Saturday Afternoon Chess/Open Thread 05-21-2016 [OregonMuse]

The Moment When Trigglypuff's Mom Set Her Daughter's Destiny

Chess Thread pic courtesy of @JonasChr88 (by way of long-time moron @ThePoliticalHat), thanks to both.

And speaking of which, one good thing about chess is that the social justice weenies and crybullies haven't tried to ruin it. For sure there are chess players whose politics are far on the kook left way past where the buses run, but even so, nobody has tried to "reinvent" or "reimagine" chess along feminist lines, or promote "homo chess" or whatever they might want to call something like that. I don't know what they could do, make biodegradable chess pieces, I guess.

Even the commies didn't try to ruin chess. They just took it as it was and made it an instrument to promote commie superiority. They may have tried to rig international competitions back in the day, but they didn't change the game itself.

I had heard that the Nazis tried to replace chess with their own strategy game, called 'Taktik' or 'Tactik', something like that. I couldn't find any reference to it online, but the wiki entry for Nazi board games makes for an interesting read, and by 'interesting', I mean kind of disturbing and creepy.

Since chess is all about fighting and attacking and capturing and the like, they'd basically have to build a new game, one based on "feminist" values such as hatred of normal life, whining as a virtue, and vaginal worship cooperative effort, mutually beneficial relationship-building, and emotional healing. Only nobody would want to play it, because it would be boring as hell. Because feminism and fun go together like fishes and bicycles.

White Mates In 1 - Simple

We have two mates-in-1 problems this week. This one I consider the easier one:

FEN: [rnb3r1/pp1pb2p/2pk1nq1/6BQ/8/8/PPP3PP/4RRK1 w - - 0 1]

The first thing I notice about this position is, we're deep in the middle game and holy crap, look at Black's queen's side (upper left corner of the diagram), it's completely undeveloped. So Black is fighting with only half of his army. No wonder he's about to go down.

White Mates In 1 - Trickier

FEN: [1Bb3BN/R2Pk2r/1Q5B/4q2R/2bN4/4Q1BK/1p6/1bq1R1rb w - - 0 1]

This problem was featured in one of the daily Tactics Time e-mails of a few days ago. If you're on the list, you've already seen it.

This is not a position that would ever occur in an actual game. I mean, really, look at it. Black has 4 bishops, and they're all on the same color? Right. There are other improbable piece arrangements, too.

But it makes for a good puzzle. You'd think a mate-in-1 would be easy to find, but this one's a bit tricky. Naturally, I didn't find it. I thought I did at first, but here is what happened:

1. Studied tricky mate-in-1 problem
2. Found the solution
3. Looked up the "official" problem solution to check it against mine
4. Discovered that my solution was different than the "official" solution
5. Stared at problem to try to figure out why my solution failed; failed to find failure
6. Ran my solution through a chess engine app, which made it obvious what my failure was.
7. Cursed wildly and threw a trigglypuff tantrum because I had failed to find the correct solution and also, I had forever spoiled the puzzle for myself.

As in chess, so, too, in real life, move order is often critically important. Here, I should've done step 6 before step 3. If I had, I might have avoided step 7.

Argh.

Anyway, I hope you morons can do better with this problem than I did.

A Chess Tactics Book For Absolute, Rock-Bottom Beginners

I discovered this by accident on Amazon, A very first book on chess tactics: A first step for young beginners by Job Rodrigues:

THIS LITTLE Book was written for you, beginner looking for an easy starting point for your studies on chess.

NO THEORY, Just diagrams with practical tests.

IF YOU Have learned how to play chess last week, this book is for you.

IF YOU Are looking for an easy book for a child, any 10-years old boy is able to read this "diagram-based" book.

You don't even have to know chess notation in order to profit from this book.

Available for cheap on Kindle ($2.99). Also, paperback ($9.99).

Another book just like this one is the more famous Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess by Himself:

This book is essentially a chess teaching machine. The way a teaching machine works is: It asks you a question. If you give the right answer, it goes on to the next question. If you give the wrong answer, it tells you why the answer is wrong and tells you to go back and try again. This is called "programmed learning".

Just to be clear, other than writing a short intro, I don't think Fischer did any actual work on this book other than lend his name to it. But it is a worthwhile book nonetheless. And as with the first book I mentioned, no knowledge of chess notation is required; the book consists of diagrams of simple checkmates.

I read Fischer's book many years ago and I remember thinking "oh come on, these problems are too easy", but I still remember the patterns they taught, even years later, so despite my complaints, I think I must've learned some things that I thought I didn't need to learn.

White To Play And Win

FEN: [r1bq4/1p4kp/3p1n2/5pB1/p1pQ4/8/1P4PP/4RRK1 w - - 0 1]

For this problem, a demonstrated checkmate is not necessary, just show how White can achieve a decisive material or positional advantage.

Swipe the line to the right of these words if you need a hint: Deflect/remove a crucial defender.

