ChessBase Chrismas Puzzles 2014 – solutions

ChessBase Chrismas Puzzles 2014 – solutions

December 25	December 26	December 27	December 28
December 29	December 30	December 31	January 1

December 25, 2014: ChessBase Christmas Puzzle 2000

No solution given – but you can consult the feedback we received in fourteen years ago for hints

December 26, 2014: from ChessBase Christmas Puzzles 2001

Here is a very famous game, or rather a small extract of it. The replay board only shows the moves of the black knight in the course of the game, as does the diagram on the right. This knight was absolutely decisive. It tore into the white position, creating mayhem and winning the encounter for Black. Your task is to identify the game and the players. It is one of the best-known games in chess history.

Solution: The knight moves occurred in a very famous game, often referred to as the "Game of the Century", that was played by the 13-year-old Bobby Fischer at the Rosenwald Tournament, New York 1956.You can read an extensive tribute to the game here.

The deadly knight

Chess studies are often profound, subtle or instructive. But some are just plain fun. Here's an example in which you can do what you probably often dreamed of in your regular club games. Go for it, have a ball!

J. Mendheim, Berlin 1932

White to play and win

December 27, 2014: from ChessBase Christmas Puzzles 2001

The depth of Kasparian's ideas and the artistry of execution has never been surpassed. Of the 400 studies that we have by this great composer around 300 received prizes and awards. He was a Grandmaster for Study Composition and six-time Champion for study composition in the USSR. Here is my all-time favourite Kasparian study:

Genrikh Kasparian, Shakhmaty v SSSR 1935

White to play and win

Samuel Loyd, New York Albion 1857

White to play and mate in three moves

Sam Loyd's biographer, A. C. White, calls the following "one of the world's most famous problems". Loyd, who published the problem before he had turned 16, referred to it as "a neat little position". You need a tiny bit of lateral thinking in order to solve it. Solution: 1.Rf4 Kxg3 (or 1...Kxh1 2.Kf2 Kh2 3.Rh4#) 2.0-0, This is the move that people tend to overlook – the cleverly hidden option of castling! 2...Kh3 3.R1f3# 1-0.

The Shinkman problem is a beautiful, almost architectual position. Another great composer, Werner Speckmann, mused that "one might think the the rules of the present-day game of chess had been especially invented to produce this problem". Unfortunately a second solution (or "cook") was later found. But for once this does not seem to have destroyed immortality of the problem. When you find the solution that the author originally intended you will immediately recognise its beauty. The cook is ugly and convoluted.

W. A. Shinkman, St. Louis Globe Democrat 1887

White to play and mate in eight

Incidentally Shinkman originally intended the position as a retro-analytical exercise, not a classical mate problem. The question was how can one achieve the above position in a normal game of chess, only executing legal moves. It can be reached in 34 moves from the initial position. Naturally both sides must cooperate to achieve the goal. This task is only for experienced problem experts.

December 28, 2014: from ChessBase Christmas Puzzles 2001

Raymond Smullyan, Manchester Guardian 1957

In the above position White has just removed his king from the board.
From which square, and what were the last two moves?

Solution: above is the position with which everything started. Now the moves 1.c4 bxc3+ 2.Kxc3+ leads to the position in the puzzle diagram, with the white king inserted on the correct square: c3.

– The solutions to the December 29–31 studies and puzzles will be given shortly –