Chess Problems...A Different World

     I never cared much for tournament play; toiling away non-stop all weekend playing chess seemed more like work than work in the real world. Throw in travel time, rushed meals and hotel stays and it was just not that appealing.
     Consequently, I concentrated on postal play and later email. The advent of strong engines pretty much killed that endeavor though. I don't have the gumption to painstakingly assemble a strong correspondence opening book, have no desire to spend money on a powerful dedicated desktop computer and don't have the patience to watch engines churning away for days at a time waiting for the best move to bubble up to the top then testing and retesting to see if it really is the best move. Read more about modern correspondence play at CCLA. 
     I prefer to while away my chess time playing over the old masters' pre-engine games rather than the sterile games of today's players. Even with the mistakes that engines point out in seconds, I admire their imagination. 
     Chess problems never appealed to me...until recently. What I have discovered is that the problem world is, well...a whole other world with a language all its own. 
     There are problems known as Albinos, Allumwandlungs, anti-Bristols, Babson tasks, direct mates, Excelsiors, fairy chess, Grimshaws, helpmates, maximummers, Novotnys and many more. There are terms like block, clearance, cook, dual, doubling and duplex. Interference, phase and proof game. 
     I am talking about chess problems (or compositions), not puzzles. Puzzles are usually tactical exercises taken from actual games and the solution usually starts with a forcing move (check and capture). Chess problems (mate in 2, mate in 3, endgame studies, etc.) are quite often a whole lot harder; they rarely start with a forcing move. 
     In the few times in the past when I tried solving a problem, I did it pretty much the same way I would approach finding the best move in any position, but that didn't work because problems seldom resemble familiar patterns. That left a hit or miss approach; try this, try that. But, I have discovered solving has its own technique and there are things you have to look for in order to know what to look for! 
     I downloaded a small pamphlet about "constructing and solving chess problems made easy", but it wasn't and I am starting problem solving from scratch just like when I learned to play chess at the beginning. 

    What got me interested in this new world was the book The Chess Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes: Fifty Tantalizing Problems of Chess Detection by Raymond M. Smullyan. In the book Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson examine interrupted games at clubs and country homes, examining the positions to identify previous moves. The focus is on past moves using logical reasoning just like Holmes used to solve all his mysteries. Holmes instructs Watson in retrograde analysis in order to deduce on which square the white Q was captured, whether a P was promoted or which piece was replaced by a coin. The puzzles grow increasingly complex, culminating in a double murder perpetrated by Professor Moriarty. 
     If you're looking for something different and challenging, try solving chess compositions. They won't improve your chess, but reading all those opening books and solving tactical puzzles apparently doesn't work for most of us either. For more information on chess problems visit The Problemist of the British Chess Problem Society.  
     Problems are different because most composers and solvers consider them to be an art form. There are no official standards by which to distinguish a beautiful problem, but they generally must meet the following conditions: 
1) The position must be legal. 
2) The key move must be unique. A problem is called cooked and therefore considered unsound if there is more than one solution. 
3) The solution should illustrate a theme. 
4) The key move should not be obvious. 
5) No promoted Pawns in the initial position. 
6) The problem should be economical, meaning every piece should serve a purpose, either to enable the actual solution, or to exclude alternative solutions. Extra pieces should not be added to create "red herrings" (this is called dressing the board).

     Here's a little two-mover by Paul Maxacoulin of Russia that won first prize in 1899 in something called the Kentish Mercury Problem Tourney that was conducted for that paper by English master Samuel Tinsley. Once you find the Key move, black has 28 legal replies and each one allows mate on the next move. I find that amazing. 

White to play.  Mate in two moves.