Endgame Of The Week

This is an endgame problem that will be tough on you noobs. It's White to play and force a draw:

FEN: [k4K2/8/4P1p1/8/8/8/4b3/8 w - - 0 1]

At at first glance, you'd think there's no way White can draw. White's king will never catch that 'g' pawn, and if he tries to queen his 'e' pawn, Black can drop his bishop back to b5 and prevent that from happening.

If White tries to rush things with an immediate 1.e7, Black responds with 1...Bb5. And if 2.Kg7, then 2...g5, the pawn says 'bye-bye',and White is hosed.

So that's not the way you do it. As the Wicked Witch of the West said to Dorothy as she was trying to figure out how to get her ruby slippers, "these things must be done delllllllll-icately."

If you're playing White, despite what you may see, you can actually finagle a draw out of this position, which will leave Black cursing you and your little dog, too. Good luck finding it.

I will be posting the solution not as a comment, but here as an update, at an appropriate time.

___________

Note: that cryptic line of letters and numbers you see underneath each board diagram is a representation of the position in what is known as "Forsyth-Edwards Notation", or F.E.N. It's actually readable by humans. Most computer applications nowadays can read FEN, so those of you who may want to study the position, you can copy the line of FEN and paste into your chess app and it should automatically recreate the position on its display board.

___________

So that about wraps it up for this week. Chess thread tips, suggestions, bribes, rumors, threats, and insults may be sent to my yahoo address: OregonMuse little-a-in-a-circle yahoo dott com.

[Update]: Here are the solutions to this week's puzzles.

A. Simple Mate in 1: 1.Bf4#. First in with the solution: bensadoo at comment #5

B. Tricky Mate in 1: 1.Qa3#, first found by Connortown at #15.

C. White to play and win: I think jsg at #49 got this first:

1.Re8 is the key move. Now the Queen has to either move or take the Rook, so if 1...Qxe8 then:

2.Qxf6+ Kg8 3. Bh6 Qf7 4. Qd8+ Qf8 5. Qxf8#

My chess app preferred 1...h6 instead of taking the rook, but he'll still lose, just in a different way:

1.Re8 h6 2.Rxd8 hxg5 3.Rxd6 Be6 4.Rxe6 Rf8 5.Rxf5 a3 6.Rxg5+ Kh8
7.Rxf6 Rxf6 8.Qxf6+ Kh7 9.Qg7#

D) Endgame of the week:

Protest Manager, jsb, and blogforce all contributed to the solution.

In order to win, Black must accomplish two tasks:

1. Stop White from queening his 'e' pawn
2. Promote his own 'g' pawn

The problem Black faces is that he doesn't have time to do both. White's main weapon is his king, which needs to be centrally deployed in order to guard against either of Black's courses of action. So the (critical) first move is

1.Ke7! g5

Black decides to run his pawn (goal #2)

2.Kd6 g4

How does White have the time to catch that pawn?

3.e7 Bb5

Black is forced to divert his attention away from his pawn and bring his bishop up to guard e8, the queening square. And now

4.Kc5!

The point. By attacking the bishop, White now gains the time he needs to catch the 'g' pawn.

4...Bd7

Black removes his bishop from harm's way

5. Kd4 Kb7

Black brings his king over to pick off White's pesky 'e' pawn.

6. Ke4 Kc6

Meanwhile, White now closes in on the 'g' pawn.

7. Kf4 Kd6 8. e8=Q Bxe8 9. Kxg4 draw

There are a couple of variations worth looking at. First, let's say that instead of pushing his pawn, Black wants to immediately go after White's advanced pawn. Then it would look like this:

1.Ke7 Bb5 2. Kf6 Bd3

To protect his 'g' pawn. If 2...Be8, then 3.Ke7.

3. e7 Bb5

Back to guarding the queening square.

4. Kxg6 draw

The other variation arises if Black does not bring his King over on move 5, but tries to promote. So:

5. Kd4 g3 6. Ke3 g2 7. Kf2 Bc6

Black tried to protect his asset, but it's to no avail:

8. e8=Q+ Bxe8 9. Kxg2, draw

So, by adroit positioning of his King and the use of his advanced pawn as a threat at the appropriate moment, White is able to force the draw. And this despite his being behind by a bishop.

here is the entire solution without the yammering commentary, the main line is in bold:

1.Ke7 g5
(1...Bb5 2.Kf6 Bd3 3.e7 Bb5 4.Kxg6, draw)
2.Kd6 g4
(2...Bh5 3.Ke5 Kb7 4.e7 Kc7 5.Kf5 g4 6.e8=Q Bxe8 7.Kxg4, draw)
3.e7 Bb5 4.Kc5 Bd7 5.Kd4 Kb7
(5...g3 6.Ke3 g2 7.Kf2 Bc6 8.e8=Q+ Bxe8 9.Kxg2, draw)
6.Ke4 Kc6 7.Kf4 Kd6 8.e8=Q Bxe8 9.Kxg4, draw

posted by Open Blogger at 04:30 PM

| Access Comments