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A Chaturanga Problem by Bas de Haas. Mate in two moves, following Chaturanga rules.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

Joseph DiMuro wrote on Mon, Oct 21, 2013 12:35 AM UTC:

Note: in this problem, it can be determined that the Black king no longer has his "move-like-a-knight" privilege. Which seems to be essential to the solution; otherwise, White would be moving into check on his second move.

What piece did Black move last? Obviously not a pawn (the pawns haven't moved yet), so he must have moved his king. Moreover, he must have moved his king from e8; all other nearby squares are either occupied or are adjacent to the White King. So Black just moved his king out of check from the pawn on d7; thus, the Black king can no longer move like a knight.

Also, I think this problem is cooked; 1.Gxb7 seems to work just as well. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

-Joseph DiMuro

(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Mon, Oct 21, 2013 05:35 PM UTC:

But if black king moved from e8 and the white king still has the ability to move as a knight, then it was in double check, neither of which can be discovered. This seems impossible to me (correct me if I am wrong), therefore I don't think white king would retain the ability to move like the knight, either. (The other way for the black king to lose the ability to move like a knight is if it had reached d8 from a knight move, but this is also impossible because there is nowhere for it to move from.)

Joseph DiMuro wrote on Tue, Oct 22, 2013 03:19 PM UTC:

Yeah, looks like you're right (and I can't believe I missed that). But if neither king has its knight-move available, then it looks like there's no solution to the problem.

Yeah, this looks like a bad problem all around.

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