Weekly Puzzle #1 (November 2-8, 2025)

First of our weekly chaturaji puzzle series! You can find all previous weekly puzzles linked here: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/chaturaji-puzzles-1

Yellow to move:

take the boat with g7 bishop

probably just take the rook no?

Nobody's falling for taking the king ;-;

yellow is behind on points, its just intuition tbh

I would take the green king on f2 with yellow's g4 knight. Taking the rook is tempting for points, but the problem is after green moves f3 pawn to e3, green and blue will trade bishops and the overall points differential will be worse for yellow.

If yellow lets the green king survive, Yellow will also have to fight green to promote yellow's pawns - so, taking out green creates a path to promotion for yellow's pawns, and yellow also has two pieces left (knight & bishop), whereas red & blue only have one piece left each. it should be simple to at least finish in second place in this scenario, and likely first place, depending upon how things go.

For those curious, in the game I took the rook and last place.

It's technically 4th november no?

Ok, but you lost because you blundered in 14.y and lost your bishop.

Otherwise you might have gotten 2nd.
Red and green seem to be behind you.
Here is the link to the game:
https://www.chess.com/variants/chaturaji/game/90972380/127/1

Yep. So it is in hyper :/

Sure, I wouldnt even get so far, as my brain is much to slow for hyper.

I guess time zones did us in xD It was 3rd for me

Thxs for making this bird

I think take the king, only 2 opponents left, and can easily trade bishops with red to get ahead of blue.

2nd puzzle. Yellow to move. Optimal move.

3 days to slove the puzzle. FFA

This is 30-sec chess lol, best move is very different. Taking the bishop is likely better because the yellow knight is likely going to fall regardless because blue can save time by just pushing forward. Based on play style, green could greed and take knight, but otherwise yellow can keep knight for double checks or trades. It is in a relatively safe spot, however blue is a huge threat and anything could happen. Additionally, blue is more desperate for the bishop trade making Ne3 a good possibility to be annoying.

Bf4. 
only safe moves are Bf4 and Bh2 (which do not lose the bishop) and Bf4 controls more squares in the position.

taking red’s pawn on b6 with the bishop is risky as it only works if green plays c2+, and after Kb4/Kc4 by red, yellow only gains one pawn advantage at best(not to mention that it is dependent on green’s move).

any other move just hangs the bishop and gives red a massive advantage.

Bh2 also leaves the bishop vulnerable to Kg2 in later parts of the game.

I think@arnav2007 is talking about the puzzle at the top of this page.

He’s talking about the first position.
I’m pretty sure he meant “taking (with) the bishop is likely better”.

however,

1. yellow’s knight is on an outpost and is even checking green’s king, so I do not see any way in which it is vulnerable to blue pushing forward. 
2. there is no easy way to get to yellow’s knight (still need to move king out of check)

Hope this makes things clearer.

oh and Ne3 doesn’t work because if green’s king moves the knight will be taken by red’s bishop without any compensation for yellow