ChessBase Puzzle Contest February 8th, 2004

Solutions

On January 11th we published our annual Christmas Puzzle Contest, with three studies by the great Russian pioneer of chess composition, Alexei Alexeyevich Troitzky, and one amusing puzzle by Dr Niels Hoeg. The replies came in thick and fast, in an unusual pattern. When these things are published we tend to wake up the next morning to find scores of emails, almost all from readers in Australia and Asia. Then come scores from Russians, Eastern and Western Europeans. After that we get the first from South America, then from the US and Canada. Why this specific sequence? One might be tempted to assume it might have something to do with quickness of wit, but there is a more straight-forward explanation. The solution is hidden somewhere in the feedback section at the bottom of this page.

In the following section I have made use mainly of answers sent to me by a few readers. If I haven't used your explanation that does not mean that it was inferior. It may have arrived later, or I may have simply missed it when writing up the solutions. You can have no idea of the deluge of emails these competitions bring. Over the weeks we have archived over a thousand. Although the process of storing and processing these messages has been partially automated, in the end someone has to scan them, message by message, to pick out the jewels. Naturally we will always miss some. The same applies to the letters quoted below. Obviously this is just a very small fraction of all the messages we received. The choice does not reflect our evaluation of the quality of the ones we have quoted (or the lack thereof in the ones omitted). It is a semiautomatic process with an editor trying to keep his attention sharp during many hours of scanning.

But enough about administrative and editorial problems, let us proceed to the solutions to the four problems, and to the very interesting additional material sent to us by one reader. All problems and solutions can be replayed on our JavaScript board given below.

A. A. Troitzky, Deutsche Schachzeitung 1913

White to play and win

Roberto Balzan of "Roma, Italia" explained this problem quite succinctly: The idea is that white a-pawn is going to queen, so the black king must remain in the "promotion square" of this pawn. Note that the brute try 1.a4?? looses after 1...bxa3 2.bxa3 Kg3! and Black mates after h7-h5-h4-h3-h2. So next idea is to play 1.Kxg2? (to avoid being mated) but this also fails after 1...Kg5 2.a4 bxa3 3.bxa3 Kf6! and the black king arrives just in time to stop the 'a' Pawn (via e7-d8-c8).

So the first move of the correct solution has the idea to close the first defensive route to the black king: 1.f6!! gxf6 2.Kxg2 Kg4 3.a4 bxa3 4.bxa3 Kf5 5.a4 Ke5, and now the second brilliant idea is to sac the remaining white pawns to stop the black king, who is still in the promotion square of a-pawn, but cannot reach it due to the obstacles: 6.d6! cxd6 (if 6...c6, 7.a5 and wins) 7.c6! dxc6.

The path of the black king to b7 is blocked by its own pawns, so White, who has sacrificed all the other pawns, can play 8.a5 and win. Take a look at the original diagram. Would you have believed that it is the pawn on b2 that is going to queen and win the game for White?

A. A. Troitzky, Deutsche Schachzeitung 1910

White to play and win

Here friend Roberto from Roma writes: "I completely agree with Frederic about the 'puissance' of the white knight and feel a sincere compassion for the poor black queen's peregrination." Er, right. Watch the black queen suffer from the forking threats of the white knight:

1.Rb4! Qc8 [1...Qxb4 2.Nc6+] 2.Rb8! Qh3 [2...Qxb8 3.Nc6+] 3.Rh8! Nh4 [3...Qxh8 4.Ng6+] 4.Rxh4 Qc8 [4...Qxh4 5.Ng6+] 5.Rh8 Qb7 [5...Qxh8 6.Ng6+] 6.Rb8 Qxb8 7.Nc6+ 1-0.

Roberto Balzan continues: With regard to the beautiful theme of using a rook and knight against a queen, I would like to mention that I recently found some notes I wrote in a notebook in 1978, when I was beginning to study chess. There was a curious position (without any name):

Below the position stood the words "White to play and win". Come on, try to solve this problem without looking at the solution (which we will publish here in a week)!

