Dogmatrix
New member
Yotta, thanks for all the improvements and the ones to come. Already got the whole department joined and playing. We department are there for those who need more wins
ChessConquest - official discussion thread
- Thread starter Solitude
- Start date
Yotta, thanks for all the improvements and the ones to come. Already got the whole department joined and playing. We department are there for those who need more wins
Welcome to the forum Vixe... Happy to hear you love the site, and very happy to hear the ChessConquest window is rnning
I see Tallfred already gave a very good description on this topic. One tournament to keep an eye on is...
http://www.chessconquest.com/index.php?p=viewtour&tourid=12
Looks like this tournament is one game away from the first ChessConquest crowning.
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You are welcome TF, and please do forward your ideas. We keep a record of all the requests, and even if we do not implement them immediately, we always look at ways on how we can incorporate the ideas into the next major release.
Most of my time is now invested in getting v2 ready for release, but I still try to make occasional improvements to v1 where I can.
I couldn't have explained it better myself, on why Internet correspondence chess tournaments sometimes take longer to complete.
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Already got the whole department joined and playing. We department are there for those who need more wins
LOL... pretty sure there are lots of players that will love your department
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Solitude
Mr. Nice Guy
Yotta, something weird happened in the Speed King games between Vuade and I. It says timeout victory claimed but vuade was on holiday and I didn't claim anything. We are both confused as to what happened.
*edit*
Oh and the changes you've made are nice.
Sorry I don't post here as often as I should. Thanks for all your hard work.
*edit*
Oh and the changes you've made are nice.
Sorry I don't post here as often as I should. Thanks for all your hard work.
ViperGTI
New member
I think something similar happened between you and me with the one game. In the one game, you came back from holiday and when I logged in afterwards, my "time to move" was 0, even though it hasn't been 24 hours since my last login. Luckily the automatic timeout victory hadn't kicked in yet, so I made my move... but there definitely seems to be something fishy when returning from holiday.
That might have also been the cause for the other game where you timed out against me.
I'll look into it, and get back to you on this one Solitude.
In the meantime I've disabled "automatic" timeouts on tournament games to prevent this from happening to other players on vacation.
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lol - playing on the mobile - I thought it was me who auto won/claimed the games, now on the pc I see "opponent wins"
was thinking "jay!! - this is my only chance to advance past solitude in the tournament"
just kidding - much rather try (note TRY) and beat you for real
Oh and the changes you've made are nice.
yes +1 and +1 and +1
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Avatar
New member
this is definitely one of the more tricky puzzles i've seen so far.
Avatar
New member
Spoiler alert: the following provides the answer to yotta's puzzle. Read at your own peril!
Whenever I see a puzzle, all my insecurities come to the surface. What if I can't do it? What if this is too tough for me? Then I have to discipline myself to look at the problem with my whole mind using all the theory I have learnt.
In the present instance my thinking process went like this:
1) Black has only one move. That move is by a Pawn and after that it is stalemate if we don't allow some move. Good news: any check we make is potentially checkmate.
2) Therefore I cannot Queen the Pawn to checkmate in the time allocated.
3) I must cover the e4 square with some piece, other wise it will not be checkmate.
4) The only piece that can do that is the Rook.
5) Moving the Rook to say a2 and then a4 to give mate will release the King to escape from the net.
6) If only (key thought here) I could move the Rook to d4... Drat, the King and the Pawn are covering d4.
7) Hmmm maybe if the King moved away I could put the Rook on d4 with a double check of some sort. That is crazy! There is no way you can do that. Wait, maybe it is not so crazy. How can we engineer a double check? The Bishop is in completely the wrong place. Maybe if the Bishop were somewhere else.
8) Let's try moving the Bishop to c1. Black can only play e6. OK, now Black is in danger of stalemate. How can we get that double check going?
9) There really is only one possibility: put the Rook on d2, so that the Black King can move once again. Now he has only one square to move to: f4. This is looking a little discouraging, because the King is attacking the Pawn on g4, and it is is unprotected. Not only that, the King can go back to e4 as well. And the Pawn on e5 is watching d4. and that Pawn can move to e4. Maybe we can get our idea to work after all.
