Artists, Masons and Chessboards.
By on 13 Jun 26 08:41
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Rain. To escape it I ducked into an art gallery and bumped into this.
Chess on a 12 by 12 board, or is it, the squares are all over the place.
This ruined my day. What is it with these artistic types? Why do they
have mess about so much. Can they not do anything right. How hard is it
to paint a proper chessboard. I wish I had stayed outside and got myself wet.
Onto a book I’ve been strolling through; ‘Social Chess’ by James Mason.
Note the 7 x 7 chessboard on the cover. (which I only noticed a few days ago)
I was now convinced I was mixed up in some kind of a chessboard conspiracy.
Chessboards all over the world are changing into everything but an 8 x 8 board.
So I went around my house counting all the squares on the chessboards I own.
Here are just some of them. Everything is O. K. all the boards are 8 x 8
Then a day later I come home and my visiting granddaughter tells me she
have bought me a present, a coaster, and has put it next to my chessboard...
Arghhhhhh!!
I cannot remember where I got the first one from. I saw it somewhere when I
was plodding and hopping around on the net. White play and mate in three moves.
.
Easy enough to remember when setting it up. I solved it....eventually.
Defence one
Defence two
The next puzzle gives me a good excuse to use ‘Chess Coincidence No. 156’
This was a White to play puzzle giving at chessgames.com on Monday 8th June.
K. M. McDonald - B. M. Leandro USA 2026
White played 71. Qd3+ Qxd3 stalemate.
On the same day about 6,000 miles away this happened.
H. Niemann - S. Vokhidov, Uzbekistan 8th June 2026.
Black to play. (and you have had a good clue)
This next one is by Selesniev (1935) I picked it up from Edward Winter’s site.
It has an amusing back story. White to play and win.
Back to ‘Social Chess’ and it’s 7 x 7 chess board. This note appears on page 95.
I had better decipher that for most of you. It is a note in old descriptive notation
informing us that a trap in the game under investigation has been sprung before.
When I saw the note my first thought was I bet someone here has fallen for it.
Normally I am right, you lot rarely let me down with a modern version of an
ancient trap. But no. As yet, no RHP Player has fallen for it. I am so disappointed.
Get out there and give me some 9.Nd5’s to set up the mate suggested in ‘Social Chess.’
I have 100’s of Red Hot Pawn Anastasia Mates. Here is a disastrous one from this year.
mig21 - bohemia51 RHP 2026 (Black to play)
31...Nc2+ and 32...Nxa1 looks good but Black played 31....Qg4 and White played....
The thread accompanying this blog is Thread 205635
