And from me, here I am outside my Christmas Stall
You get three balls to knock over the cans and if you do you win a
prize. The cans are of course nailed down so nobody wins nothing.
To get the festivities going we kick off with a chess cartoon.
This piece of jolly chess was composed by Korolkov in 1940
White to play and win. Not part of the quiz just play it out.
First try this. it’s a checkmate in one move.
Checkmate all 10 Black Kings in one move.
This years Christmas Quiz involves something you are all expert at. Helpmates!
What I like about this set of problems is they are fairly easy to set up on
a full sized chess set and going from one puzzle to the next one is simple.
Give them all a try, the composer, C.H. Forsberg has used quite an ingenious
idea. So what is a Helpmate? It is much easier to show one than explain one.
In a Helpmate Black helps White to mate him. (you lot should be good at this.)
This is an example I’ve just made up to help you get the idea of a Helpmate.
Black moves first and helps White mate him in two moves. The solution is...
Now sneak away from your family, by now the in-laws will driving you crazy.
find yourself a quite corner, set up your board and chessmen and get solving.
Every position requires a different solution and as a Christmas Bonus
you get to take onboard a handful of Rook and Knight mating patterns.
Remember Black goes first, Helpmate in two.
Same as above but the pawn is now a Knight. Helpmate in two.
Same as above but the Knight is now a Bishop. Helpmate in two.
Same as above but the Bishop is now a Rook. Helpmate in two.
Same as above but the Rook is now a Queen. Helpmate in two.
Though easy I found this one the hardest to solve. Solutions below
I mentioned Rook and Knight Mating Patterns. The storing
of and recalling Chess Patterns helps us to spot combinations
Grandmasters have thousands of such patterns floating about inside their
mind during a game. Not only does it save valuable time and effort. It
is the chief reason why combinations at that level are very rarely missed.
This piece was prompted by a comment I saw another site regarding a
game from the recent 2016 London Classic, Anand v Vachier - Legrave.
The poster was most impressed that Anand had worked out before playing 4.Bxb7
that after 4...NxB the sad Black Knight could not stop the a-pawn once it got to a6.
Anand worked out nothing. He knew a Knight on b7 when hit by a pawn on a6 can
never get around to covering to a8 in the two moves it takes the pawn to reach a8.
The only piece of calculation required from Vishy Anand was making sure that the
Rook could not get in back time to stop the pawn and that the c3 Bishop covered b8.
Two excellent examples of RHP players using this pattern to wrap up their games.
jh4 - petrovitch RHP 2007
White uses the pattern in question to transpose into a simple won ending.
This next one has the same theme with a new twist well worth knowing.
John McRow - 2advent RHP 2009
Of course it would not be an RHP game without the traditional RHP blunder.
This one is no exception. It appears to me you lot have the Blunder Patterns
stored and can re-produce them at will in any given position. I’m impressed.
To mate all 10 Kings in one move. (composed by Reichhelm)
The answer is 1. Ne5 Checkmate. Checkmate. Checkmate. Checkmate.
Checkmate. Checkmate. Checkmate. Checkmate. Checkmate. Checkmate.
The Helpmate Solutions.
