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Later Kibitzing> |
Dec-29-11
 | | Phony Benoni: <jnpope> I couldn't speculate as to the actual originator, but it wouldn't surprise me if it were neither Zukertort nor Chigorin. But I do want to express my thanks for your work on the Jack O'Keefe Project. This is a important and useful resource, even for amateur researchers such as myself. |
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Jan-02-12
 | | Richard Taylor: My father was given a book of Sam Loyd's in the middle 60s) puzzles for giving another chess player lifts by car to tournaments but I myself didn't look at them very much, I prefer "real positions" when I hopefully find it easier to recognize patterns...but I might haul it out... Studies are good.
But good to see Sam Loyd on here today. Very clever man. |
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Jan-02-12
| | Richard Taylor: <becoming deeply obsessed with chess, > This sounds familiar! |
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Jan-02-12
| | Richard Taylor: < vonKrolock: <Phony Benoni> The atribution to Loyd in this instance is doubtful. There're some similar examples with this matrix in <WinChloe>, though, for instance this one: F. S. Bondarenko
"feenschach" 1960
click for larger view
w #21 1.Dd8+ Td6 2.Db7+ Tçç6 3.Da5+ T4ç5 4.Db3+ Tdç4 5.Dd2+ Téd4 6.Df3+ Téé4 7.Dg5+ é5 8.Df7+ Té6 9.Dd8+ Tçd6 10.Db7+ Tçç6 11.Da5+ T4ç5 12.Db3+ Tdç4 13.Dd2+ Téd4 14.Df3+ é4 15.Dg5+ Té5 16.Df7+ Tdé6 17.Dd8+ Tçd6 18.Db7+ Tçç6 19.Da5+ T4ç5 20.Db3+ Tdç4 21.Dd2‡ > I can visualize the whole process of this without moving the pieces! The pieces all move around the King like Merry go Round!! |
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Jan-02-12
| | Richard Taylor: These are intriguing! I must dust off (now my) book of Sam Loyd's puzzles! |
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Jan-02-12
 | | Penguincw: Best puzzle composer ever. |
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| Jan-02-12 | | erniecohen: Since Loyd is player-of-the-day, perhaps it's as good a time as any to ask: did anyone ever compose a rook excelsior (or show it impossible)? I seem to remember it was an open problem (with a prize!) back in the '70s. |
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| Jan-02-12 | | erniecohen: <Phoni Benoni> I think even when the ambiguous rules allowed promotion to a Black piece, promoting to a ♘ constituted moving into check, which you are not allowed to do (even if you do it while checkmating the opposing ♔). On the other hand, promoting to a King (of either color) introduces all kinds of interesting possibilities. (I'd vote for the interpretation that you have to capture all of them.) |
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Jan-02-12
| | Phony Benoni: <erniecohen> You may be remembering an offer made by Al Horowitz. I don't recall the definite context, but it may have been in conjunction with P. L. Rothenberg and appearing in their book "The Personality of Chess" (also known as "The Complete Book of Chess"). They offered a $100 prize for a double knight promotion helpmate. In this problem, Black would move first and both sides would cooperate to mate Black in five moves by marching a single pawn which would promote to a knight. Just to illustrate the idea:
click for larger viewThe intention, Black moving first, is 1.g5 a4 2.gxh4 a5 3.h3 a6 4.h2 a7 5.h1N a8N#. Black's g-pawn must jump two squares to avoid checking the White king, and must promote to a knight to avoid another check or covering the mating square on a8. Of course, this position is totally unsound. For example, Black can play ..Bb7 at some point, allowing axb7 and b8Q#. Horowitz and Rothenberg had not found a solution, and I believe Pal Benko also worked on it without success. Perhaps one of our more knowledgable problem fans knows something further. |
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| Jan-02-12 | | erniecohen: <Phoniy Benoni> I do think it might have been in "The Complete Book of Chess", but I don't remember it as being a helpmate - it was supposed to match the original Excelsior problem, but promoting to different pieces (i.e. White to mate in 5, where the principal line was all moves by a single pawn, ending with promotion to an appropriate piece). So it was not supposed to be a helpmate. They had accomplished it for all pieces except for one, which I thought was the Rook (but it might have been Knight). Can somebody with a copy of "The Complete Book of Chess" check this out? |
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| Jan-06-12 | | erniecohen: I finally tracked down a copy of "The Complete Book of Chess" and <PhoniBenoni> was absolutely right, it was indeed a helpmate in 5 with promotion to a ♘ (for both sides, the second delivering mate). There are several references to the problem on the web (google "Knight double excelsior"). The following solution from "Chess Life and Review" 1974 (by R. Stanley) shows a solution using promoted pieces:
