fool mate

Got it!

White's second move is unforced. Dumb puzzle.

:p

@Gil-Gandel:   That was a very rude comment of yours! 

This is a good reminder to lower rated chess players of a classic opening trap.

Thanks for posting the puzzle, andrewf2002!

Gill-Gandel,what did u post???

The removed post was just an accidental double post.

The "dumb puzzle" comment was tongue in cheek (though of course White's second move isn't forced, so as a puzzle this doesn't work), and nor is this a "classic opening trap" so much as a reminder not to play mindbogglingly badly on your first two moves. Black is hardly "setting a trap" when his first move is a logical and reasonable reply to almost any opening move except 1. d4 and 1. Nf3 (and even in the former case, the Englund Gambit is playable if your opponent isn't prepared for it).

For lower-rated players, there's nothing like getting foolsmated once in your career to learn the error of your ways. Otherwise, this mate is a curiosity unlikely to affect most of us (I never fell foul of it in my life, though I got Scholar's Mated a number of times before I figured it out).

For crying out loud!  This is a fool's mate, and a fool's mate is called a classic opening trap.  Being trapped in a chess position (as white is here) does not necessarily involve an intentional setup on the part of the opponent, it can just occur in the game, and in such a situation one is indeed, yes, trapped - by the opponent, by the position, by one's own blunder - whatever! There are quite a few beginning chess players on this site, and this is a good thing to know from both sides of the board, for pete's sake!  It's absurd to post a negative comment, such as "dumb puzzle."

Cry out loud all you like, but it's not a "trap", it's a "mistake" or a "blunder". The rest of the chess world already knows what it means by "trap" so don't try to redefine the word.

As explained, "dumb puzzle" was a joke - hence the :p in the post where I made it - simply because a "puzzle", as generally understood, would require White's next move to be forced by Black's first in this position; what actually happens here is that Black makes a sensible move and White replies with a stupid one - the stupidest possible and the only one to lose instantly.

Perhaps you should stop by the Daily Puzzle threads and notice how many people post "dumb puzzle". Usually they are complaining either that:

- White (or Black) has an easy win (but the problem is to mate in a specified number of moves, and there is only one way to do this)

- The position is stupid and would never come up in a real game (but the problem is a puzzle and is not purporting to be a realistic in-game situation)

- The answer given is wrong and there is a better way to win or a better defence (in 99.99% of cases they are dead wrong).

Then you might understand how I was humorously riffing on the inevitable chorus of "dumb puzzle" by know-nothings in those threads... while also pointing out that as a puzzle, this doesn't work.

First of all, the Fool's Mate is referred to widely as an opening trap, and can be found labeled as such in many places on the web, including one I found in Chess.com itself.  If you want to exclude it from the "trap" category, that's fine with me, but why even argue with those who do consider it a trap?  When I put that term in my comment, I meant it loosely, as a pitfall one might possible fall into, or in the sense that possibly one might be on the other side and be able to take advantage of such a position to mate your opponent.

Second of all, I often do the puzzles posted on this site's forums, and I have done over 38,000 Tactics Trainer puzzles.  So don't tell me that I might want to check out puzzles!

Third, the position might be stupid, but it does occasionally come up!  And I have seen postings where it actually came up in a tournament! 

I'm glad you've done the tactics puzzles, but I was talking about the comments that people put in the daily puzzle threads.

For the rest...

[Dogbert, waving paw]Bah[/Dwp].

We put comments in the Tactics Trainer too - same thing.  Usually, we found that when someone comments "Dumb puzzle," it means they were not successful in solving the puzzle.  Perhaps I should have just let your comment go. 

Or got less sandy  about it. But you should be able to divine by now whether or not *I* can usually solve the Puzzle of the Day, let alone the non-puzzle in this thread. 

Yes, but I was just defending the puzzle poster (who perhaps could have cared less :D :D).  And I was not implying that you did not solve the puzzle, I was merely stating for the record under what circumstances "dumb puzzle" was usually written.  Also, moves do not have to be "forced" moves to qualify as an legitimate move in a puzzle.  One just has to make the best move in response to whatever move the puzzle has the opponent make. (:

"Black to move and win, provided White does something dumb" isn't really much of a puzzle though. 

It's not a puzzle, properly speaking.

I believe only those whose chess experience is informed by what very inexperienced members here toss out rather than what books and magazines and serious players have been offering as puzzles for many, many decades can be so confused.

It's not a puzzle...It's not a puzzle...It's not a puzzle.

Nice puzzle, thanks for posting.

p.s. Only joking, pure crap.

Oh really?  Having completed ove 38,000 totally legitimate puzzles on Chess.com's Tactics Trainer (and, by the way, having done quite well) (and I might add the puzzles there are for the most part pulled out of games played on Chess.com - not just thrown out in a forum by inexperienced players), I believe I know what constitutes a puzzle, my friend.  A very large percentage of the puzzles I have done in the Tactics Trainer involve one's opponent making a bad move, or what some might call a blunder on the part of the opponent, whether it is a low or highly rated puzzle.  The job of the puzzle doer is to find the best move for oneself in whatever position the puzzle gives.  It is ridiculous to say "This is not a puzzle" because the your puzzle opponent made a bad move, a couple of bad moves, or even a blunder.

This one's just a create the fools mate task.

It's not a puzzle.

Well, then, a puzzle which allows you to execute a smothered mate in four or five moves would then be a create the smothered mate task (and we dare not call it a puzzle), which would come as a surprise to our Chess.com puzzle authors, I am sure. 

If an orange is so bad and rotten that you can't eat it, it is still an orange.

If a puzzle is so simple, almost any chess player would solve it in seconds, it is still a puzzle.  If it just a simple puzzle, an elementary puzzle, a puzzle perhaps you regret having even laid your eyes on, it is still a puzzle.