Chess Puzzles: Imagination Breeds Creativity
By GM Lubomir Kavalek
Some years ago, I saw an interesting position in which only two pieces - queen
and bishop - staged a successful attack on the black king. It was published
in 1750 by Dominico Ercole del Rio, a lawyer from the Italian town of Modena,
in his 110-page book on chess. As the title Sopra il giuoco degli scacchi
osservazioni pratiche d'anonimo autore Modenese suggests, he was pretending
to be an anonymous Modenese author.
Dominico Ercole del Rio, Modena 1750
White wins
A few years later I saw a chess study in which del Rio's idea blossomed fully.
The author was Noam D. Elkies and it was published in Chess Life in 1985.
Noam D. Elkies, Chess Life 1985
White wins
At that time, the 19-year-old Elkies had his brilliant career in mathematics
ahead of him. At age 26, he became the youngest full professor at the Harvard
University, surpassing by two years the record previously held by president
Barak Obama's chief economic adviser, Lawrence Summers, and the law professor
Alan Dershowitz. Exceling in music and chess compositions, Elkies also won the
1996 Individual World Chess Solving Championship.
At 44, he still likes to challenge himself. He saw Ladislav Prokes's work in
which the white queen chases the black king counter clockwise around the board.
By moving the black pawn from d7 to h5 and removing the pawn on g7 from the
original work, Elkies was able to swing the windmill in an opposite direction
as well:
Note that in the replay windows below you can click on the notation to
follow the game.
Original
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