Grazza
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I was a "VIP" guest this weekend at the First Annual Michigan Chess Festival. I created some puzzles for this event, and as there are a few chess enthusiasts here at DW, I'm posting them here too in case they are of interest. The attachment to this post includes PDFs of the handouts I gave out at the event. There is an easy sheet and a harder one.
The harder puzzles are similar to those in some of the early chapters of my new book The Gambit Book of Instructive Chess Puzzles, which was recently published in the UK, and is soon to be released in the USA. I spent way too much time on this book, but am happy with the outcome.
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Hey, thanks bunches for these, Grazza.
I already had to peek at the answers when I got to Easy #4. I assumed they were all "in one move". Jeez. :/
I miss seein' these in the local newspaper, especially when accompanied with commentary like it appears you've done with the harder set. I look foward to digging into them when I'm rested and have the time.
Again, thanks. -
bytor said:I already had to peek at the answers when I got to Easy #4. I assumed they were all "in one move".
Sorry for not making that clear. With these being one-page handouts, there was limited room for instructions and guidance. In the "How does White/Black checkmate?" puzzles, you are just looking for a forced mate of any type, rather than it needing to be in a particular number of moves. For Puzzles 1-13, it is in anything from 1-5 moves maximum (in the solutions I haven't always mentioned ways the defender can delay mate by a move or two by giving pieces away in trivial fashion). In Puzzle 14, you are essentially just looking for a forced win (which does happen to force mate). In Puzzles 15 and 16, you are looking for the best move in the diagram position.
Your feedback on this point has already been useful, as I'm about to send a finalized version to the tournament organizers so they can use it for promotional purposes. So thanks. :)
The commentary for the harder set is of a similar type to that in the book itself, but still rather shortened due to the need to fit it on one sheet. Some of the puzzles in the book have quite lengthy discussions of important themes, thinking methods, general principles, and factors in the positions that might have suggested the right approach. The word "instructive" is in the title, after all...
It is indeed a shame that many newspapers (especially English-language ones) have ditched their chess columns (or moved them online). I guess its cheaper to use the space for a sudoku puzzle instead. :( -
Might as well post these too, as it looks like they'll be appearing in a couple of places online in any case... (I was thinking I might keep them in hand for a future book, rather than using them for promotional purposes.)
The attachment contains 20 extra puzzles, of a similar average difficulty to the "Harder" puzzles posted previously, though with slightly longer and more complex solutions. The solutions are included in the same PDF.
As for the book itself, Amazon.com will be shipping in a few days' time, and some reviews have appeared. - Show next comments 3 more
