Chess Mazes

Bruce Alberston

Chess Mazes

There are two types of chess mazes: checking and mating. For bishop, rook, and knight mazes the play is to check the black king. For queen, pawn, and king mazes the object is to checkmate the enemy king; here checks are not allowed.

The rules in common for each type of maze are as follows:

1. Black never moves.
2. Only the maze piece (in the case of pawns – the maze units) may move.
3. A maze piece may never move to a square where it can be captured by enemy forces.
4. A maze piece may capture undefended enemy forces.
5. Plus we look for the shortest solution.

Helpers in queen and king mazes are frozen to the diagram position, unable to move or be removed. In pawn mazes promoted pawns are unable to move off their promotion squares. Also move order may be juggled without harm to the solution. Often, when running up the board to promote, pawns can advance in different sequences.

For those who may be interested in a more detailed introduction and overview to chess maze puzzles, we invite you to read more; otherwise, we hope you enjoy this week's Chess Maze ...

A King Maze

We don't play chess with a sundial. But all the same it helps if the white king knows what clockwise means.

#342a

[FEN "B2b3n/Bn5R/1p1k2pR/6K1/r4p1n/1p1b4/8/8"]

Scroll down for the solution

1 Kg4 2 Kh3 3 Kh2 4 Kg1 5 Kf2 6 Ke1 7 Kd2 8 Kxd3 9 Kc3 10 Kxb3 11 Kxa4 12 Kb5 13 Ka6 14 Kxb7 15 Kc8 16 Kxd8 17 Kc8 18 Kb7 19 Kxb6 20 Kb7 21 Kc8 22 Kd8 23 Ke8 24 Kf8 25 Kg8[Kg7] 26 Kxh8 27 Kg7 28 Kf6 29 Kg5 30 Kxh4 31 Kg5 32 Kxg6 33 Kf5#

#342b

[FEN "B7/B6R/3k3R/5K2/5p2/8/8/8"]

© 2012 Bruce Alberston. All Rights Reserved.

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