# Champion, with a smirk

The answer to this puzzle is a 16-letter sentence. Good luck!

Text version of the letter grids:

 ERETILUI UEUSTIRE BIRACACL
ITURERRQ RNQTRANI RLERECBI
SQETQAIP QSIEUSEQ ECRLAECL
ALTULUEI ARIRTSIA ABLIBCIB
NEIQEATL UTQNEANU RBEKKERC
CAQLALRC SSIRNSUT NKTARUIT
NEUTIUQA QNTKPLRI IRCNSKCL
ARURATLI ASULQMAU ICAKRCAE

RHRPEDPR YOLPEHNH AIMRIRTP
SEPSDSHH LNGGHOLY EORIONGR
REPRSDDS XGLHLNOX GTENMEOI
PEHERHSH EYXWXAGP TNMENOTE
FIATKTOA UHNLGLWW MORIMOEN
PSREPSHD WGXYOYGO OEGRGMNG
RDRSREHR EOHWLOLX IMNTOTRM
DEDSHSRE UNGEWNOI UTRITNTU

• Do you happen to have a text version of the letter grids? – Deusovi Apr 20 at 13:48
• No, I don't. But I can fix that. Will not be online for a while though. So will have to do it later then. – Prim3numbah Apr 20 at 13:56
• I can't for the life of me figure out a way to find a starting position. There's one game especially suited for this kind of grid and those correct squares, but in that game, the previous position cannot be uniquely determined from the current position on the grid, so I guess I'll just have to wait and see if someone can figure this out. – Bass Apr 23 at 19:27
• @Bass Your wish is my command ;-) In all honesty, your remark here about a 'game' suddenly helped me make sense of the 'odd ones out' I had previously found (and got totally stuck thinking about), so thank you for providing the spark! – Stiv Apr 23 at 21:10

The first thing to do is work out what shape each diagram represents. Across each row, these are in turn:

EQUILATERAL TRIANGLE, UNIT SQUARE, BLACK CIRCLE,
RED SPHERE, YELLOW HEXAGON, GREEN TETROMINO.

Next:

Highlight the cells in each grid which contain letters that do not appear in the name of the corresponding shape:

What do we now have? The highlighted cells on these 8x8 grids of squares:

Are the squares on a chessboard that represent the furthest a chess piece can (theoretically) move from its starting position! We can see this more clearly by highlighting the start positions for the pieces in question (thereby fulfilling the enigmatic Step 1 of the puzzle instructions):

Now, we have identified 16 letters of interest - the same number as the number of "+/-" commands in Step 2 of the puzzle instructions. What we must do next, therefore, is:

Augment the letters in our 16 yellow squares by the number of alphabet positions indicated in the command list, like so:

U-18, T-18, Q-12, C+0, A+10, R-5, D-3, R+2, S-14, R+1, E+4, H+10, R-9, E+18, U-12, U-7

...which then spells out the message we seek (punctuation added)...

CHECKMATE, SIR - I WIN! - a remark fit for a gloating 'champion, with a smirk', as per the title!

• Well done! I was thinking of adding a suitable hint, guess I don't need to now :) – Prim3numbah Apr 24 at 5:56