A puzzle that tells if YOU have the "Chess talent"

The old Russian chess puzzle (also known as the "Soviet Test of Chess Talent") consist of a white Queen and 4 black pawns. The task for you, as White , is to capture all the black pawns before or when they get promoted.

Kramnik solved this in 45 seconds when he was 12.

Wasted a little bit of time on the wrong capture but after ruling that out got it fairly quickly, wahey. 

I wouldn't say this reveals much talent unfortunately tbh

It would be an interesting puzzle to give someone lower rated than the people who commented here. I can see how it would show some talent.

Fun puzzle. I was able to figure it out quite quickly.

But as a young child (which this puzzle is meant for), I probably would have failed to get it.

Which would've resulted in my Soviet instructor yelling, "Net talenta!", then slapping me on the back of the head.

Hate to break it to you, but there's no such thing as a puzzle that would show a "chess talent." The GM in that video describes how it came to be and why it's bogus. It's a fun little calculation puzzle, though, that's for sure.

I'd suggest focusing on your chess and having fun over worrying about some kind of talent.

Sure there is.

Different people draw different lessons from their experiences. Some people will notice or like to think about elements that happen to be more useful. This can be due to intelligence or even their personality, but the elements they focus on will cause them to improve faster than their peers.

For example to solve this puzzle you can't just mindlessly capture like most beginners would, you have to think about what black wants to do, and realize your non-capture move can prevent it. Not only is that a very useful way of thinking in chess, it avoids a way of thinking (mindlessly capturing) that distracts most bad players to the point it's hard for them to improve.

So a fairly new / low rated player who could solve this puzzle would demonstrate they will improve faster than their peers because the lessons they've been learning, the elements they've been focusing on, are more useful.

#11 good point and nice thinking

This is probably only a useful metric if you assign it to someone who only knows how to move the pieces. 

White moves 1st?

Yes. White moves first.

How much time YOU spend solving it? 

Solving it could mean two different things. It's relatively easy to work out which of the two candidate first moves don't work. It's harder to work out why the other one does.

Solving means more than getting the first move right.

Here is a similar type of puzzle, although since it's in some instructional material here and there, there's a higher chance people have seen it before.

White to move and stop or win all the pawns.

The second one I solved in 15 s econds