The World’s Most Nearly Impossible Chess Puzzles

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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.

18 Comments

  1. Raut says:

    post the answer for the puzzle #1 i tried to analyze the position with fritz and it shows no matting pattern at all instead it shows black as winning

  2. cestkoica says:

    You should post the answers so we can look into to see if we are correct or wrong.

  3. Jean-Guy says:

    The #2 puzzle is a joke just move the king to the checking square and then the white knight moves and it is pretty much mate in 3 and i didnt use chess program for that, i m being honest.

  4. Abdul says:

    My answer for 2nd puzzle..

    Qa5 and black has to queen which will be e2=Q+ and then knight covers the square

  5. Abdul says:

    4th puzzle i think d4 should do the trick stopping the king to get away?

  6. mark seoul says:

    how in the world you are supposed to solve the last puzzle, i can get the mate but what is up with the next question for last puzzle anyone got it so far?

  7. chessplayer says:

    Hey can you post the answers please, I am stuck with the 1st and last.

  8. tiger says:

    I will appreciate if the answer to the first puzzle is put forward, been getting crazy trying to solve that one.

  9. GambitQueen says:

    the puzzles are rather logic questions more than chess puzzles but still gets the brain thinking, i will post my solutions if i solve any.

  10. ChessTeacher says:

    No answers yet?

  11. marko says:

    plzz put the answer for first puzzle, rybka shows black is winning how white can mate in 60?

  12. Rishi Mansoor says:

    My friend it would be great if I can get some hints for the 1st puzzle!

  13. Jay says:

    I gave up!!! give me the answers to my mail

  14. Connell says:

    I am asking the owner of this blog to put answer or some hints for the first puzzle so far nobody has been able to solve that one. I asked my teacher who happens to be a FM.

  15. Formula 1 says:

    LoL 5th puzzle is out of this world PERIOD

  16. Formula 1 says:

    publish the answers man u r driving me crazy lol

  17. I am a rookie in Chess and after reading these puzzles I am going mad !!

  18. anon says:

    Hey, I recognize these. All of these puzzles came from the same puzzle book (which is not even about chess). Hmmmmm…..

    Puzzle 1 is easier than it looks. Note that black really doesn’t have many legal moves — and if he moves one of his knights, it’s checkmate in one, as long as white isn’t in check and white has left all of his knights in their original squares.


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