Sunday 2 August 2009

The Steinitz Gambit


Not the opening (which I won't describe for obvious reasons), but the famous problem by Sam Lloyd. I can remember seeing this when I first became serious about chess 25 years ago, and although I knew the answer (from looking it up rather than solving it) I fed it into my first chess computer to see how it would do. It was not only unsuccessful, but at the time had me convinced that the problem was 'cooked'. Of course it isn't, but even now my copy of Fritz has to be 'shown' the key move, otherwise it only spots a mate in 4.
White to play and Mate in 3

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

that came to me quite quickly... unless I'm missing something...

Phil Bourke said...

Wish I could say the same! All I can add is that Rybka is better than Fritz at this one :)

Anonymous said...

I did not understand how there will be a mate in 3 after the white king moves to e3. It's open to checks from the black queen. Can you explain please? thanks.