In some places EPIPHANY is the big gift giving day, for obvious reasons. Please remember me when shopping online. Thanks in advance. US HERE – UK HERE WHY? This helps to pay for health insurance (massively hiked for this new year of surprises), utilities, groceries, etc.. At no extra cost, you provide help for which I am grateful.
HEY…. nick……@fuse! My thank you note got kicked back as undeliverable! New email?
White to move and mate in 2.
LAST CHANCE for Jingle Bell Java!
Use FATHERZ10 at checkout
NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.
Interested in learning? Try THIS. There’s a big sale on right now.
Priestly chess players, drop me a line. HERE
FIDE put out the official list for the Candidates Tournament. It IRKS me to see Firouza’s name on that list, I’ll tell you.
Meanwhile, I’m well into Kristen Lavransdatter now, although I am being roundly chastised by a friend for choosing the Nunnally translation instead of the Archer.
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Nice puzzle. The key to it comes when one realizes that Black has no legal moves to make except with his Rook, and that moving the Rook from its present square is fatal. Thus White needs to make any innocent move first that will not alter Black’s Zugzwang — and there is only one such move for White:
1. Kg1
Now Black has to move his Rook, and it does not matter whether he moves it along rank or file. If, for example, he moves to any square along the 7th rank (e.g., Rf7), then 2. Ng6 is mate.
And if he moves it to any square in the g-file (e.g., Rg5), then 2. Nf7 is mate.
1. Kg2 rook to anywhere legal (only moveable piece)
2. Ng6#
Huh, Kristen Lavransdatter jumped out at me recently, maybe I should read it.
1. Kg1 R(anywhere, zugzwang)
2. Ng6# (or Nf7#)
1. K-g1
If Black’s rook moves anywhere on the g column:
2. N-f7#
If Black’s rook moves anywhere on the 7 row:
2. N-g6#
1. Rxh7+ Rxh7
2. Ng6#
Just glanced at this again and it wasn’t quite complete, if the rook moves on the g column white has to play Nf7 for checkmate.
Alireza’s name on the list irks me too, but it increases my admiration for So all the more. So stood to gain a lot of money/prestige/etc. that he has been due throughout his career but has been second-fiddle to bigger US names like Caruana and Nakamura. Being 3rd in the US gets you less time on the international stage than being first in the Netherlands, Poland, or Azerbaijan, to name a few examples. So prioritized his honor and celebrating Christmas – good man.
Undset combines the gloom of Dostoevsky with the machismo of Sienkiewicz in “Kristen Lavransdatter”. She then sets it in Norway in the brief Catholic era between Paganism and Protestantism. It’s as close to a masterpiece as anything coming out of Scandinavia.
Did Magnus Carlsen being Norwegian have anything to do with the choice of reading?
Or, possibly the desire to become a better confessor.
Why read “Kristen Lavransdatter”? Nothing to do with Magnus. It has been warmly recommended and often by friends with impeccable taste. Hence, it has been on my list for a long time. I just never got to it.
Ignatius Press recently published a biography of Undset written by a Dominican.
As I understand, Undset was a devout lay Dominican and they have opened a cause for her beatification.