Chess Online

This is a good example of a bad puzzle, since there is no less than three possible first moves for black ( Qb8, Qc7 and Qd6).

The established definition of a chess puzzle is that it should only have one solution, especially when it comes to the first move. What´s the point of having several solutions? Then you can argue that you can solve this in four, five or eight moves as well and still call it a puzzle.

smartkid2, Elijah probably resigned, seeing the inevitability of mate. But that doesn't mean we can't use the position as an instructive and amusing puzzle.

brkst, this being from a game, I can give some leeway since all three first moves serve the same purpose. That said, I agree it would have been more pleasing for the author to have moved the c pawn back a space to row 7 and note that the position was modified slightly to allow for only a single solution.

In principal you´re right, but for the beauty of it, it would have been easy just to put some pieces on c6 and b7, for instance a white Night on b7 and a white Bishop on b8.

brkst is right and it's a bad, bad thing that this entry gets the privilege of being featured on the frontpage not once, but twice!

It's a good puzzle, I mean, to practical players. An average good puzzle to practical players, average players, club players. Not a better one, far from a gem, but an instructive, simple, and honest puzzle. Cooked, with three solutions in move 1, but to practical players it matters little. Is the daily puzzle in GK mainly to problemists? Every puzzle here must be a problem? And, more, problems, in general, help less a player than positions from real games. Problems, in great percentage, with Kings in the middle the board, arounded by many White and Black pieces; completely artificial positions. There are instructive problems, particulary smart miniatures, with beautiful mating patterns, but unfortunately these type of problem is the exception.