A tale of seven knights By Ashot Nadanian December 29, 2009
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IM Ashot Nadanian is a professional chess player and coach, originally Armenian, but currently living in Singapore. He is currently rated 2433, and his best single event was the Moscow Aeroflot Open 2002, where his performance against 2628-rated opposition was 2636. He is best known for his contribution to opening theory, with two variations named after him: the Nadanian Variation in the Grünfeld Defence (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.Na4) and the Nadanian Attack in the Queen's Pawn Opening (1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 h6 3.c4 g5).

One of Ashot’s hobbies, which competes with reading books and watching classical piano performances, is chess composition. His first puzzle appeared in 1986, when he was just 14 years old. Since that time he has composed about fifty puzzles and studies, of which he considers only ten or twelve to be good, “in my amateur opinion.” Ashot sent us the following article on his infatuation with knights.

Today I would like to talk about an interesting idea which fascinated me in 2003. I was trying to find a nice zugzwang position in which two white knights are able to win against Black's superior forces. Soon I found the following position:

Here we see a mutual zugzwang: if White is to move first then he loses, but if it is Black's turn, then is it he who will succumb to checkmate on the next move: any black move with g8-knight allows White to mate with Nf6; if Black moves the g6-knight, then White mates on f4; if he moves the f8-bishop then White mates on g7; and finally if Black pushes the f4-pawn White checkmates on g3. Two white knights deliver four different checkmates!

It was not take long before I compose the following puzzle:

Nadanian,Ashot, Shahmatnaya Nedelya 2003

White to play and mate in three

The solution is fairly simple, after you have seen my initial position. The problem was published in a Russian chess magazine. A few months ago I remembered it and decided to return to the idea of the checkmate with two knights and search for something new. As a result, in September 2009, the following study was born:

White to play and win

Once again, since we know the motif with the knights the readers should have no serious problems with this position. Not satisfied and still obsessed with the knight I decided to look for something even more beautiful. And this is what I came up with, in December of this year:

White to play and mate in two

This construction is the apotheosis of my initial idea, and I'm finally satisfied. But for how long?

From a study by Smyslov

All of the problems above pose no problems for computers – which was actually the theme of this year's Christmas puzzles. So here's one, derived from a a study by the seventh World Champion Vassily, who in his later years has remained active in chess composition.

White to play and win

The position was submitted by George Tsavdaris of Thessaloniki, Greece, who writes: "After a long search, a very long search, computers may be able to find the solution to this study." Or maybe not. But humans can certainly help them along...