Talk:Chess problem

old talk
I think it would be helpful to have the chess coordinates along the edge of the board in the pictures. At least I have trouble remembering from where they originate and so on. - Fylke

It appears that very few illustrated chess positions included in Wikipedia have a Forsyth-Edwards Notation (FEN) tag. Why? A FEN tag would be very handy for copy/paste entry into user's own chess database.


 * FEN-notation is unsuitable for chess problems, as requires past history to be stated. No such history exist, and in some problems it may even be part of the problem to discover it. Forsyth notation would be useful, but even then the difficulty over the problem world using 'S' and 's' for knights will appear. Athulin (talk) 18:07, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

the longest problem has duals
I wish to ask why did you put the problem of mate in 271? There are several flaws in this problem: 1. It is not a typical problem 2. It doesn't have any artistic value 3. It was composed by a computer 4. It contains duals (e.g.: 20.Kd4/Kc4 or 33.Ke4/Ra4 and others) I suggest to remove it. Do you want me to chose something else here? Ofer Comay —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ofercomay (talk • contribs) 15:35, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
 * In my view using this problem within the article is questionable as well, so I support Ofer's offer. Could you suggest the new example here first, please? Thank you for pointing something bothering me for a long time :-) --Ruziklan (talk) 21:34, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The longest orthodox correct chess problem is a 208-mover from André Chéron (Fen: 4nN1Q/p7/p1p3np/p1pkNrpq/7r/K1P4p/2PP4/6B1 w - - 0 1). Journal de Genève, 13.10.1979 (European date format). The first moves are commented by Chéron in that issue, and the main solution in Journal de Genève, 11.09.1976, both available online at http://www.letempsarchives.ch. Others like Blathy's are either illegal or cooked. I suggest to make a separate page for chess problems/studies/games records and to put only important notions here. MHBkz (talk) 16:28, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

John Rice & R C O Matthews
The links to John Rice in "Further Reading" go to an article about someone other than the problemist. I don't know what the best way would be to make this a "red link" - perhaps a more expert Wikipedian could suggest?

Incidentally, Rice was a teacher at Tiffin Boys' School when I was a pupil there 1965-71, and R C O Matthews (co-author with Lipton and Rice) is my uncle. He (Matthews) is also an eminent economist and was Master of Clare College, Cambridge (now retired) - somone should write an article on him (in all capacities)! AndrewWTaylor 11:33, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Can ther be two queens on the same side apon the pawn making it all the way across the board

Taverner problem
Publication details for this problem? Alexander George (Talk) 13:53, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * 1st prize in the Dubuque Chess Journal Tourney, 1889 (I rely on Breuer: Beispiele zur Ideengeschichte des Schachproblems). The text refers to it being created in 1881 -- I can't say that is wrong, as problems may be created a long time before they're sent to a tourney, even though I suspect '1881' may be a mistake for '1889'. Athulin (talk) 17:49, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Heathcote problem
The Heathcote problem at the top of the article has got to be wrong (it's cooked because both 1.b4+ and 1.Qxh5+ mate, and in any case, neither solution is good enough for the problem to be published, never mind to win a first prize). Can somebody fix it? If not, it ought to be removed from the article. --Camembert 15:21, 7 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Never mind, I found an online source. A black bishop was missing from d1. --Camembert 16:16, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

well, I'm still a bit unclear, as there appear to be several solutions besides (better than?) the supplied one, is this typical of such compositions?--Billymac00 00:45, 7 February 2007 (UTC)


 * There is only one solution to the problem. If there is, in fact, more than one solution in the position given, then most likely we have a faulty diagram; a problem with more than one solution when only one is intended is (as the article explains) said to be "cooked" and is completely without value. What other solutions do you think there are? --Camembert 14:39, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I stand corrected, sorry--Billymac00 14:39, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

The so-called alternative solution to Heathcote's problem given by user Terraform01 is incorrect, as 1.Qd3? is refuted by 1...Rh8+! This famous problem is computer-tested and definitely has no unintended solutions. Obviously I'm removing that part from the article. Leafhopper 14:15, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Chess Importance
Upgraded to High from Mid due to high linkage to article. ChessCreator (talk) 16:43, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Taverner Problem, Again
Hello. I'm admittedly a very low level problem solver, but could anyone please enlighten me as to what the mating move by white is supposed to be after white plays the key (Rh1) and black does Be6? Thanks in advance.
 * Nevermind, i've just seen it is e3. As i said, low level. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.22.153.77 (talk) 23:35, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Terms with or without hyphens?
Terms such as "moremover" appear in the text of the article without a hyphen, but are defined in bold with a hyphen. No idea which is correct or preferred, so I don't want to blindly edit, but I wanted to note this inconsistency. I noticed it because I used ctrl+F to find all occurrences; I don't know much about chess, which is why I was reading this page. --76.115.3.200 (talk) 22:44, 19 April 2010 (UTC)


 * The term does seem to be represented both ways in articles. The glossary uses hyphen . Chess prob editors should decide which is better, or continue w/ both. --IHTS (talk) 12:57, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Directmates
In the "Types of Problem" section directmates are broken down into two-movers, three-movers, and more-movers. Is this distinction supported by convention? If so I think there should be a source cited for that distinction. If not it seems simpler to use a general description of an n-mover, which is basically what the more-movers definition already is for n>3. Imyourfoot (talk) 01:48, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

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Women
What is the situation with women in this specific part of chess? Granted, if any of the instances happened. 213.149.51.165 (talk) 23:27, 31 January 2019 (UTC)
 * When was the first one published in a FIDE Album?
 * First GM, IM?

