Can You Solve Our 2017 Holiday Puzzler?
Your favorite annual chess quiz tradition is back for the holidays.
Chess.com is proud to celebrate the season with an all-new puzzler for 2017—So enjoy this year's fun (and tricky) edition.
The 10 Chess.com members who score the highest on the holiday puzzler will win the prizes below.
UPDATE WITH WINNERS (ties were broken by earliest received submission):
1. MasonLasker -- 18/20
2. NCKChess -- 18/20
3. jagulep -- 17/20
4. s0030135 -- 17/20
5. mhdco7 -- 17/20
6. GiiBiiEnnChess -- 17/20
7. introuble2 -- 17/20
8. alexgoody -- 16/20
9. the_prosrastinator -- 16/20
10. Ragnarv7 -- 16/20
UPDATE 2 with additional winners: After rescoring and accepting additional answers for two questions, the following additional prizes have been awarded. All previous prizes are intact.
- NCKChess -- 3 years diamond
- introuble2 -- 1 year diamond
- s0030135 -- 1 year diamond
- MasonLasker -- 3 months diamond
- GiiBiiEnnChess -- 3 months diamond
- jagulep -- 1 month diamond
ANSWERS REVEALED:
1. What is your Chess.com username?
Most answers were accepted.
2. Which famous chess player defeated his countryman with three wins and five draws to advance in the Candidates' cycle to face another countryman? (Name one of two possible answers.)
Karpov or Spassky
3. Which chess player gave away one of his time-outs to help a former world chess champion recover from illness in an important match?
Hort
4. Which famous chess player went 15-0 in a simul in the German city of Mönchengladbach?
Kasparov
5. Which chess player rated in the world's top 20 shares a birthday with a former world chess champion, a Wimbledon tennis champion, an Alabama Crimson Tide college football national champion, a silver medalist in Olympic race walking, and a former king of England?
Svidler
6. Which famous chess player's hair is shown in the image above?
Ding Liren
7. What is the only check for White that mates in two?
Qc6+
8. Which player in the world's top 20 won the chess game above?
Grischuk
9. Which chess grandmaster's name is an anagram of the phrase "beet container"?
Etienne Bacrot
10. Who won the above chess game in 2017?
Houdini
11. What is the only move for White to play and draw the game with best play in the above position?
Bd7
12. What is the only move for White to play and win with best play in the position above?
Kg7
13. Which famous chess player won the above game in 2017?
Nakamura
14. Which famous chess player's mustache is shown in the above image?
Janowski
15. Which character is shown winning a chess game against Jim Halpert in the American television series "The Office"?
Creed
16. How many possible chess positions are there on the chessboard after four complete legal moves?
71852
17. How many geometric squares can be counted on a standard chessboard (with overlapping possible)?
204
18. There are two chess bags, one containing two black pawns, and one containing one black and one white pawn. Your friend chooses a bag at random and without looking inside, pulls out one black pawn. What is the probability your friend chose the bag with two black pawns? Please answer with a fraction.
2/3
19. Who wrote the first chess book ever read by the highest-rated player in chess history?
Larsen
20. What is the only day of the week on which none of the 16 classical world chess champions was ever born?
Sunday
All ties will be resolved by the earliest received submission, so send in your answers as soon as you know them. But try to be as accurate as possible—it usually takes close to a perfect score to win.
Answers will be accepted until 11:59 p.m. (Pacific Time) on Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018, and only a member's first submission will be considered.
Please save your answers to your own notes before you submit them if you would like to reference them later. Chess.com unfortunately cannot provide an individual member's answers.
Let us know what you think of the puzzler on Facebook or in the comments below.
Prizes:
- 1st place: Three years of Chess.com Diamond membership
- 2nd place: One year of Chess.com Diamond membership
- 3rd-5th place: Three months of Chess.com Diamond membership
- 6th-10th place: One Month of Chess.com Diamond membership
The Puzzler:
(Mobile users: If you are having trouble filling out the embedded form below, you can complete the form here.)
