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chessnovice
3/15/2008
19:18:28
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 Subject: Da Vinci and GK Chess Puzzles
Message:
I trust that by now, anyone who has logged in has seen the recent discovery of Pacioli's "De Ludo Schacorum", full with illustrations by (purportedly) Leonardo DaVinci. I found one of the illustrations, and was interested in putting up a chess puzzle based on it (with a slight adjustment of 1. ... Re4, to avoid starting the puzzle under check).
White's move, mate in 9.
 www.iht.com
When I tried to plug this into the GK chess puzzles, there ended up being so many branches that it produced an error. Apparently there is a minimum on those things. I understand the practicality of it, but I wonder what that minimum number is, exactly.
Anyone know?
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heinzkat
3/16/2008
05:50:14
[ report abuse ] | You mean a maximum?
Message:
I have never counted... I do have a GK support answer on this subject:
"Hello, heinzkat,
The problem with the puzzle #240 was that the solution had
exceeded the space allocated for it in the database. Please try
redesigning the puzzle so that it doesn't have as many possible
moves/variants."
Shortly after that, a message was displayed as soon as there are too many 'variants'. I guess they mean variations. Or is variants an English word too?
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heinzkat
3/16/2008
06:11:40
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Message:
Puzzle #3208
gameknot.com.
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chessnovice
3/16/2008
08:30:03
[ report abuse ] | ...
Message:
Variants is what it told me when I tried to apply it. It's an English word, but I think when applied to chess it's supposed to mean different versions of the game (eg: Chess 960, Capablanca chess, etc). Perhaps the words are similar enough that they can be used interchangeably, though.
It would be an interesting tidbit of GK trivia to know what the upper limit for variations would be. I only hit the limit once, but I didn't count how far I was going.
Thanks for putting up puzzle #3208 under my name. I looked at it, and I noticed that the chess diagram I posted here was backwards. I'm still new to FEN notation (oops).
That should be the puzzle that yields mate in 9, the version that went overboard with variations. The Da Vinci drawing (www.timesonline.co.uk) actually doesn't indicate the orientation of the board, which I didn't take into consideration.
Interesting that the converse of the board yields a comparable delay of game by black, though. You would think that the power of nearly promoted pawns would be more influential.
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heinzkat
3/16/2008
08:32:31
[ report abuse ] | Aha!
Message:
That's a whole different puzzle. Interesting stuff. If you want the board to be displayed properly in the GK forums, put a 'b' at the end of the fen string - otherwise the board gets flipped. Confusing:)
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chessnovice
3/16/2008
08:40:26
[ report abuse ] | grrr
Message:
>.>
Let me try this FEN notation stuff one more time...
I'll get the hang of it sooner or later!
The b worked. Woo.
I THINK that should be the one. x[
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ogedei
3/16/2008
10:15:59
[ report abuse ] | hmmm...
Message:
If only they'd write some new code for the website allowing for more variations.
A Di Vinci Code, if you will. (Please don't boo me off the stage!)
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www.timesonline.co.uk