HN

Comments (44)

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  quuxplusone
  Mentioned in TFA: This version of chess is given by Martin Gardner in his "Mathematical Games" column of July 1980 (pages 27 and 31) — https://www.jstor.org/stable/24966361 — and the analysis of White's mate is given in the column of August 1980 (page 18) — https://www.jstor.org/stable/24966383.I do wonder how things would change if the board were 9 cells long; 10 cells long; etc. Also, it seems "in the spirit" to permit castling if neither K nor R has moved yet: i.e., from the positionK _ R N r _ n kWhite ought to be permitted to_ R K N r _ n k(Or maybe there's a stronger argument for R K _ N r _ n k, actually. The former was conceptually "rook moves halfway toward king, then king moves to the other side of rook"; but the latter is "rook moves two steps in king's direction while king moves to the other side of rook.")I'm pretty sure this wouldn't change the analysis on the 8-cell board at all, though. I wonder if it would change the analysis on any size of board.
• hypendev
  Don't know when was the last time I had so much fun with chess. Quite intuitive, clicked on the first click.Would enjoy so much if there were more of these, feels like an obligation-free chess puzzle.
• hackyhacky
  If you enjoyed this, you might like Mind Chess, which can be played without a board and pieces [1]:Consider Mind Chess. Two players face each other. One says "Check." The other says "Check." The first says "Check." This continues until one of them says, instead, "Checkmate." That player wins -- superficially. In fact, the challenge is to put off checkmate for as long as possible, while still winning. This may be better stated: you truly win Mind Chess if you call "Checkmate" just before your opponent was about to.[1] http://www.eblong.com/zarf/essays/mindgame.html
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  juleiie
  That finally confirmed that I am too regarded for chess if even 1D is too hard yay
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  asibahi
  This is really nice.Incidentally, there is an actual 1D game that is one of the most popular games on the planet: Backgammon.
• gef
  Reminds me of Edwin A. Abbott's Flatland, where he describes Lineland. A one-dimensional world whose King can only move forward and backward, cannot conceive of sideways, and considers his tiny segment of existence complete and sufficient. The Linelanders are portrayed as pitiable, intellectually imprisoned by their single dimension. Much like us in our three :)
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  hart_russell
  I don’t know why this is stalemate: N4 N5, N6 K7, R5. Wouldn’t rook have the king in checkmate?
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  darepublic
  I won after four attempts. Pretty sure it was perfect play so yes white has forced win
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  northfield27
  Haha, i was taking N4 and N6, but didn’t figure the steps after that.To win we need to let knight die because rook can move multiple steps to kill the king.From a third person perspective R2 is a deceptive move that takes advantage algorithm to make the black king back off to kill its knight.
• palata
  It was a lot more fun than I first thought!
• sieste
  It took me an embarrassing number of attempts to win.
• tempestn
  That's actually a fun little puzzle.
• kkaske
  I was only able to beat this after a couple retries. The hint was hard to read.
• anon
  undefined
• sjdv1982
  Zugzwang!
• bbx
  Oh very interesting. Even with these restrictions, there are quite a few variations, and it seems only one ends up with white winning.
• schmeichel
  Finally, a version of Chess I can understand. Thank you.
• addybojangles
  Silly nice brain teaser
• rOOmbambar9
  It's very interesting and fun!)
• lschueller
  Cool idea. This is smart and lean. I like it
• anon
  undefined
• BiraIgnacio
  love it!
• tkapin
  Nice! :)
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  vladde
  i could not beat it, and i can't read that chess notation
• naorz
  Fun stuff, love it!
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  tintor
  The first move is always: white rook takes black rook, then the only remaining move for black is to move the knight away, which results in checkmate.