Tournaments
There is one other notable competition called International Solving Contest (ISC). It's worldwide. Theoretically everyone competes against everyone, even amateur against pros. Don't know what is the situation in reality. 213.149.51.165 (talk) 23:27, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Two tags

 * This article's lead section may be too long for the length of the article.
 * This article needs additional citations for verification.

These two tags are correct tags of long standing. I have added headings to reduce the apparent size of the lede, and I added a inline citation which describes chess problems. I removed a short parenthetical sentence.

Dressing the board
The current definition confuses "dressing the board" with "weasels". Dressing the board is something much older. See "Mate in Two Moves - The Two-Move Chess Problem Made Easy - Brian Harley":

"Very little development took place in problems for some hundreds of years. In fact, it was not until the nineteenth century that composers attained full art-consciousness. [...] In order to make the problem position appear as much like a game ending as possible, the composer added a number of pieces, which had no use whatever in the solution, but more or less equalised the forces. This process, known as "dressing the board," is at complete variance with the modern theory of economy of force. No. 2 is an example of the "game-players" problem; a favourable example, for the solution is not unduly long and there is not much "board-dressing."" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gresach (talk • contribs) 04:07, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

"Chess puzzle" vs "Chess problem"
"Chess puzzle" says that a "chess problem" deals with wins, draws, and losses specifically, while "chess puzzles" can be any chess-related puzzle. However, this article includes "Retrograde analysis problems", "shortest proof games", and "construction tasks".

To me, I think they're both the same. Originally I thought to discuss merging "chess puzzle" into "chess problem", however it seems like "chess puzzle" is more often used (https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=chess%20puzzle,chess%20problem) (gets twice as many results in google). Also, "puzzle" is the word used on major chess websites like lichess and chess.com. So maybe "Chess problem" should be moved to "Chess puzzle" instead? AltoStev ( talk ) 23:36, 8 December 2021 (UTC)


 * No! The “puzzles” on the sites you mention are what this article refers to as “tactical puzzles.” This article is about true chess problems as understood in the chess world: artistic compositions constructed for thematic or esthetic effect. This is an important distinction to problem devotées, but is often lost on those not versed in the form. (See, for instance, https://www.chess.com/blog/Rocky64/chess-problems-vs-puzzles-and-more-on-the-queens-gambit-scene.) Please let’s not let Wikipedia add further fuel the this misconception. — Dodiad (talk) 00:37, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Ok I think I know what happening, I got confused by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_puzzle#Chess_problems.
 * Based on your definition, should I redirect Chess puzzle to Chess tactic? (Edit: Or some other change to the chess puzzle article)  AltoStev  ( talk ) 16:58, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The Chess Puzzles article correctly sub-divides the generic term "chess puzzles" into chess problems and tactical puzzles (ie. these are separate sub-categories), which is exactly what Dodiad is saying. Just because tactical puzzles typically involve tactics is not even a good reason to redirect "Tactical chess puzzles" (if such a page exists) to "Chess tactic" (because chess tactics also occur in actual games, not just puzzles), let alone redirecting the broad category of "chess puzzles". Here's an analogy. Chess puzzles = fruits, Chess problems = apples (involves "art" = red), Tactical puzzles = bananas (involves "tactics" = yellow). Should the Fruits page redirect to the Yellow page? Leafhopper (talk) 04:20, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The section I mentioned says "While a chess puzzle is any puzzle involving aspects of chess, a chess problem is an orthodox puzzle in which one must play and win or draw a game". (Edit: I mentioned this sentence in my first post so the rest of my messages were implicitly in the context of that confusion, but I didn't make this explicit (I didn't realize I was assuming that the sentence applied, only implicitly, and maybe not even implicit?) so oops.) So since chess problem was wrong I thought the chess problem and chess puzzle was switched (also wrong), and since the article was wrong I thought maybe it could use the information from "chess tactic". I can't figure out what I was thinking there, but that specific section confused me, since it contradicts with what Dodiad said.  AltoStev  ( talk ) 13:20, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Dear AltoStev: This article is fine as is. It is not at all confused about what a chess problem is. It doesn’t need changing. Please let the subject go and leave it alone.


 * Thanks for the explanation, AltoStev. Now that I re-read that part from the Chess Puzzle article, I can see why it could be confusing, because it defines "Chess problem" too narrowly, as "an orthodox puzzle... playing within the standard rules of chess." This introductory description is contradicted just a few sentences later, when heterodox problems are explained. I'll try to fix that with a broader definition that covers both orthodox and heterodox types, while distinguishing problems from tactical puzzles. Leafhopper (talk) 02:01, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Keyword: solution!
Either a solution needs to be given for "white victory in one move" [footnote 5] or someone should remove the trash. 49.184.24.3 (talk) 20:01, 26 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Added a solution/explanation. OK now? Dodiad (talk) 22:04, 26 April 2022 (UTC)