I was not sure whether I had composed this study myself, or if somebody showed it to me, and I liked it so much I wrote it down on my chess notebook. So recently I tried and search the study everywhere, with the obvious idea that if I couldn't find it at all, then it should have been mine! I also showed the study to all my chess friends, presenting it as 'possibly composed by me', obviously receiving a lot of compliments.

Roberto Balzan was born in Ivrea (the city of the typewriters), north Italy, in 1962. He learned to play chess quite late, when he was already 16, when he discovered a book in the city library about the Fischer-Spassky 'Century Match'. The passion for chess soon had to leave space to the engineering studies (as somebody said, you cannot study chess and play engineery...). In 1987 he got married, started playing chess once again and reached the Candidate Master (1900) level by winning two tournaments. Then work and family stopped chess once again. He established himself in Rome, were he actually lives and works as a software developer and IT freelance consultant. In 1994 Roberto obtained the Italian title of Master (2175 FIDE Elo) by playing in four international tournaments. He is inspired by Jonathan Tisdall, who once said to Dr. John Nunn that he wanted to become a GM by serious preparation and hard study. Nunn was skeptical, but Tisdall succeeded. Roberto, much more humbly, is aiming for a FM title by serious preparation and by studying – Tisdall's methods!

Quite sadly for me, in the last Christmas vacation, I found the original study. It is exactly like the position above, except that instead of the two pawns on the h-file there is just one white pawn on h2. The composer is Evgeny Somov-Nasimovich and the date is 1927. Somov-Nasimovich (1910-1942) was a Soviet endgame composer who showed great promise at an early age (this study was composed when he was 17). His career was brought to a sad premature end with his death during the Second World War.

So I did not compose the study after all, but I did create my own personal rook and knight combination against a queen in 1985, in a blitz game against a first category player:

Balzan,R - Bona,M (1800) [A67]
Belgirate, Open, blitz Belgirate (8), 1985
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 e6 4.Nc3 exd5 5.cxd5 d6 6.e4 g6 7.f4 Bg7 8.Bb5+ Nfd7 9.a4 0-0 10.Nf3 Na6 11.0-0 Nc7 12.Bd3 Re8 13.Kh1 b6 14.e5!? dxe5 15.d6 Ne6 16.Be4 Rb8 17.f5! Nd4 18.fxg6 fxg6 19.Bd5+ Kh8 20.Ng5 Rf8 21.Nf7+ Rxf7 22.Rxf7 Nf6 23.Bg5! Qxd6?

24.Bxf6! Bxf6 25.Ne4! Qxd5 26.Rxh7+! Kxh7 27.Nxf6+ Kg7 28.Nxd5 1-0

A. A. Troitzky, Nowoje Wremja 1897

White to play and win

Mikhail Chetverukhin of Los Angeles sent us a description of his solution: This one was the hardest for me to solve. I think it's because it involves beautiful, positional sacrifices. 1.Bc6!! It's OK to lose the queen after all. This move is very hard to find because there is apparently no compensation for this sacrifice. After Black checks with rook and takes queen on h1, White only has knight and bishop to work with and Black has dangerous pawn on g2.

I tried many moves before finding this one to work. I even tried 1.Bc6 several times but dismissed it after 1...Rb1+ 2.Ke2 Rxh1 3. Nf4+ or 3.Bxh1 and White has a draw at best. My other tries: 1.Qf1+ g2 2.Qd3+ Bg3+ and queens next (but not 2...g3?? 3.Qxf5+ Rg4 4.Qh5+ Rh4 5.Qxh4 mate) or 1.Nf4+ Rxf4 2.Bc6 Rf2 wins for Black. I knew that Black's King is very cramped with no escape squares but could not find a way to get him in mating net for a long time.

1...Rb1+ [1...Rb2 2.Bg2+! Rxg2 3.Nf4+ wins] 2.Ke2 Rxh1 [2...Rb2+ 3.Kd3 Rb3+ 4.Kc4 Rf3 5.Bxf3 gxf3 6.Qxf3 Bg1 7.Nf4+ Kh4 8.Qh5#].

