Saturday, October 14, 2006
Mate in 19?
I have been busy recently, and that means very little chess. One annoying thing that I spent alot of time on was problem #557 in Reinfeld's 1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate. I correctly came to the conclusion that if Black refused a Rook sacrifice, it wasn't checkmate anytime soon. The book was naive in its answer and didn't explore the variation. I fed it to Fritz, and it couldn't even get to the final mate without pushing pieces to quicken the pace of calculation. Ugh... and I thought I liked checkmate problems (lol).
So here is the question: is forced mate in 19 moves really a checkmate problem?
So here is the question: is forced mate in 19 moves really a checkmate problem?
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It depends on the particulars of the problem.
On the one hand, if you win a piece on move 3 of the 19 move sequence, then in some sense the rest is just a technicality. You could view any problem where you win a piece as a mate in 30 or 40 moves, but that seems silly -- it's not really a mate problem.
On the other hand, if you specifically win a piece due to a mate threat, then in some sense it is a problem that teaches you about the threat of mate. Sometimes it's so easy to calculate that not taking the attempted sacrifice leads to loss of material, but taking the sacrifice is difficult to calculate. In that case, the important thing to learn from the problem is how to calculate the difficult line, not the easy one. So in that sense it is a mate problem.
On the one hand, if you win a piece on move 3 of the 19 move sequence, then in some sense the rest is just a technicality. You could view any problem where you win a piece as a mate in 30 or 40 moves, but that seems silly -- it's not really a mate problem.
On the other hand, if you specifically win a piece due to a mate threat, then in some sense it is a problem that teaches you about the threat of mate. Sometimes it's so easy to calculate that not taking the attempted sacrifice leads to loss of material, but taking the sacrifice is difficult to calculate. In that case, the important thing to learn from the problem is how to calculate the difficult line, not the easy one. So in that sense it is a mate problem.
I would call it an accident. It's clear Reinfeld wanted to show you the line where the sacrifice was taken.
Spending so much time to something a teacher didn't want to show in the first place I would call a problem, though:)
Spending so much time to something a teacher didn't want to show in the first place I would call a problem, though:)
On one hand, Cheapest wow goldshould you get an item upon go 3 in the Twenty move collection, and then in a few feeling others is just a technicality. You could potentially look at any risk in which you gain a piece being a companion with 25 or maybe 40 techniques,Buy rs gold
nevertheless in which would seem silly -- it is not really a companion problem
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nevertheless in which would seem silly -- it is not really a companion problem
# posted by 
: 12:06 AM
: 12:06 AM << Home
