Woohhh that's insane lol
Mate in 102!
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rychessmaster1 wrote:
Does Rxd7 draw at the right time?
No, because after pawn takes pawn, black moves his rook to d8, then white will just move his king, and black will be in zugwang...
Oldlad schreef:
A puzzle from the 1890's by Dr O.T.Blathy. White to play and mate in 102! These problems have the same basic idea and once mastered they are easy to solve.
Very nice buit the position is illegal because the Rook on h8 can never pass the Bishop on f8 that never made a move because of the pawns on g7 and e7. Thus the second black rook must be a promoted black pawn. But because black still has his 8 pawns this is impossible. Without one of these black pawns the position could be legal.
And this position is even a checkmate in 104 moves.
And the position is legal as this prove games shows. Thus is the study repaired.
RubenHogenhout wrote in post #29:
And this position is even a checkmate in 104 moves.
What about 1. Rxd4?
@RubenHogenhout post 29: also, you can't afford to dispose of wPe5. Without it, black will sac a rook on d7 while your king is cycling on h7/h8 and then play the other rook to d8. Now you can't stop Pe7-e5 and the black forces are freed.
Arisktotle schreef:
RubenHogenhout wrote in post #29:
And this position is even a checkmate in 104 moves.
What about 1. Rxd4? Thats right did not look good enough. The rook must be on h3 in any case. But even then white can defend on the third rank thus it must be adjust even more.
Arisktotle schreef:
@RubenHogenhout post 29: also, you can't afford to dispose of wPe5. Without it, black will sac a rook on d7 while your king is cycling on h7/h8 and then play the other rook to d8. Now you can't stop Pe7-e5 and the black forces are freed.
Thats a pitty. In that case I do see no longer mate then in 89
RubenHogenhout wrote:
Arisktotle schreef:
@RubenHogenhout post 29:
Thats a pitty. In that case I do see no longer mate then in 89
It's not that bad. To make the original position legal, all that needs to be done is place Ph6 on h5. Then the mate is in 97. Not satisfactory as I am sure the author tried to get to the 100 mark!
Remellion wrote:
Yes it is and no he didn't. If I recall right he had another mate in 292, also illegal; and another in 290, likewise illegal. Still, those are just 3 of his works, he had other legal ones.
It's an interesting point. I believe in his mind these positions were "legal". Why? Well, if he didn't mind, he would have added some more black pawns to get an even longer solution. He didn't do that because he had defined for himself what did and what didn't amount to legality.
In equivalence to mathematical languages what we are dealing with here are well-formed positions. There is no simple definition for being well-formed but the bottom line is of course that every position reachable from the PAS (game starting position) must be well-formed. It is best understood by looking at positional properties that we intuitively feel are not well-formed, e.g.:
- Units on the board not available in that quantity in the original chess box, taking into account possible pawn promotions
- Previous point but especially in relation to the dark/light bishops pair. You can't have 10 dark squared bishops of a colour.
- Pawns on rank 1 or 8.
- "Locked in" bishops - by own pawns - are not allowed outside these squares; c1, f1, c8, f8.
My guess is that Blathy had some such rule book in his head and it may have been the norm in his environment.
If you find this peculiar, note that math uses similar static restrcitions to well-formedness. It's all about permitting a fast syntax-check and evading the need to make an extensive axiomatic analysis. Had math used our (chess) definition of legality, then the Gódel-sentence had not existed and all books about theories of everything would have been 10% shorter!
It Is Draw not white win
Loomis wrote:
It's not very practical, I've only ever had this position once in a tournament game.
lol how
OK, I think I repaired this one. Not 102 but 100 moves in a legal position! Note that the white h-pawn made 2 captures before it was itself captured. The capture count on both sides just fits the missing material.
Arisktotle schreef:
OK, I think I repaired this one. Not 102 but 100 moves in a legal position! Note that the white h-pawn made 2 captures before it was itself captured. The capture count on both sides just fits the missing material.
The position is at least legal!
no