So here we are at a critical point – either find the right move or the game will crumble. King's only escape is h4. Of course!! We must take away the h4 square and force him into corner! That must be the only way, and very beautiful and elegant way at that. I did not even calculate all the way to the end but I felt like the following move was too elegant and too beautiful not to lead to the win.

3.Bg2!! Kxg2 (must take) 4.Nf4+ Kg1 (no backing out of this one!) 5.Ke1.

And now has just one move, the suicidal 5...g2, and White plays the final 6.Ne2 mate!!! How beautiful! White mates with the lone knight after queen and bishop nobly sacrificed themselves in the heat of the battle for the victory. It's very pretty how Black's own rook, bishop and pawn in addition to the white king block his only escape squares.

Dr Niels Hoeg, Skakbladet 1907

White to play

In the above position White, after some deliberation, announced that he would finish this game in two moves, and took a substantial bet on doing so, even against Black's best efforts to avoid the outcome.

Many readers thought that the solution was 1.Qe3+ (or Qc5+) Kxf1 2.Qf2+ and White is stalemated after 2...Kxf2. Sure enough, but Black is trying to prolong the game beyond two moves. So by playing 2...gxf2 he wins the bet – and incidentally checkmates his opponent in three moves. The correct solution is 1.Qe1! After this Black has five legal moves:

• 1...g2 2.Bxe2# and Black is mated
• 1...exf1Q 2.Kxg3 Qxe1# (forced) and White is mated
• 1...exf1R 2.Qxg3# and Black is mated.
• 1...exf1B 2.Kxg3 stalemate
• 1...exf1N 2.Qf2+ Kxf2 (forced) stalemate

So White can actually force an end in two moves and wins the bet.

Click here to replay and download all the puzzles on our JavaScript board
Note that you can click on the notation to follow the moves

Frederic Friedel

Winners of the Puzzle competition

In order to participate in our special prize competition you had to send in the correct solutions of at least two puzzles. We also announced a bonus prize to be drawn amongst participants who sent in the correct solution to the Niels Hoeg problem.

• The winner of the general prize, a copy of Fritz signed by Garry Kasparov, is Duncan Vella of St. Paul's Bay, Malta.

• The winner of the special prize for the Hoeg problem, a Fritz program signed by the winner of Wijk aan Zee, Vishy Anand, is Gerson Berlinger of Bad Friedrichshall, Germany. We hope that Gerson will not be upset that, contrary to what we announced, the second-placed player, Peter Leko, has also signed the program.

Congratulations! The winners have been notified and the prizes dispatched to them.

Feedback

Alexander Allain, New Orleans, LA
So I've been following chessbase.com since Christmas, and I must say you all are responsible for many hours of pondering chess problems I never would have considered a few weeks ago. This has been very bad for my schoolwork. I am a sophomore in college and we have exams after break! Since I don't have time to submit answers to all of the puzzles (and don't want to use a computer to solve them for me), I'll go ahead and submit what I believe is the answer to the challenge question. I hope my answer is right because otherwise I am going to have to stare at the board some more. Also, please refrain from posting any more problems until Jan. 24th, the date of my last exam (or block my IP address from your lovely site.)

John Tromp, Amsterdam, Netherlands
I really like your puzzle columns which have renewed my interest in chess. Keep up the good work!

Saurabh, Chechi, Griesheim, Germany
Thanks for maintaining this wonderful site. I am one of those "workless software engineers" and without your site I can't imagine spending all these hours with this dumb box. Sadly I was in India at the time missed the fun with Christmas puzzles. But happily I was back in time for Troitzky's challange, which I am now trying to solve.

[Saurabh succeeded, in seven separate emails]

Chris Land, Houston, TX, USA
I'd seen only one of these before. They're all wonderful! =)

John O' Banks, Cambridge, England
I thought the fourth one was pretty easy to be honest, there was only one thing white seemed to be "getting at"; unless of course I've got it wrong, in which case, aren't I an idiot? 1. Qe3+ Kxf1 2.Qf2+ Kxf2 draw.

