Mir Sultat Khan. This is one of chess history's most interesting footnotes. His biography on Chessgames is kinda sparse, but check out is bio on Wikepedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir_Su...

OK, while the ultimate solution is very easy, it took me a few minutes to find it (after looking for checkmates, then threats on the king, I finally got around to looking at threats on the minor pieces).

18 f4

attacks the knight that has nowhere to run. The only question is how long much longer black played on.

I am coming to the realisation that chess is not just a game. It is a collection of different games that just happen to be played out in the same space and at the same time. Call them mini games, if you will, or games within games.

In this respect, it's a bit like golf. Putting is a very different shot from a drive off the tee. Playing out of a bunker is another shot altogether. Or the shot that I seem to spend most of my time playing, which is grubbing around in the undergrowth trying to find a lost ball. And then there's the decision about how garish your trousers should be, or ... if you are the world's number 1, how many laydeez to invite up to your hotel room.

And one of my favourite mini games in chess is the battle between bishops and knights. This is chess's version of the classic rivalries such as men vs women, restaurant critics vs celebrity chefs, cats and dogs.

Try this - put a knight on d8 and a bishop on d5.

click for larger view

Who's winning? The knight is sitting smug and untouchable on the safest of safe squares. There is absolutely nothing that the bishop can do to harm it. A white squared bishop can never hop onto a dark square. It would be like a woman suddenly developing an interest in swiss army knives or a red-blooded male taking an interest in handbags. It just ain't gonna happpen.

Look a little closer, and you see that the out-of-touch bishop is actually dominating the knight. The two pieces may not be in contact yet, but if the knight tries to move the bishop will snap it off.

Look closer still, and the tables turn again. The bishop can only dominate the knight from this one square. If the bishop has to move it will lose its position of domination and the knight will be free.

Of course, this is a special case. A knight on the rim is dim and it is only on the edge of the board that this can happen. Place your knight on a central square and all of a sudden it has eight squares to jump to. And the only way that a knight on a central square is going to get trapped by a bishop is if it allows other pieces (including its own) to block off its escape routes ...

... which is what black does today. A little harder to see than normal because we normally spend Mondays putting the ball in the hole with a two foot queen sacrifice putt. So it's a bit of a change to be chipping in off the green with a knight trap pitching wedge.

<18.?>

Target: 0:40;000
Taken: 0:49;599, monday ownage. Fair enough, in a game this is tons easier as it was the plan of 17.h3 and this ain't no regular Monday.

Material: =

Candidates: Nd5, Nb5, <[f4]>

-ML-
Typical Monday in the fact it ain't a regular one. First I went to look into Nd5 (a blunder per se as the Queen is defended) of course seeing Nb5 is better but Qb8 would hold the line, aside cxb5 >_>.

Of course then attention goes to the central Knight, but truth be told, focus on minor pieces in Monday puzzle is rather. Alas:

After an embarrassing amount of time I stopped looking for combinations involving 18 Nb5 or Nd5, and stopped worrying about + on the a7-g1 diagonal. The simple and immediate f4 seems to work fine. W can first play 18 Nb5 followed by N for B exchange on d6, which clears a few more pieces but doesn't look to me any better (might even be a bit worse).

Pondering over 18. Nd5 or 18. Nb5, seeking the deflection of Bd6, so I could harass the Queen freely, thinking, thinking, thinking...

...what the? It's Monday, isn't it?

And then I glimpsed on that beautiful, centralized Knight...