Tag Archives: logical chess

The World’s Most Nearly Impossible Chess Puzzles

Filed under General Chess
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1st Puzzle

puzzle1
This puzzle was devised by Dr. Karl Fabel and published in 1949 in “T.R.D.’s Diamond Jubilee” issue of the Fairy Chess Review.

WHITE TO PLAY AND MATE IN SIXTY.

Fen Position

For those of you who are interested in analyzing the position with their favorite chess program here is the FEN Position, you can simply copy it and paste it in Chessbase or you could simple save it in a .Fen file and load it as FEN.

8/4K3/4NN2/p3p3/rnp1p3/1pk5/bp1n4/qrb1N3 w – – 0 1

2nd Puzzle

puzzle2
This chess puzzle by C. S. Kipping was published in the Manchester City News in 1911.

WHITE TO PLAY AND MATE IN THREE.

Fen Position

Compared to the last one this is pretty easy but rather baffling how White goes on with the next few moves, by the way this puzzle is for fun.

k7/8/N1N5/3B4/K7/8/4p1r1/8 w – – 0 1

3rd Puzzle

puzzle3
This puzzle was composed by Hans August and Dr. Karl Fabel, and was published in 1949 in Romana de Sah.

WHITE HAS JUST MADE HIS SEVENTEENTH MOVE. WHAT WAS BLACK’S NINTH MOVE, AND WHAT WERE THE MOVES THAT FOLLOWED IT?

Fen Position

Although you will not need the FEN for this one, I will post it just in case you want to try out something ODD.

2bqkb2/1pppppp1/8/8/N5P1/p3QPR1/PPP1PKPN/R1BQ1B1b b – – 0 1

4th Puzzle

puzzle4

This puzzle is based on a theme by W. A. Shinkman, and the mate-in-three was first solved by Sam Loyd. The puzzle above was published in the Leeds Mercury Supplement in 1895.

WHITE TO PLAY AND MATE IN THREE.

Fen Position

Another easy one but I know there are some who would like to get their engines started and see if the engine can solve but the best way to solve these puzzles is to think and take time, that is how you will enjoy it the most.

8/8/8/8/7k/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQ – 0 1

5th Puzzle

puzzle4

Similar to the 4th puzzle but this time the question changes a little bit.

WHITE TO PLAY AND MATE IN THREE. CONSTRUCT A GAME THAT WILL LEAVE THE POSITION SHOWN ABOVE AFTER BLACK’S SIXTEENTH MOVE.

Fen Position

8/8/8/8/7k/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQ – 0 1

There you go, 5 brainteasers to work on your chess skills. Now to the answers, I will not post it until next few weeks, I will let everyone give these a try and leave their answers in the comment section. This will also start a good conversation. There are thousands of visitors every day at MyChessBlog it would be great if visitors leave comment that will give me some motivation to write more posts as well. It looks sad that not many of my posts get comments after 1000-2000 views.

Get your thinking caps on and start solving the puzzles. I highly recommend you solve the Mating problems by yourself before going for the Chess Program.