Carlos Perez, Segovia, Spain
I take advantage of the occasion to congratulate to Frederic Friedel and to ChessBase by this type of aids since they make me happen entertained awhile and they serve as study and training to me. My desire is that they are repeated most frequently.

Bibek Shrestha, Kathmandu, Nepal
I'm a chessphile and a regular visitor of this website www.chessbase.com. I love your columns. You always seem to have great photographs, chess related and others. This always makes ChessBase a great site to visit. The visibility is greatly enhanced. Not to mention, this site keeps us very updated on happenings of the chess world, which we otherwise are denied. (I don't know why but newspapers, magazines and TV news greatly ignore chess, this is especially true here in Kathmandu). Good job, keep it up. The puzzles were also very delightful. It amazes me to see such puzzles and leaves me open mouthed, wondering at the ingenuity of the composers.They must have some hell of an imagination. To be honest with you, I didn't solve the puzzles all by myself except for puzzle 2 and the last one. A Kathmanduite thanks ChessBase for their very enjoyable and informative columns.

Michael J Fitch, Bear Tooth Cave Ct., Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
The third problem by Trotisky (Nowoje Wremja 1897) took me 2.5 hours, and a massive headache. Thanks Frederic, do you have some aspirins :-))). Dr.Neil Hoeg, Skakbladet 1907: (1)Qe1!!! exf1=Q (2)Kxg3!!! Qxe1++ HAHAHA. Thanks Chessbase, I always enjoy trying to solve the puzzles/problems at your site, and I enjoy the total overall chess info. When I want to know what's going on in the chess world, I visit your site. Keep up the great work.

Jeffrey Reep, Voorhees, NJ, USA
Hahaha! Those puzzles were fun! The Troitzky 1897 one you guys tried to be tricky with! I love it! And as to the Hoeg puzzle, nothing could be simpler (it only took me about 2 minutes to solve, thought you said it would be hard? 1.Qe3+!! Kxf1 2.Qf2+!! and White is stalemated next move! Thanks for the fun little puzzles.

Charlie, Linford, Brighton, England
Much to my irritation, I have been unable to work the first problem through to it's conclusion. The second problem was most enjoyable - reminiscent of the Torre game where the white queen chases her black counterpart for 6 consecutive moves, invulnerable due to back rank mate. The third looked familiar, but if I had seen it before, it made a much bigger impression the second time. The last is a lovely 'anti-computer' puzzle to sign off with. White played 1.Qe1!! (!! in the sense of the puzzle), leaving Black with two possibilities. 1...g2 is easily dismissed after 2.Bxe2#, but what about 1...exf1=(any)? Amazingly, each promotion results in a different end to the game. Picking a queen looks best, and my initial try 2.Qf2+ is irritatingly met by 2...gxf2, and the g3 square is still available for the king. It took lengthy thought to find the incredible tack change 2.Kxg3!!, and Black has but one legal move. It isn't often you hear someone grumble about being forced to mate their opponent, but if the bet was sufficient, playing 2...Qxe1# may have been a might difficult to bear... The other promotions are easier to deal with, though it is particularly thrilling that each one leads to a different result; the rook promotion gets black mated by 2.Qxg3#, the bishop promotion allows white to stalemate black with 2.Kxg3, and if a knight hits the board it is black who must stalemate white after 2.Qf2+! (any)xf2. The best moment for me was realising the knight promotion guarded g3, so my original Qf2 idea did indeed get used. Even if I don't win, I'd like to congratulate you on a fine compilation of puzzles - a sufficient distraction such that I have just burned the dinner. Thank you Chessbase!

Adam Blaylock, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, USA
I found the first puzzle rather funny, as I just saw it barely two days previously in an endgame book that I was looking at. The second puzzle I'm very close to solving but can't quite get it. I'm 90% sure that the first move is Nc6+ but I can't see the refutation to Kd6 Rb4 Qc8. The third puzzle I'm rather clueless on. The fourth puzzle is a lot of fun. The game does indeed have a forced end in 2 moves. But it is stalemate. 1. Qc5+ Kxf1 (forced) 2. Qf2+ Kxf2 stalemate! Anyway, thanks for all the puzzles - kept me entertained over my winter break!

