March 22, 2005
A reader sends this elegant -- if not very difficult -- chess problem (he calls it Nabokovian). White to move and mate in four:
I'll post a comment with the solution later. Bonus points, of course, for explaining why it's Nabokovian...
Haggai wrote in with the answer first:
1. Rh4 gxh4
2. Kf4 g5
3. Kf5 g4
4. hxg4 1-0
As far as why it's Nabokovian, I guess it has to do with the elegance, the fatedness, and the contrived nature of the problem (it's extraordinarily difficult to reach this position, and in any case any reasonable player would have resigned as black by this point).
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