Questions tagged [chess]
A puzzle related to chess, a two-player board game with white and black pieces of varying ranks.
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Chess with jumping
Puzzle Statement:
Consider the game of chess, but with a slight modification of the rules as follows: all heavy pieces (i.e., the queens and rooks) are allowed to jump as far across the board as they ...
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16 queens puzzle
Can you place 8 white queens and 8 black queens on an 8x8 grid, such that no two queens of the same colour occupy the same row, column or diagonal?
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Chess 960 and Castling #2
For how many Chess 960 starting position you can play into a position such that the game requires castling?
Again for "standard" chess, this is impossible(§): You must let a bishop out, but ...
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Chess 960 and Castling #1
You are given a Chess960 starting position, but you don't know it is actually the starting position (the knights and maybe other pieces moved around). For which of the Chess960 starting positions you ...
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Poison ivy chess: Can the king get to safety?
The king is on a chessboard filled with poison ivy bushes. Can the king get to safety?
Details:
The king is initially located at the top left-hand corner square of the chessboard.
The finite ...
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Permuting officers during a Chess960 game
There are... let me see... ah yes 960 different possible starting positions in Chess960.
Suppose the players never move a pawn, or make a capture, but simply move their officers so that eventually ...
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Moving a knight to a new square each turn: who wins?
Alice and Bob are playing a game. Alice starts by placing a knight on the chessboard. Then they take turns moving the knight to a new square (standard chess rules apply: the knight moves in an "L&...
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Gravity Chess - Slipping Through the Cracks
Chess Mate Attack is a mobile puzzle game released earlier this year. Each of its 90 (at time of writing) levels follows the same basic principles:
Play takes place on an $m×n$ chessboard, whose ...
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Scholar's mate with queen excluder
The queen excluder is a type of barrier used in beehives which lets through small worker bees but not the larger queen bee. Extending this simple but powerful concept into the chess world, let's ...
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5 chess pieces dominating a 5x5 grid
This is a puzzle based on work by Rodolfo Kurchan.
Can you place a pawn, a knight, a bishop, a rook and a king on a 5x5 chess grid, such that every empty cell is attacked by at least one piece? Note ...
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A look at the rooks
Let's book a look and figure out the rooks from the mooks.
Which ones are the original kings' rooks?
This was composed by Boris M. Klementjew and published in Shakhmatnaya Kompozitsiya 15, page 60, ...
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How many moves to reach this position?
I was recently introduced to this lovely mate in 1 puzzle. It’s best when shown on a physical chess board. But what is the smallest number of moves it would take to reach this position?
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What did I do wrong?
My friend and I were bored so we decided to play a game of chess. I lost, for I have done something bad. I was a beginner, so I could not find where I went wrong.
I wanted to know what was wrong, so I ...
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Kingly Laziness
What is the minimum effort the White king must put into arriving at this destination? His Majesty is not feeling productive today.
This position was composed by Gianni Donati and published in Phénix ...
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Ma Drasi and her kitchen in need of paralyzation
I visited Ma Drasi's kitchen today, and it was a hot mess, both temperamental and situation-wise. The rooks were rattling, cooks were crying, snooks were shattering, and crooks were flying and defying!...
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A balanced banquet
As your king's fitness adviser you have been tasked with optimising His Majesty's diet. This entails making sure that the king eats equal amounts of carbs (rooks), fat (bishops) and protein (knights). ...
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Chess 960 playing aliens abducted me
Is there a SE law against packing a puzzle into a silly story? :-)
Reference Some words QAT found for unique Chess960 positions
So, it was night, I was walking home from a tourney, and a veeblefetzer ...
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The Biggest Chess Blunder
Everyone knows that sinking feeling when you blunder your queen in one move, but it could be worse.
In the position above, Black plays Nf7. This blunders a knight in one move, as well as a bishop-...
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The best scoring REVOLVER
The initial setup a chess game creates this layout:
P P P P P P P P
R N B Q K B N R
If we change the symbol each piece is represented by, something interesting ...
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Black to move. Find all possible #-1
In the middle of researching a new chess AI by pitting bots against each other, the researchers notice the below position just before Black wins on the next move.
They are confounded for a minute ...
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What's the most distant chess position?
It's well known that the combinatorial explosion means that there are many, many, possible chess games. And yet most games are decided within 100 moves, and Wikipedia says that the longest tournament ...
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Rolling cube on an infinite chessboard
Imagine a six-sided die, D6, the right size to exactly occupy a square on a chessboard.
The die can move to any adjacent square, but does so by rolling rather than sliding, so the topmost side of the ...
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A Queen and her Pawns
Place a queen and as many pawns as possible on a chessboard so that the queen has just one way of capturing all the pawns in precisely as many moves as there are pawns. Pawns do not move and do not ...
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A position where both sides have no moves at all, not even to put yourself in check
Inspired by this: No moves at all, not even to put yourself in check
Similar to the question linked above, find an arrangement using the fewest chess pieces (total from both sides), except for this ...
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From white to black
This puzzle is part of the Monthly Topic Challenge #7: Board games.
Place a knight on each of the white squares on the 8x8 chessboard. That would make a total of 32 knights.
Is it possible to use a ...
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Sixty-three knights on a chessboard
This puzzle is part of the Monthly Topic Challenge #7: Board games.
