Chess
By PHILIDOR No. 132. DR. 0. T. BLATHY' (VielzOgige Schachaufgaben, 1890)
BLACK (12 men) WHITE (8 men) WHITE to play and mate in one hundred and two moves: solution (given space and time) next week. Solution to last week's problem by Larsen: 1 B-Q 5. A. 1 . . . P-B 6; 2 B x R, P-B 7 mate. B. 1 . . . K-B 6; 2 Q-. K2, R-R 8 mate. On the whole, self-mate problems are rather more limited in scope than ordinary problems, but they make an interesting change once in a while.
ARS LONGA VITA BREVIS Yes, mate in 102 moves, and no harder than the ordinary mate in two moves if you are not paralysed with alarm. Long problems of this type all work on the same principle: (a) You reach a position in which if only it were Black to move instead of White, there would be a quick mate; (b), there is then a mechanism for losing a move—usually a king manoeuvre; (c) Black is then provided with a large number of spare pawn moves which he is compelled gradually to use up by constant repetition of (b) by White; (d) When the spare moves have all gone, Black is rapidly mated. With this plan of campaign to guide them, solvers should not find this problem too hard.
It is by no means the longest known; using a 10x 10 board, J. N. Babson composed a mate in 1,900 moves —cooked by an undaunted solver in 1,896 moves! I think 1,000 moves has been reached on the normal board. The whole field of what one might call maximal and minimal constructional tasks (longest, shortest, most, least, biggest, smallest ... problems) is fascinat- ing, and some amazing feats have been performed. For example, there is a class of problem in which one
has by analysing the position to discover what it must have been one, two, three ... moves ago; J. Sunyer in 1928 produced a position from which it was possible to deduce the exact position 53 moves previously (i.e., 26 moves by one player, 27 by another). Positions involving minimum and maximum number of moves are another type, e.g. (1) Minimum: (a) 32 men in a legal position with only two moves possible (Dawson, 1923); (b) ditto with only one piece able to move (Fielder, 1938); (c) 30 men, legal position, no move for either side (Reichelm, 1882); (2) Maximum: (a) Legal position, no promoted men, no promotion moves, 178 moves (Dawson); (b) Ditto, but allowing promotion moves, 220 moves; (c) Ditto, but allowing promoted men as well, 312 moves. There are also strange tasks like 'construct a legal position with the maximum number of consecutive discovered checks (each side checking in turn)': 0. Stocchi (1930) his a position permitting 11 consecutive discovered checks.
I have only 'touched on a fraction of the problems and tasks that exist in this strange world of chess fantasy: in case any readers try their hand at some of them, on page 881 the positions referred to in the previous paragraph are given. Notation used is 'Forsyth,' which describes board line by line starting at top left-hand corner (Black Q R 1); 2b 3 K 1, for example, means 'two empty squares, black bishop, three empty, White king, one empty'—small letters being Black and capitals White pieces.
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