David Zammit, Sydney, Australia
With regard to Dr Niels Hoeg, Skakbladet 1907: Nice puzzle but I think I would have won the bet! The trick is that the game will be over in two moves by either win or stalemate but I think I may have found a line where the game is NOT over in two moves! The most oft overlooked underpromotion being the key: 1. Kxg3 exf1=N+! Underpromote to knight and check! And now the game needs at least 9 more moves to complete! Where's my money? :-)

Joseph Buck, USA
Dr. Neils Hoeg's problem was fun to solve amd very clever indeed. The only promotion that keeps a stalemate from being forced (2.Qf2+ Rxf2) is also the only one that allows a checkmate to be played instead.

Adan Mazara, San Pedro de Macorís, Dominican Republic
Wao! (Spanish expression!) I really love this Hoeg problem. Objectively speaking is not that hard, but it makes your brain to play tricks on you!. I remember some book I read a long time ago (I cannot say that very often you know) from Karpov, in Spanish the title was "Mosaico Ajedrecístico", I am sure there is a position somewhere in that book that help me to solve this one.

David Levine, Bellerose, USA
Thanks so much for a highly entertaining holiday puzzle tribute to the great Troitzky. I feel as if i've learned quite a bit and thoroughly enjoyed myself in the process. The Problem by Dr. Niels Hoeg was an entertaining story to go with an entertaining problem. At first, I spent quite a bit of time searching for outright wins, with no success. then it struck me that white may be playing to force a draw, and again, couldn't see it. finally, i realized that there is one last theme to consider -- the helpmate. So maybe if you combine the three possible results of a chess game... indeed, it lasts no more than two moves.

Srinath, Pune, India
Puzzle 3 was indeed an amazing problem!! I didn't smile at first, because the beauty took time to sink in (I hope that won't invalidate my reply). My line of thinking was based more on Holmes' science than chess: Frederic had said in the contest page "The very tempting 1.Bc6 and 2.Qg2 mate unfortunately fails to 1...Rb1+ and 2...Rxh1. But anything else seems to lose quickly to Black's permanent threat 1...g2. " The fact that he used the word "seems" in the second sentence rather than the first prompted me to investigate the first line first (double bluff sort of thing). I failed, went about other lines, and a second look at Bc6 gave the solution. Fabulous. No other adjective... Hat's off to the ingenious mind. I just cannot understand why a contest with prizes would use puzzles that can be solved by a computer program. And moreover you say that prizes would be drawn on lots. I feel it would be a better idea to base the awards on "first come first serve" and the no. of correct solutions. That of course would favour the guys with computer programs. Which brings me back to the first point.

[We are determined to give everybody a chance in these puzzle competitions, event those who are casual chess players just discovering the pleasures of chess problems,. We do not want to send prizes only to study and problem experts, to people who have the fastest computers or to people who live in an advantageous time zone. In this context there is a very interesting phenomenon that we have observed. The articles are usually published very late at night (German time). The submissions by readers tend to follow the sun. The next morning most messages are from Australia and Asia, where the day is in full bloom, whereas Europe is just awaking, and America is still sound asleep. Later in the day the European entries tumble in, then come South and North America. It is fascinating to watch people waking up around the globe.]

Arnel De Castro, Iloilo, Philippines
I'm an Electronics and Communications Engineer here in Iloilo City Philippines. Your Website is my home page in my PC. Thanks for the wonderful puzzles that you have given to us. I love it. More power to Chessbase.

David Or, Hong Kong
Working out the solutions to all the different piece promotion in the Hoeg problem was really strange especially since you don't want to win. This last problem was a real treat. Thanks for the great puzzles...

Duncan Vella, St. Paul's Bay, Malta
Great puzzles. I did not spend more than three hours on all of them. No. 3 was the most difficult and took most time. Mainly because when you said the Bc6 fails to Rb1+ then I didn't bother to look at Bc6 until the very end when all the rest seemed to fail. Indeed I did smile at the end. What a brilliant way to mate, I'm still smiling!!

