Pal Benko's Christmas problems

by Frederic Friedel
12/25/2017 – Every year Pal Benko, grandmaster, former World Championship candidate, and one of the best problem composers in the world, sends our readers very special seasonal greetings. They come in the form of chess problems in which the pieces represent figures – this time a Christmas tree and candles. It is the start of our Christmas puzzle week, which we bring you for the eighteenth year in succession. Prepare for puzzles that cannot be easily solved with a computer, tasks which require you to think all by yourself. And a nostalgic look to the past.
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Christmas with Pal Benko

We join Pal in wishing our readers a very Happy Christmas and joy in chess and life in general.

In the following diagrams you can move pieces to try out your ideas. We wish you a lot of fun.

 
Mate in three moves
 
Mate in two moves
 
Mate in three moves
 
Mate in three moves
 
Mate in three moves
 
Mate in four moves
 
Mate in four moves

You can move the pieces on the boards above. Solutions will be posted here in a few days.

Editor-in-Chief emeritus of the ChessBase News page. Studied Philosophy and Linguistics at the University of Hamburg and Oxford, graduating with a thesis on speech act theory and moral language. He started a university career but switched to science journalism, producing documentaries for German TV. In 1986 he co-founded ChessBase.

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