Tactics Problem

[TomCowley]

Spoiler:

It's a tarp

[RoundTower]

Spoiler:

actually I think that was a **** position to post because there is no win here, black still has to blunder and[(I think) the best move is just be4 and it must be equal

[TomCowley]

Originally Posted by RoundTower

Spoiler:

actually I think that was a **** position to post because there is no win here, black still has to blunder and[(I think) the best move is just be4 and it must be equal

White's up a rook in the diagram so almost anything wins :P. Add a rook on h8 and I don't see anything exciting for white though.

[RoundTower]

Lol I think the rook was there. I copied from someone's blog, if I was anyone else I would infract myself because I'm such a petty dick of a mod obv

[youtalkfunny]

Wow.

I'm 45 years old, and I learned this game when I was 5. I'm no serious player, but I never lose against people who know the rules but never cracked a book on it.

I give you this bio because I find it amazing that, in all that time, there was a flaw in my knowledge of the rules! For some reason, I was under the impression that castling was not allowed if any of the squares between the rook and king were under attack (in the OP's screen shot, b1 is vulnerable to black's rook).

Still a silly puzzle, but it wasn't a total waste of time, I learned something that's actually useful.

[wlrs]

I thought the idea of castling kingside instead was nice so I made into a diagram

[Noir_Desir]

Originally Posted by TexAg06

I came across this problem a while back on chess.com's tactics trainer. I thought about the position for quite a while and couldn't find a win for white. Surely the server is mistaken, I thought. When I gave up and saw the solution, I wanted to punch someone in the face. It's ridiculous (not impossible, but HIGHLY improbable) to think that the game could get to this point without white moving his king or rook. There was no hint with the problem to indicate that white still had the ability to castle, and given the situation on the board I think it's up to them to indicate white has that option.

Sorry, just needed to rant. I hope I tricked some of you like happened to me

In chess problems castling is always allowed as long as it can't be proven that it's illegal. I remember seeing a problem where finding the mate was blatantly easy, but proving that castling (which would also have won) was illegal was pretty hard. Thus the problem was kind of a retro-analysis problem disguised as a regular one.

[ganstaman]

Originally Posted by youtalkfunny

I give you this bio because I find it amazing that, in all that time, there was a flaw in my knowledge of the rules! For some reason, I was under the impression that castling was not allowed if any of the squares between the rook and king were under attack (in the OP's screen shot, b1 is vulnerable to black's rook).

If it helps, you're not alone.

Korchnoi-Karpov 1974
"from Catastrophe in the Opening by James Plaskett..

Korchnoi went up to arbiter Alberic O'Kelly and asked if it was legal for him to castle when his rook was attacked. The GM assured him that it was. Korchnoi wrote that in the thousands of games that he had played up until then, there had simply never yet arisen a situation like that, and he was not sure that he understood the rules of the game correctly."

And if you don't know who Korchnoi is, by the time that game was played, he had already won 4 Soviet Championships, and according to chessmetrics.com he was rated #2 in the world then.

[mangler241]

Originally Posted by ganstaman

If it helps, you're not alone.

Korchnoi-Karpov 1974
"from Catastrophe in the Opening by James Plaskett..

Korchnoi went up to arbiter Alberic O'Kelly and asked if it was legal for him to castle when his rook was attacked. The GM assured him that it was. Korchnoi wrote that in the thousands of games that he had played up until then, there had simply never yet arisen a situation like that, and he was not sure that he understood the rules of the game correctly."

And if you don't know who Korchnoi is, by the time that game was played, he had already won 4 Soviet Championships, and according to chessmetrics.com he was rated #2 in the world then.

Yes, I remember that was quite humorous. Off topic, there was great video series ( it's quite long and I'd guess you'd probably want to be about expert strength or better to get much out of it; not sure if you can still get it! ) on youtube where Kasparov discusses his chess career with GM Plaskett.

[youtalkfunny]

Jesus, is there no end to this indignity?

I was talking about the empty square at b1. I thought it went without saying that castling would be illegal if the rook on a1 were under attack!

How the hell does something like this happen?

(Actually, I said I learned the game at 5, but I think a few years went by before I learned about castling, and I never heard of en passant until I was an adult...)

[YouKnowWho]

Might wanna quickly edit your post or the indignity will surely continue