Sorry, can I just check one thing, as I am not sure of the conventions in puzzles like this.
Is the aim to find a starting position from where, six ply later, we end up in the position shown, and where all Black's moves are forced.
Secondly, how do I do a hidey thingy, in the hugely unlikely event that I have an idea how to solve this?
Originally posted by Rank outsiderYeah, that's the aim. The composer has seen to it that there is only one such starting position.
Sorry, can I just check one thing, as I am not sure of the conventions in puzzles like this.
Is the aim to find a starting position from where, six ply later, we end up in the position shown, and where all Black's moves are forced.
Secondly, how do I do a hidey thingy, in the hugely unlikely event that I have an idea how to solve this?
You can do the hidey thing with [ hidden ] [ /hidden ] tags.
Originally posted by SwissGambitWhat other commands can you do?
Yeah, that's the aim. The composer has seen to it that there is only one such starting position.
You can do the hidey thing with [ hidden ] [ /hidden ] tags.
[hidden]See?[/hidden]
bold ?
italics?
The
Originally posted by paulbuchmanfromficsFAQ
What other commands can you do?
bold ?
italics?
The [hidden]hidden![/hidden] thing is cool, but I am always wondering about the other [ ] commands.
Let's do this one move at a time!
It's obviously Black's move, because he is in check.
White's bishop is giving check. It can't have just moved to a1 as otherwise Black would have been in check. So White's last move must have been uncovering the check from the bishop.
The piece which moved to give discovered check can't have been one of the queens, because they give check along diagonals as well or the bishop on h7, because that's a white-squared bishop, or the king, because that's too far away from the a1-e5 diagonal. So if must have been the pawn. So White's last move was moving that pawn.
The pawn can't have come from e5, because Black would have been in check, so it must have taken something on e6 (i.e. it started on d5 or f5).
The thing that the pawn took must have been a pawn on e5 (en passant), otherwise Black would have been in check from the a1 bishop.
So White's last move was either d5xe6 e.p. or f5xe6 e.p. Let's leave which one it was as undecided for now.
Black's move before was clearly e7-e5.
White's move before that must also have been a discovered check for the same reason as his last move was. The only thing which could have moved to give discovered check is a pawn on d4. So that clears up whether it was d5xe6 or f5xe6.
So, the last few moves were:
Now, Black's move before this must have been a king move, because his pawn hasn't moved and we know White doesn't capture any Black pieces subsequently apart from the pawn.
If the king came from e5, f5, g5 or g6, it would have been in check from two pieces. Double checks are possible, but not in this position. For example, with Black's king on e5, White can't have played e3xd4 because his queen is on e3.
It looks like this is true if it came from e6 as well, but there is one possibility - if Black was recapturing a white pawn which had itself just captured his f-pawn which had blocked a check!
So, the solution for the last six moves (I had to add a dummy first move for White) is:
Originally posted by Fat LadySOLV'D
Now, Black's move before this must have been a king move, because his pawn hasn't moved and we know White doesn't capture any Black pieces subsequently apart from the pawn.
If the king came from e5, f5, g5 or g6, it would have been in check from two pieces. Double checks are possible, but not in this position. For example, with Black's king on e5, White ...[text shortened]... .
white to play
--------------}
1. Qg4+ f5 2. exf6+ Kxf6 3. d5+ e5 4. dxe6+
[/pgn]
Clever.
But I went down a blind alley. I have seen puzzles where the solution is the board being the other way round from as conventionally presented. So I spent a long time looking at solutions which involving h8B.
Unless you can show me the position cannot be reached with the Board the other way round......
Originally posted by Rank outsiderThe convention is that you don't turn the board around unless you can prove that the position is illegal with the traditional orientation.
Clever.
But I went down a blind alley. I have seen puzzles where the solution is the board being the other way round from as conventionally presented. So I spent a long time looking at solutions which involving h8B.
Unless you can show me the position cannot be reached with the Board the other way round......
Here, if the position is rotated 180°, there are cooks: the last move could have been any of h8=B, g7xQh8=B, etc.
I don't post 'joke' problems without some kind of hint that conventions will be broken. I don't want to cause people to spend hours looking for a conventional solution when there isn't one.