Thursday 9 September 2010

Catch you on the flipside


Here is a cute (chess) party trick. In the position on the right it is White to play and mate in 3. Now as shown on the screen it is pretty clear which direction White is going (ie up the screen). But if you set it up on a board there will always be someone who asks "Which way is White going?". It turns out it actually doesn't matter. With White going up or down the board, there is still a mate in 3 (a different one of course). Even if someone doesn't ask, after they've solved it one way, you can always spin the board and challenge them to solve it for the other direction.

3 comments:

HeinzK said...

Composed by Alexander Galitzky around the year 1900, give the man some credit will you :p

Shaun Press said...

Thanks for that. The book I saw it in didn't give a source.

Anonymous said...

I like this one. Cool !

thanks
cheers
Garrett.