Does anyone else have that tome “Chess” by László Polgár? 95% of it is problems to find checkmate in 1, 2, or 3 moves. It’s wonderful to have so many problems, but here’s an example of something that annoys me about the format of a lot of them:
This is a White to mate in 3. In this position, like a lot of the problems, Black has a way to give check or even checkmate. So you know right off the top of the bat you have to give check every single move, but this is rarely like a usual game.
To me, it seems a bit artificial. Maybe it’s more important for training to be able to see the pattern? What do y’all think?
Well I have the book also, but I never got into it. I just bought it because I had a coupon so it ended up costing me like $12. I know where you’re coming from on this though. In the problem you give here you don’t have to play for mate. I mean you have a serious material advantage, so what’s the point? If I had games that ended like this in my favor I wouldn’t mind not finding the mate in three. I’d just be happy to be winning. I guess it’s all about the pattern recognition as opposed to the “believability” of the position.
i think it helps in that it makes you think about chess, see patterns, etc. it helps more than watching “i love new york” on vh1, but some of those “75,000 mates” books are crazy examples that would never ever happen in a game. if this were a real game, and i was white and black still hadn’t resigned, i would just keep playing and eventually mate him, 3 moves, 12 moves, don’t matter at this point. but that is my opinion, and i suck, so i wouldn’t listen to me.
I’m going to assume that the queen on a3 is Black, since otherwise there are multiple solutions to this problem. I would say that in a lot of games, especially with kings on opposite sides, there are positions where both sides are mating. I avoided a sideline in a dragon last week where Black would have gotten mated with his queen on a3 and pawn on c3 waiting to give mate on b2 if White gave him a chance. These things do really happen. But as far as the legitimacy of this problem goes, this mate is one of those things you just have to know, on sight, preferably several moves before you reach the position in the puzzle. Wang is right, pattern recognition is key. I looked at this problem for maybe 3 seconds, cause I know the mate is there. I’ve seen it hundreds of times.
If the queen on a3 is really white I agree with wang and chessloser and I am known to play very simple lines to prove how much better my position is. Lines like 1. Rc6 bc 2. Nf6+ gf 3. Qf8+ Kf8 4. a4 when Black will lose all his pawns trying to defend against the a pawn and White can win with Rook against King 🙂
One game I sacrificed two queens to trade down to a 2 pawns against king ending because my opponent wouldn’t resign, it was funny.
1. Kevin is right it makes more sense if the Queen was Black, but in the book it was White.
2. It’s not so much the realism or material balance that bothers me. Here, we know there must be mate in 3, and since Black can give check, our moves MUST be checks, or the problem fails. The solution is practically forced, and there’s not a whole lot of thinking going on.
I’m probably being way too harsh on the book, as chessplayers are at different levels of progression. Still, emotions are a weird thing, and I can’t help but think, “Stop holding my hand!”
Hmmm… I didn’t realize before when I commented that I don’t even consider Black’s check since I know he doesn’t get a move. In other words I look at forcing moves for White before I even consider moves for Black. I did consider Black’s check because I read your post, but if I saw a problem like that in a book I would probably pass on without even realizing Black can check because Black doesn’t get a move. So I would say that if you are unable to solve this at a glance, then maybe the fact that Black can check gives you a hint, but that since you should ALWAYS consider the most forcing moves for white in a mate in 3 that it’s not that much help.
btw, temposchlucker has done a LOT of work on this book. cf his posts, last three months extensive. dk
@Kevin: I have not the skill to solve this at a glance. 😀 It does make sense to look for forcing moves first.
You know the problems I do enjoy? In Chess Life, Larry Evans’ “What’s the best move?” is interesting. It’s multiple choice, but he doesn’t tell us a specific objective. Sometimes, it’s just the one move that doesn’t lose the game. And on average, I get 2 right, and 1 of those was lucky, ’cause I chose it for the wrong reasons.
@David: I rarely hit temposchlucker’s site (why? dunno, I see his name floating around all the time, so maybe I should), but will check it out.