is that both white bishops are hanging, and 1.Rxd3 Rxe6 is a theoretical draw, as is any R+B vs R that White may have on the board. So how is he supposed to win?

Once again we urge you to leave your computer out of all this – except for the proof games, where the beasties cannot really help. Print out the positions and carry them around with you, bring out a board and try to solve the problems all by yourself.

Frederic Friedel