Pal Benko was one of the world's leading players in the 50s and 60s; playing in both the 1959 and 1962 Candidates tournaments against the likes of Fischer, Tal, Keres, Petrosian, Korchnoi, et al. An eight time winner of the U.S. Open Chess Championship he is perhaps best known for his work on the "Benko Gambit". Benko also developed other areas of opening theory including the Benko variation of the main line King's Indian Defense and the Benko Variation of the Sicilian - (1.g3 is also often referred to as "Benko's opening").

Benko was also a prolific and highly regarded composer of chess problems and endgame studies. For decades he has written a column on endgames for Chess Life magazine. I thought I would post a few of his problems for those of us that can't resist a chess puzzle.

All of the following puzzles are taken from the book "Pal Benko - My Life, Games and Compositions" (Pal Benko and Jeremy Silman). A book I can highly recommend. The third puzzle is a mate in 8 - the 1st and 3rd moves are counter-intuitive - enjoy (check the move lists for further info after your done)

Mate in 3

Mate in 4

Mate in 2 then a mate in 3

Great puzzles, thank you for sharing this with us. I find them hard though.  

My pleasure mate - they are a little tough.

Awesome puzzles.  I like the mate-in-8 one.  :)

@ Big E - Yes the book I referred to has a stack of them including "letter" problems, "number" problems, Christmas tree motifs, "duplexes", "sets" (they're all chess problems btw). As Silman writes in his introduction ".... suffice to say that I had never heard of many of these terms!"

Me either.