click for larger viewIt is apparently widely believed to be impossible to achieve this without using promoted pieces, but the problem seems to still be open. |
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| Jan-30-12 | | brankat: Forever young! |
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Jan-30-12
| | Penguincw: R.I.P. Sam Loyd. |
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Mar-11-12
 | | Peligroso Patzer: I just came across the following curious and interesting statement attributed to Paul Saladin Leonhardt: “Genius is creative, sees and combines visions, is original and catholic, so far as possible. If one may speak of genius in chess, then you may concede it to Morphy, Steinitz, Pillsbury and Lloyd [sic]. But to call Rubinstein a genius is a perversion of words.” The foregoing was quoted in <The Life and Games of Akiva Rubinstein, Volume 1: Uncrowned King>, 2nd Edition, Revised and Enlarged, by Donaldson, John and Minev, Nikolay, Russell Enterprises, Inc. ©2006, at p. 269, in an extended passage excerpted from an article the above-identified source says appeared in the November 1912 issue of the <British Chess Magazine>. Despite the incorrect spelling, I wonder if Leonhardt was attributing genius to Sam Loyd on the basis of his creativity as a problem composer. Otherwise, I am at a loss to identify his reference to “Lloyd”. |
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Jul-30-12
 | | TheFocus: I never liked chess problems. Or their composers. And isn't "composer" kinda pretentious? Of course, it is easier than saying "chess problem maker-upper." Just kidding. Sam Loyd was a fantastic chess problem maker-upper. |
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Jan-02-13
 | | johnlspouge: From Wolfram's MathWorld:
"The "15 puzzle" is a sliding square puzzle commonly (but incorrectly) attributed to Sam Loyd. However, research by Slocum and Sonneveld (2006) has revealed that Sam Loyd did not invent the 15 puzzle and had nothing to do with promoting or popularizing it." [ http://mathworld.wolfram.com/15Puzz... ]
MathWorld therefore gives the following as the relevant reference. Slocum and Sonneveld (2006)
[ http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A... ] |
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| Jan-08-13 | | thomastonk: Here is an early game of Loyd:
[Event "*"]
[Site "Stanley's Chess Room"]
[Date "1859.01.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Stanley, Charles H."]
[Black "Loyd, Samuel"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C01"]
[PlyCount "30"]
1. e4 e6 2. c3 d5 3. exd5 exd5 4. d4 Bd6 5. Bd3 Nf6 6. h3 O-O 7. Nf3 Re8+ 8. Be3 Ne4 9. Nbd2 Ng3 10. fxg3? Rxe3+ 11. Be2 Bxg3+ 12. Kf1 Nc6 13. Qc2 Ne7 14. h4 Nf5 15. Rh3 Rxf3+ 0-1 Source: NY Saturday Press 22 January 1859. |
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May-15-15
| | TheFocus: <My theory of a key-move was always to make it just the reverse of what a player in 999 out of 1000 could look for> - Sam Loyd. |
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Jan-30-16
| | TheFocus: Great problemist!
Happy birthday, Sam Loyd!! |
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| Aug-10-16 | | steinitzfan: Hard to believe that Loyd couldn't have become a top-flight player. I remember telling someone I was teaching the game that stalemates usually occurred with just a king and blocked pawns. Although, I hastened to add, I was sure that some uber-genius had composed a stalemate with like five (wow!) pieces. I thought that was a joke but then I saw Loyd's stalemate composition with every piece on the board. He was a genius. |
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Jan-30-17
| | TheFocus: I would wish you happy birthday, Mr. Loyd, but I am having problems. |
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| May-24-17 | | RookFile: If Loyd mastered the openings he goes to the next level. I'm glad he didn't. His problems are amazing and we have those instead. |
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Sep-26-17
 | | Stonehenge: "He collaborated with puzzler Henry Dudeney for a while, but Dudeney broke off the correspondence and accused Loyd of stealing his puzzles and publishing them under his own name. Dudeney despised Loyd so intensely he equated him with the Devil." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_L...
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry.... |
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Sep-26-17
 | | keypusher: For anyone familiar with Welsh -- why is Lloyd usually spelled with two L's? And whatever happened to Sam's second L? |
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Sep-26-17
 | | Sally Simpson: It's one his lesser known puzzles.
Where is the missing 'L',
He may have sold an 'L' to Lionel Llewellyn. |
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