tag: Puzzles - Page 5

Fifteen years of ChessBase Christmas Puzzles

12/27/2014 – For the fifteenth time we end the year with our traditional Christmas puzzles. To celebrate we bring you a retrospective of some of the best puzzles from the early years. Remember some of our readers were not born when we started, for others it may bring back nostalgic memories. Looking back at 2001 today we have added two "retro" problems by Raymond Smullyan.

ChessBase Puzzles: Different Opinions

7/13/2014 – It's a position taken from a genuine historic game – one played exactly a hundred years ago. Four different opinions are quoted, each contradicting the previous one about who is actually winning. We ask our readers: study the position, without a board and pieces and form your own opinion. If you get it right you can give yourself a contortionist's pat on the back. Now with solution.

Benko: Fun problems to celebrate the day

4/4/2014 – Our friend and world famous chess composer GM Pal Benko got into the spirit of the day and sent us three problems to solve. They look deceptively easy, but you must consider the day of publication and not be fooled by the guile of the composer. We will leave you to work things out for a few days, and then give you the answers which may come as a surprise to some. [Now with solutions!]

British problem solving championship – solutions

3/5/2014 – We recently reported on this championship, which was won by our favourite author Dr John Nunn, who selected four highly entertaining problems from the competition for our readers to solve. Today John provides the solutions – annotated in his inimitable clear and precise style. Even if you are not a problem enthusiast you can, with his help, enjoy a very special section of chess.

Nunn wins British problem solving championship

3/2/2014 – It was a battle between GMs and pure problem specialists. The former scored heavily in the chess studies section, but the only three to solve a very difficult helpmate were all problem specialists. The overall winner was GM Dr John Nunn, a frequent contributor to our news page. John has selected some of the problems, which he explains, and describes the course of the event.

ChessBase Christmas prize contest

1/13/2014 – In the last week of 2013, as every year, we celebrated a week of chess puzzles, selected and annotated by GM John Nunn. On January 1st 2014 we asked our readers to start sending in solutions and take part in a solving contest. The closing date for all entries is January 15, 2014, which means that you still have two days to submit your entries. Do it – there are some interesting prizes to win.

A Happy New Year for all our readers

1/1/2014 – Yet another year has started, and as usual it was brought in with fireworks, some more spectacular than any in the past. There were general retrospects – at least one that had us proverbially ROTFL. And a lovely video look back at the year 2013 by Anna Burtasova. And finally you are able to send in solutions to our Christmas Chess Puzzles, with some interesting prizes to win.

Pal Benko: Secrets of Study Composition (2)

12/23/2013 – One of the greatest study composers – as well as a former world championship candidate – is our friend Pal Benko, who never fails to send us a special Christmas gift. This year it was an article that offers unique insight into the process of chess composition. We brought you the first part a week ago. Today it is about breaking the pin and avoiding stalemate. And there is a remarkable study for you to solve.

Looking back at Chennai: WCh solving contest

12/15/2013 – One of the daily attractions of the World Championship in Chennai last November was the problem and study contests that were held in the hotel lobby during every round. Scores of competent, enthusiastic and highly motivated solvers participated. The organiser of the solving contest, C.G.S. Narayanan, kindly sent us a set for our readers to solve. You have 90 minutes to do so.

Joys of Chess – Castling

12/13/2013 – Did you know that until the 17th century castling in chess was two separate moves? Or that today there is a chess magazine devoted entirely to castling? Professor Christian Hesse has devoted a section of his book The Joys of Chess to spectacular instances of castling, including rare positions in which the castling move deserves two or even three exclamation marks.

Chess Problems: Excelsior Again

12/5/2013 – We recently published a very famous chess problem by the great Samuel Loyd, in which a pawn that moves from its original square all the way to promotion to deliver mate. This theme became known as an "Excelsior", and we asked our readers to provide other examples of the theme. Problem expert David Friedgood collected four examples and traces the full history of the Excelsior.

ChessBase Puzzles: Loyd's Steinitz Gambit

11/11/2013 – Last month's "Excelsior problem" by immortal problem composer Samuel Loyd struck a chord with many readers, and we were asked by some to display another famous Loyd problem, one which is mainly an attempt to create the most preposterous solution imaginable. We are asked to find the worst possible move in the position – and this move is the solution!

ChessBase Puzzles: Loyd's Excelsior!

10/26/2013 – Samuel Loyd (1841–1911) was one of the greatest problem composers who ever lived. In 1858, in a joking mood in the Morphy Chess Rooms, he composed a mate problem for his friend Denis Julien. Julien was a problemist who boasted that he could always immediately spot the chess piece that would deliver mate in the main line of a chess problem. Loyd decided to test this claim with a chess problem. It became the prototype for a whole species.

ChessBase Puzzles: a dangerous game

10/9/2013 – Samuel Loyd (1841 – 1911), was an American chess player, chess composer, puzzle author, and recreational mathematician. At his peak he was one of the best players in the country – and number 15 in the world. His chess problems were numerous and famous for their original and interesting themes. In our puzzle collection we have a set that demonstrate this. Now with a prequel by Pal Benkö.
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Puzzles: a thousand-year-old chess problem

9/9/2013 – Chess was invented around 570 A.D. in the north-eastern part of India. The Arabs brought it to Europe in the 9th Century, also introducing the first “mansuba” – middle or endgame puzzles with well-defined tasks. There were often stories and legends surrounding them, one of the best known being “Dilaram’s mate”. We re-narrate this tale and give you one of the oldest recorded chess problems to solve.

The infamous 1999 ChessBase Christmas Puzzle

8/16/2013 – Way back in the previous century – millennium actually – we started publishing a series of puzzles which gained a lot of popularity. They were set in static HTML and could not be incorporated into our new content management system. Rather than have them disappear forever we have decided to revive the best puzzles for our younger readers. We start with the most famous example.

Bo Lindgren – Swedish grandmaster of composition

4/16/2013 – Bo Waldemar Lindgren (1927–2011) was one of the most versatile chess problem composers with awards in many genres. He was, as David Friedgood recalls, a friendly, serious character who had many interests, including science, literature and poetry. He composed around 500 problems and published an anthology in 1978. Here are examples of his creativity, and two problems for you to solve.
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