Peterson, Curtis, Cornwall, Canada
Puzzle two is quite funny. White's only road to victory is sure enough to harass the queen with an unprotected rook. What an idea! I have no clue for an answer to Niels Hoeg' problem. My best guest is there is en passant on blacks f pawn. The game is technically over, but that's it.

Eric Kangas, Manassas, VA
Hello! I am a regular reader of ChessBase.com's articles although this should be my first submission. Previously I had a bad tendancy of skipping over the analysis and puzzles and just read the articles, because I didn't want to invest a lot of time in it. However this was the New Year, and I've made it a goal this year (I hesitate to use the word resolution because who ever keeps those?) to systematically improve my mind and my body (physical and mental exercise) in the effort to achieve higher levels of existance. (And maybe also achieve expert or master level by the end of the year; I'm currently 1745 USCF.) Anyways, so I decided to check out the puzzles by Troitzky. They turned out to be more entertaining than I imagined. I really like these historic articles about famous chess players; please keep them coming. Also keep up the excellent work.

Osmo Kauppila, Oulu, Finland
There first two were simple, in the third you tricked me for a moment but then I crawled off the pit you had dug :) The fourth was very nice unconventional puzzle, took me a while since I did not first realize the possibility of Bxe2X.

Reegan Milne, Blackwater Australia
Thank you for these puzzles, they are truly beautiful.

Marco Zhang, Oxford, UK
I had fun with the "2 moves to end the game" puzzle. I am still working on the 3rd puzzle. Hopefully it will be as entertaining as it promises to be. Thank you for the puzzles!

Jaideep Phadke, Pune, India
I thank you for X'mas puzzle and also for not including helpmate problem.

Manish Joshi, Hamilton, Ontario
I found the four puzzles to be entertaining, but relatively simple. There were some endgame puzzles (8 or 9 of them) posted about 3 weeks back which were comparitively quite difficult (for me) to solve! Anyways, regardless of difficulty I always have a great time trying to figure out these things and hope that you guys can continue to give us chess enthusiasts interesting ways to pass time.

Chris, Miller, Elora, Canada
I have no board and am just looking at the puzzle three while I should be writing useful banking software. Obviously I have missed something since a great composer would not have introduced the vestegial white bishop. Personally I play a lot more Go than I do chess. I kind of lost interest in chess when computers way surpassed me. Your website has rekindled my interest. There is a beautiful lumpiness and unpredictablilty to chess that is disimilar to anything in go. Playing chess is a bit like being a security guard I would imagine. You work by rote and rule and nothing much seems to be going on, and then all of a sudden, bam!

Bojan Basic, Odzaci, Serbia and Montenegro
I like studies by Troitzky, and I solved many of them, but I didn't see these three before and I really enjoyed solving them. I heard about your site recently, so this is my first time to join this competition, but I really like studies and other things on your site. After all, sorry for my bad English, I hope you will be able to understand what I wanted to say.

[We did, Borjan, and we wish our command of foreign languages was half as "bad" as your English. Thanks also for the entensive solutions, which we would have used if Alberto from Roma had not prempted you with additional material.]

Massimiliano Bertoni, Rome, Italy
I guess something went wrong, this year. I'm quite confident I managed to solve all your puzzles, so either I'm terribly wrong - which shouldn't happen frequently - or your puzzles were too easy, this time. By the way, I decided not to check my solutions - NONE OF THEM! - with my PC. I must do it myself! (BTW: did you know both CB8 and Fritz 8 work in a Linux box using Wine - a Windows emulator?)

Tomek Rej, Sydney, Australia
These are amazing problems. I especially liked the smothered mate idea (the move 4.Bg2 was phenomenal!) in the third problem and the fourth problem was unique; some different thinking was required.

Zong Yuan Zhao, Coffs Harbour, Australia (Land Down Under)
Thanks for these marvellous puzzles which provided some much needed entertainment and mental training during a rainy day with little else to do! I promised myself that I would solve all these studies in my head but in the end I had to reconcile to moving pieces on the board for studies 1, 2 and 4.

