i found this in a book i am reading at the moment, it dates from the year 840 A.D.

i like it, what you think? white to mate in 3....

Wow! very nice....even I could see that one!

an excellent, interesting problem!

This became the oldest known chess puzzle by a bit of luck... it's actually a Shatranj puzzle. In Shatranj they have elephants instead of bishops and advisors instead of queens and they move differently. But the rooks, knights, and kings move as they do in modern chess. So this Shatranj puzzle (out of all the many surviving Shatranj puzzles) by some luck excluded those pieces and ended up becoming the world's oldest chess puzzle. ;)

What book are you reeading

nice post

I don't know what's more interesting... the puzzle or "likesforests" comments.

Thanks for both!

Another Shatranj puzzle (and how to make traditional piloff):

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=872

Alex, its from the book 'the immortal game' by david shenk, only had it 3 days , its proving to be a good read :)

Sweet, I got it on the first try!

It's interesting that this puzzle is that old.

Easy, there are waaay to many tactics on the trainer with artificial back rank mate.

very nice!!!

I nailed it on the first try. Very good puzzle. A few months ago I never would have seen that.

wow, i really didn't notice it. I just kept moving and got it right! :D

Nh5+ Rxh5, Rxg6 Kxg6, Re6# . unless there is another soln as well

the point of my post was'nt that i thought the puzzle was hard to solve, more that its pretty, and  also i find it amazing that we can get enjoyment from something so old, and its cool to imagine people nearly 1200 yrs ago solving the exact same thing!  

I swear I am not lying .It was quite an easy puzzle

Nice puzzle. I can't believe it's that old.

cool puzzle

no, the point is that this puzzle dates from 840 A.D.

We (the chess history group) must look into the provenence of this... I posted to that effect in the group forum.

Someone should get in touch with you soon about this,  gumpty :)

chess history group:

http://www.chess.com/groups/home/chess-history

For group-invites to the chess history group contact qtsii or batgirl. [or maybe it is an open group now - one can just join. Either that, or I no longer have invite-rights for the group.]

UPDATE: Oh I noticed that  likesforests [also a chess history group member] has implicitly vouched for its provenance. So it aught to be all right...

UPDATE: link to my query-post-thread in the chess-history group:

http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/provenence-of-claimed-840-ad-puzzle

Okay it is authentic c.840 AD. Al-Adli's manuscript.

Bad news: Mr Bill Wall had already posted it on chess.com in August 2007!

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/more-puzzles/alaldis-chess-problem