Chess
By PHILIDOR No. 17L A. LAPIERRE (Themes 64,' 1959) BLACK (7 men)
WHITE (7 men) WHITE to play and mate in two moves; solution next week. (Read the article first.) Solution to No. 170 (Heathcote): R(B 1)—B 7, threat Kt—B 3. This is an example of a 'task' problem—the task here being to supply a different mate against each of the eight possible moves of the Black knight, any move of which defeats the threat by permitting K—Q 5. I leave to readers the pleasure of finding the eight mates for themselves.
Far Out in the Problem World Chess is such an essentially artificial (i.e. civilised) occupation that the objection by players to prob- lems that they are unnatural is delightfully absurd= even stranger, however, is the objection by ortho- dox problemists to non-orthodox problems on similar grounds. It's rather like cannibals debating the propriety of eating one's deceased wife's sister; having accepted the major premise, the only question now relevant is 'does it suit your taste?'
In orthodox problems, the basic convention is that the position must be possible (however improbable) starting from the initial game position, with a sub- sidiary dictum that one should not have additional pieces on the board such as two bishops of the same colour. The (sensible) arguments for and against such restrictions are much the same as those for and against, say, the classical unities of time, place and action in a play; without rules of some kind no art or game is possible—with too re- strictive rules the range of expression is needlessly limited.
Non-orthodox problems extend the field in many ways. To quote a few (a) New aims instead of mate--e.g., stalemate, self-mate (forcing the oppon- ent to mate), help-mate (co-operating with the opponent to produce mate); (b) New pieces: e.g. pieces combining moves of bishop and knight or rook and knight and various kinds of 'leapers,' pieces that jump other men and land on the other side. T. R. Dawson, the high priest of the unorthodox, actually invented a range of pieces called Neutrals which belonged to both players; when it was your turn to move you could treat a Neutral as your own or the enemy's as you chose. (c) New rules: e.g. 'maximummers' where a player must make his geometrically longest move (these give some lovely problems) or 'reflex play,' where a player must (a reflex action) mate on the move if he' can---used in self-mate problems.
One type--orthodox, but on the borders of non-
orthodox—is the retro-analysis problem. Assume the conditions of orthodox problems, viz. that a position must be legal, and you can sometimes make deductions about past play which indicate whether castling or en passant capture are possible. This week's problem uses such an idea. The con- ditions of the problem (please note that these mean exactly what they say, no more and no less) are: (a) The position is legal; (b) Either player when it is his turn to move may castle unless it can be proved that castling is illegal. Chess-playing lawyers are best equipped to find the solution.
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