10) We now unleash the double check: Rd4 is checkmate. Black cannot take the Rook on d4 because of the check from the Bishop. He cannot move to e4 because the Rook is covering that square. and he cannot take the Pawn on g4 because the Rook is protecting there too.
A good problem has some lesson that it teaches. In this instance I see several lessons, I'm sure there are more:
- Be careful when your opponent is in a bad position: stalemate punishes the slightest drop in vigilance. There are a sad number of instances on the ChessConquest site to show that is not just a mere theoretical possibility.
- When your opponent has no legal moves with his king look carefully: any check could then literally be checkmate.
- A double check (check from two pieces at the same time) is a tremendously powerful weapon. When King is in double check, there is no time to take one of the pieces because the other piece is still giving check. One cannot put another piece in the way because the attacks are coming from two directions. The king can only swallow his dignity and flee as fast as he can.
- be creative in games. Don't be scared to say "if only" if that triggers the thought, "but how can we make it happen?"
If you did not solve a puzzle, ask yourself what piece of theory did you either not know, or that you did not apply. If this is a new area for you, make a point of studying that theory using a book or a web resource. If you should know it, see if you can find further examples on the Web to sharpen your skills.
Whenever I see a puzzle, all my insecurities come to the surface. What if I can't do it? What if this is too tough for me? Then I have to discipline myself to look at the problem with my whole mind using all the theory I have learnt.
In the present instance my thinking process went like this:
1) Black has only one move. That move is by a Pawn and after that it is stalemate if we don't allow some move. Good news: any check we make is potentially checkmate.
2) Therefore I cannot Queen the Pawn to checkmate in the time allocated.
3) I must cover the e4 square with some piece, other wise it will not be checkmate.
4) The only piece that can do that is the Rook.
5) Moving the Rook to say a2 and then a4 to give mate will release the King to escape from the net.
6) If only (key thought here) I could move the Rook to d4... Drat, the King and the Pawn are covering d4.
7) Hmmm maybe if the King moved away I could put the Rook on d4 with a double check of some sort. That is crazy! There is no way you can do that. Wait, maybe it is not so crazy. How can we engineer a double check? The Bishop is in completely the wrong place. Maybe if the Bishop were somewhere else.
8) Let's try moving the Bishop to c1. Black can only play e6. OK, now Black is in danger of stalemate. How can we get that double check going?
9) There really is only one possibility: put the Rook on d2, so that the Black King can move once again. Now he has only one square to move to: f4. This is looking a little discouraging, because the King is attacking the Pawn on g4, and it is is unprotected. Not only that, the King can go back to e4 as well. And the Pawn on e5 is watching d4. and that Pawn can move to e4. Maybe we can get our idea to work after all.
10) We now unleash the double check: Rd4 is checkmate. Black cannot take the Rook on d4 because of the check from the Bishop. He cannot move to e4 because the Rook is covering that square. and he cannot take the Pawn on g4 because the Rook is protecting there too.
A good problem has some lesson that it teaches. In this instance I see several lessons, I'm sure there are more:
- Be careful when your opponent is in a bad position: stalemate punishes the slightest drop in vigilance. There are a sad number of instances on the ChessConquest site to show that is not just a mere theoretical possibility.
- When your opponent has no legal moves with his king look carefully: any check could then literally be checkmate.
- A double check (check from two pieces at the same time) is a tremendously powerful weapon. When King is in double check, there is no time to take one of the pieces because the other piece is still giving check. One cannot put another piece in the way because the attacks are coming from two directions. The king can only swallow his dignity and flee as fast as he can.
- be creative in games. Don't be scared to say "if only" if that triggers the thought, "but how can we make it happen?"
If you did not solve a puzzle, ask yourself what piece of theory did you either not know, or that you did not apply. If this is a new area for you, make a point of studying that theory using a book or a web resource. If you should know it, see if you can find further examples on the Web to sharpen your skills.
