The Two Knights Defence is one of the oldest opening lines in chess history. This DVD is aimed at players of both sides, giving an objective overview of all relevant theoretical lines.
Once upon a time, there were two brothers (the black and the white pawn) who were spending their life in the kingdom (the chessboard) of their father (the ♔). One of their favourite activities was racing to the eighth row with their fast horses (the ♘ and the ♞). Sometimes the white pawn won with his ♘, on other days the black pawn won with his ♞.
The ♔ approached both of them one day, telling them:
"My dearest sons. I can sense the breath of death coming closer to get me. My life will soon be no more. Only one of you shall inherit my wonderful kingdom with all the beautiful black and white squares. Listen to me carefully:
Now, on your horses and off you go!"
With that, the king sat next to them to watch them jump on their horses and not move a single bit, looking at each other anxiously and baffled.
Can you come up with a solution to get them out of their miserable situation?
To get things clear. Although this is a chess game metaphor, there is no capturing or other chess like things, like a "knight's move" or checking the king. It is just the analogy to carry out the riddle.
So it is best to not attempt anything "chess" related for solving.
Thank you again for the strong participation in the last logic riddle for chess players!
The solution has left some space to be debated, but I personally think it is very logical after all. The original question of "When will the white rooks capture a black rook?" is a bit thin, I agree. Nonetheless, some people could find the solution anyway.
Dumbing the question down to find the answer is key. Instead of thinking about sixteen rooks in total, try to make it the least possible amount, which would be two. If there had been only two rooks, one black and one white, the solution would be pretty straightforward with the white rook knowing, that there can be only one white rook for sure, so he would capture the black rook in the first evening.
There can neither be two black rooks, because the chess player sees a white rook, or two white rooks, because they wouldn't be able to fulfil the task, capturing a black rook.
We can have the same logic working for four rooks and carry on with the same pattern.
If two of the four rooks were white, they would wait two days.
Spinning this up to sixteen rooks on the chess board gives the solution which one of our readers found:
varunkulkarni 4/30/2020 06:25
On the 7th day post 7 pm, every white rook would know that they are a white rook as no one else has spoken on the 7th day at 7pm. So on the 8th day at 7 pm, any white rook can make a move and capture a black rook ?
Correct! After eight days, all of them are absolutely sure and can capture a black rook.