Naren Wadvana, Feltham, England
Problem 2 was extremely satisfying. The solution came to me instantly as I look at the chessbase puzzle page. Number 3 was a toughie. I spent ages trying everything from decoying the b4 rook and sacrificing the queen. I almost gave up on Puzzle 4. I looked long and hard trying to find a finish in 2 moves. I must of come accross at least 5 ways to win/draw in 3 moves and over. However, after looking at Kxg3 I managed to find the right idea. I must admit that solving these puzzles without any aid is so much more delightful and instructive. I have been inspired to create my own. :-) I thank Chessbase for providing these educational puzzles and hope you continue to do so.

Franz Pichler, Vienna, Austria
I had a very nice time trying to solve the puzzles and I hope that I avoided to play too much blunder. The most beautiful for me was Niels Hoeg the next favorite was Troitzky 1897, with a lovely mainline containing witty check's & zugzwang and leading to a checkmate actually, plus one sideline (which came with little help of Fritz, of course. I hope I got the two needed correct solutions to enter the contest, and maybe the Kasparov-signed goody will soon keep company with my adored and oh-so lovely autograph from Judit Polgar;-)

Stephane Harvey, Alma, Quebec, Canada
I think that this contest puzzle was easier than the Christmäs one (because I found all the answer I think!). But the repton thing was pretty fun and I resolve all the maps you give without any help. The only thing that i found not fair was that you give some help for the "mediocre" Repton players that weren't able to find those little twist that make the game a little difficult. You are not so kind for us the little chess players that boiled up our brain on your not always easy puzzles! Continue your good work.

Daniel Sottile, Argentina
I am a chess devotee. I discovered Chess Base puzzles a little time ago and I love them! I learnt to work out chess problems by myself, without computer assistance. In fact I have a very old computer; no competent chess program could run on it (although I would appreciate the contest prize, I will have to think about how to use it). I also managed to solve problems by staring at a diagram, without moving pieces on a board. I think it was a matter of time availability, and then I realised that it was a potentially effective training. I don't have much time to spend on chess and there is no comfortable place in my house in which to bring out my chess set. So I take advantage of the moments when I use the computer and I try to solve some chess puzzles by looking at their images in the monitor. This has been very valuable to me, but sometimes I get caught in oversights due to virtually legal moves made in my head which later appeared to be illegal, especially after analysing long lines or due to ocular fatigue.

Antonio Bellezza, Rome, Italy
Thank you for this contest! This is a wonderful occasion for us to discover different aspects of chess strategy (e.g. to play for stalemate and not to win) and the story of chess problems composition.

Mohammed Zaman, NYC, USA
I solved all four of these puzzles all by myself. If I really had used a computer to solve the puzzles, I wouldn't be giving the solutions weeks after the problems appeardd!

Sunny Nahata, State College, USA
I had a great time in solving these interesting puzzles. I feel really happy that I was able to solve them without use of a computer. Only thing that I am not sure if my solutions are completely correct. It took me around 9 hours to solve all puzzles, with puzzle no. 3 taking the maximum time (5 hours). It was only after passing a long time that I eventually switched to the line suggested: 1.Bc6...etc. and got the solution after playing around. As you had written, it certainly gave me immense pleasure when I discovered the smothered mate of Black king. Many thanks to the ChessBase team for offering these exciting puzzles!

Mikhail Chetverukhin, Los Angeles, CA, US
I (USCF 1800) am proud to say that I solved everything on my own. I never used a computer along the way. Actually I don't have a chess computer right now as my Kasparov Saitek 2100 laptop broke. Thanks for these challenging and interesting problems!

Jon Haughton, Darien, IL
I complement you on your puzzle section. Hoeg's problem really shows that conversations do have hidden meanings. Thank you for an extremely entertaining and inquisitive puzzle! Oh, and the final level of Repton is next to impossible! Thank you for much happiness and frustration with these puzzles. I am now addicted to your website.