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Date: 30 Sep 2006 09:03:20
From:
Subject: Apples do fall from trees, after all!
This is my fourth chess problem composition. Can you have a look at it
please? Your comments are welcome. Forgive me for my poor English
gram, I composed this a few minutes ago but this problem needed a
short introduction.

Professor Zabboltz was an old chess teacher who hated children. He felt
that they didn't pay enough attention to his extremely interesting
endgame studies. Besides, they smelled bad. But the time had come for
his revenge. Next morning they had their final exam, and he knew that
those who failed it would not be allowed to attend the summer
activities that the school had arranged for them. Thus, he prepared an
exceedingly difficult problem for them to be solved in just five
minutes. Unfortunately, next morning he had to attend an important
chess seminar out of town and would be deprived to see the desperation
on their faces. So he carefully prepared the position on the blackboard
with his newly acquired magnetic chess board. He then locked up the
classroom. He would make a call to his assistant next morning to reveal
were he had hidden the key that unlocked the door. He was not going to
trust anybody. He also gave intructions to him to be extremely severe
with the time limit and to take care that nobody cheated during the
exam.

The problem was:
8/8/8/3N3R/5b2/n5B1/1K2k3/2Q5
Kb2 Qc1 Rh5 Bg3 Nd5
Ke2 Bf4 Na3
Stipulation: (he was not going to help them with this either): "Find
the shortest mate"

Next morning, after the exam, the assistant teacher collected the
exams, put the chess pieces back to their box, and left everything at
the Professor's office.

Prof. Zabboltz could not believe what had happened and almost had a
heart attack! All the students had found the correct key move in five
minutes. His assistant swore to him that no one had cheated. All the
students went to the summer camp and, by the way, they really enjoyed
chess there.

What had happened?

Jos=E9 Potrosal





 
Date: 30 Sep 2006 23:56:37
From:
Subject: Re: Apples do fall from trees, after all!
ANSWER:
The solution to Professor's Zabboltz problem:

There is a unique mate in three moves:

1=2E Nc3!+
1=2E ... Kd3 2. Rd5+
2. ... Kc4 3. Qxf4 mate
1=2E ... Kf3 2. Qxf4+
2. ... Kg2 3. Qf2 mate

Not too difficult or original, but with two variant plays and no
additional hints may be still hard to solve in five minutes for young
children (why 4 years old, Mike?) I suppose.

What had happened was the following. During the night, all the pieces
had slipped down to the "a" row where the board frame had stopped them.
Since the position was still orthodox, and no pieces were on the floor,
the assistant teacher couldn't notice that this was not the intended
problem.
Now the situation was:

8/8/8/8/8/8/8/nKQNkbBR

And the shortest mate happens to be again Nc3!+ (mate in one move!)
The students had solved a much easier problem and no part knew ever the
whole story.

This is why I became interested in "aristocratic problems" in my
previous post. To compose this one I couldn't allow pawns to be in the
"a-row".
I hope you liked it.

Jos=E9 Potrosal



 
Date: 01 Oct 2006 05:21:47
From: Mike
Subject: Re: Apples do fall from trees, after all!
Answer: The professor was teaching 4-year old kids!

<[email protected] > wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

Professor Zabboltz was an old chess teacher who hated children. He felt
that they didn't pay enough attention to his extremely interesting




 
Date: 30 Sep 2006 13:19:39
From:
Subject: Re: Apples do fall from trees, after all!
I have had a very interesting comment made privately and I want to
slightly correct the story above:
Where it says "newly acquired magnetic chess board", it should read
"old magnetic board on which the pieces would sometimes fall off or
slip downward".

I hope this helps!

JP



 
Date: 30 Sep 2006 10:56:05
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Apples do fall from trees, after all!

Very nice story, Jose. Keep them and your little problems (I would call
them puzzles; you call them whatever you like) coming, they are very
amusing. Your English is better than some posters here who claim it as
a first language.