If we're using rooks, then this would be equivalent to a classic "fifteen puzzle" though on a larger grid. This time we'...
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Hippos and Horseplay
This is part 5 of the puzzle series Around the World in Many Days. Each part is solvable on its own.
Deаr Puzzling,
This time you are going to need some of your chess knowledge. Not a lot of chess ...
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Bow or lazy checkmate?
Suppose that both players cooperate, find the shortest, in terms of number of moves, black checkmate such that the game is valid and white pieces never go on rows 4 to 8.
e.g. ...
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Need help with old cipher
I found a "drawing" in a 60 year old notebook of my grandfather and I am trying to solve it. First I thought it was the "Drunken bishop algorithm" but then I found out that this ...
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Laziest Checkmate
Consider a game of chess where White delivers checkmate in their $X^{th}$ move. For all the pieces that remain on the board at the end of the game, consider their Manhattan Distances from their ...
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The longest shortest sequence of series moves
Being inspired, I concoct a question. It starts from a set chess board with only the White pieces. Chess problems in which only one side moves are called seriesmovers.
What is the longest shortest ...
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Knight of the Isles
Today the Knight of the Isles must cross the archipelago to get to the castle.
The knight is at the bottom left, the castle at the top right. The green squares are islands of grass, the blue squares ...
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An overconfident grandmaster 2
The same grandmaster from An overconfident grandmaster decides to avenge his loss and prepares for rematch. He ends up in a winning position once again. He decided to place a bet again. He gives the ...
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What is the shortest chess game with 30 distinct captures (PxP, PxN, PxR, etc...)?
Progress So Far
So far, the shortest known solution takes 87 turns (9 turns from optimal), and was found by Retudin.
Progress over time:
Date
Moves
Found by
2022-09-29
87
Retudin
(initial)
97
...
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A chessboard divided into four quadrants
Consider the following chessboard:
Divide it into four quadrants as shown:
First quadrant is renamed as the Rook's quadrant.
Second quadrant is renamed as the Bishop's quadrant.
Third quadrant is ...
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Find this Mate in 1
This position was from one of my online games on Chess.com. I had the white pieces and was very close to victory. However, I couldn't find the mate in 1 as stockfish did.
Where on earth was the mate ...
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Double chess stalemate with 60 units
Inspired by Symmetrical Chess Position With No Legal Moves
Can you arrange on a chessboard 18 kings, 6 rooks and 6 bishops of each colour (i.e. 60 units, leaving 4 empty squares) so that neither side ...
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Chess lead change
Given the following Chess piece relative values and such that both players cooperate, what is the fastest way such that White first has an advantage of at least +10 piece value then secondly, Blacks ...
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Are there Stars on the Knight Sky?
If you watched the Queen's Gambit you'll know that there are lots of upside-down chess boards all over the world's ceilings. If not just take my word for it. The same is true of the actual sky only ...
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Pawn Or Bust, Save The Game
Catastrophe! During a last-minute mad scramble, a White pawn was struck off the board into oblivion. Neither player can remember where to place it. The piece count is looking bad for Black. ...
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Checkmate N Kings with M Knights Perfectly
We have this Existing Puzzle which has got the valid and invalid cases listed ; the Accepted Answer is along the lines of what is invalid and what is valid.
But there was a flaw or fault in the Puzzle ...
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Reconstructing the Candidates Tournament 2018
The Candidates Tournament 2018 was an eight-player double round-robin chess tournament, which was held in Berlin, Germany, between 10–28 March 2018. The winner, Fabiano Caruana, earned the right to ...
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Checkmate N Kings with M Knights
There are N White Kings on the Chess Board.
There are M Black Knights.
There is no Black King and no other Piece. Only M+N Squares are occupied.
Each White King is attacked by atleast 1 Black Knight, ...
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Symmetrical Chess Position With No Legal Moves
Your task is to set up a symmetrical (both vertically and horizontally) position on the first 7 ranks of a chess board that meet all of the criteria below.
For this puzzle, there is no eighth rank. It ...
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The Pawn March Problem
The Pawn March Problem is something I just came up with, and I thought it was interesting enough to share.
White has a line of $n$ pawns on an infinite chess board, all on rank 0 (negative positions ...
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Checkmate 30 kings with rooks
Using only kings, and as few rooks as possible, set up a position where 30 of black's kings are checkmated.
Checkmate:
The king is in check
The king has no moves out of check
Black only has kings, ...
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The Rook's Hassle
Long ago, the Black rook was trapped, stuck on c4, sapped and sacked. Let us unwind its snarly woes, and stop the clock. Turn back the flow, find out how long ago, to the original dock.
How many moves ...
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The Ultimate Chess Strategy
I’ve been trying to learn chess so I was googling chess strategies. When I saw an ad for “The Ultimate Chess Strategy,” I instantly followed it and put in my credit card number. A few days later I ...
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Helpmate part 2
This is the second part of Fastest way to helpmate
You have been given the task to checkmate/helpmate black in fastest possible way in following ways:
Pawn promoting to only queen
Pawn promoting to ...
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Fastest way to helpmate
What is the fastest way to checkmate/helpmate white(A helpmate is a type of chess problem in which both sides cooperate in order to achieve the goal of checkmating Black/White) in this given position? ...
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