QUEER CHESS.
(
The Guarded Chessboard)
Can you place two White rooks and a White knight on the board so that
the Black king (who must be on one of the four squares in the middle of
the board) shall be in check with no possible move open to him? "In
other words," the reader will say, "the king is to be shown checkmated."
Well, you can use the term if you wish, though I intentionally do not
employ it myself. The mere fact that there is no White king on the board
would be a sufficient reason for my not doing so.
Answer:
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| | | | | | | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| | |R|k|R|N| | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| | | | | | | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
If you place the pieces as follows (where only a portion of the board is
given, to save space), the Black king is in check, with no possible move
open to him. The reader will now see why I avoided the term "checkmate,"
apart from the fact that there is no White king. The position is
impossible in the game of chess, because Black could not be given check
by both rooks at the same time, nor could he have moved into check on
his last move.
I believe the position was first published by the late S. Loyd.
