120
votes
Accepted
97
votes
Accepted
Checkmate in 1 on a Tangled Board
Since the puzzle turned out to be way hairier than expected, my earlier answer got quite messy and hard to follow, so here's a complete rewrite. It's still very clunky, but I hope it's much clearer ...
- 72.4k
86
votes
Accepted
Can White Castle?
Now that we have three increasingly complex proofs (two deleted, one of them mine) that it's impossible, it's pretty clear that it must be
Here's why:
This is, without doubt, the most refreshing ...
- 72.4k
83
votes
Mate in 0 moves
I see Evargalo has found the right answer, but the first thing that occurred to me was
- 2,496
63
votes
Accepted
Can you stop the rambling rook?
If white can ever stay out of check for one turn, then it can promote its pawn and put black in checkmate. So in order to play perfectly, black must attempt to put white in check with every move. In ...
- 6,409
56
votes
Accepted
52
votes
How can 3 queens control the white squares?
I think this arrangement works for the bonus question:
- 1,703
50
votes
Accepted
50
votes
Accepted
Can a chess player promote all pawns to queens?
This 40 move solution on lichess works, and while it may not be the most orderly solution, it is impossible to create a solution in fewer moves since I'm using optimal pawn movement at every step and ...
- 3,835
47
votes
Accepted
The Knight and the Maze
If my Python programming is to be believed, the minimum number of moves required is 41:
- 9,571
47
votes
Accepted
44
votes
Accepted
Chess : The Lone King
Here's a solution:
Here's some of the logic for finding it:
Here's a link to the moves: Clear the board!
And here's a gif (thanks to chess.com's gif maker):
- 22.4k
42
votes
Accepted
Trapping The Knight
I can get the knight trapped in
15 moves:
$$\begin{array} {ccccccccc}
\cdot & \cdot & \cdot & \cdot & 5 & \cdot & \cdot & \cdot & \cdot\\
\cdot & 3 & \cdot &...
- 144k
39
votes
Accepted
39
votes
Accepted
38
votes
Accepted
lolcatz can haz ur infinit cheeseboard
Unless I'm mistaken, the result is
Reading through the wall of text, the rules seemed a bit too complicated for it to be "just some random game", so figuring out the magic seemed ...
- 72.4k
37
votes
Accepted
Black wants to go first!
Proof:
Initially, there are an even number of knights on white squares (namely, there are two of them, at b1 and g8).
Every time a knight moves, the number of knights on white squares either ...
- 31.8k
36
votes
Accepted
Swapping rooks in a 4x4 board
I wrote a computer program and it showed that $18$ moves is the optimum.
Here is one such solution:
Oddly enough, even if you relax the condition of alternating white and black moves, it cannot be ...
- 47.7k
35
votes
Accepted
What was I supposed to do?
Building on samm82's answer, and fixing the French fashion designer answer as Enigma said, you get
As Graylocke observed,
Removing every other letter reveals
i.e. the solution is
Edit: just ...
- 456
34
votes
Two Knights, two Bishops, two Rooks and two Kings on a 4x4 chessboard
I'm not trying to solve the puzzle, I'm just interested in how many solutions there are, since the OP claims he doesn't know. I brute forced it with a program.
There are
First of all, there are ...
- 1,935
34
votes
Accepted
32
votes
Accepted
32
votes
Can White Castle?
(Edit: so this is wrong..)
Brilliant puzzle! The answer is:
[Spoiler alert! Scroll down at your own risk]
We proceed by contradiction. Assume that indeed, White can castle. We have the ...
- 9,842
31
votes
Accepted
A Puzzle That Marches Swiftly To The Median
I think the answer is:
Pawn:
Rook:
Knight:
Bishop:
Queen:
King:
Hidden word:
Title:
- 6,810
30
votes
Accepted
Desegregate the Knights
Give these names to all the squares:
163
4 8
725
Each number can only be accessed by way of the numbers before and after it (where 8 wraps around to 1). That ...
- 144k
30
votes
Accepted
Why isn't this chess puzzle trivial?
This has something to do with the way computers evaluate positions. They will first count the value of each side's pieces (usually: pawn = 1, knight/bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) and then some ...
- 27.4k
30
votes
Accepted
Checkmate 30 kings with rooks
Here's a solution with 11 rooks and 1 king:
kkkRkkRk/2kRkkRk/R1kkkkkk/2k2Rk1/k1k1R1k1/k4Rk1/kRkk3R/kR1kkk1K b - - 0 1
https://lichess.org/editor/kkkRkkRk/2kRkkRk/R1kkkkkk/2k2Rk1/k1k1R1k1/k4Rk1/kRkk3R/...
- 10.8k
29
votes
Accepted
29
votes
Chess solitaire: The King's longest walk
First solution - 50 moves
Second solution - 59 moves
Current solution - 66 moves (beaten by Retudin - 70 moves and Rewan Demontay - 139 moves)
Moves:
- 17.9k
28
votes
Accepted
Can you save white in this chess position?
Cheaty solution
Once upon a time, the rules of chess
With these rules, White can
(The rules were fixed some time ago.)
As for the three questions: perhaps the answers are:
Alternatively:
... Of ...
- 116k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible