Incredible puzzles. I didnt solve any of them but your explanations were so clear they all made sense in the end. Hope you're doing well Nelson!

The third puzzle was the only one I solved, funnily. I already knew that the obvious moves aren't gonna work, so what if I work backwards? Amazing work as always, Nelson.

I haven't gotten to the third puzzle yet, but... I solved the first two. And now I'm feeling pretty proud to have successfully solved a puzzle a national master couldn't solve. Doesn't mean I'm better than you, but damn! That's a good feeling. =) =) =) Edit: I have since solved the third puzzle. I went 3 for 3. =)

that was awesome do make more!

Very good pick-ups among the huge catalog of Sam Loyd. Solved 3 of them, the hardest for me was the first one, much freedom among the potential moves. The classical hint for Sam Loyd puzzles worked there.

I really enjoyed those puzzles, even though I didn't get any of them on my own; I'd watch more videos on similar ones. I hope you get well soon. It's never fun to be sick during the holidays.

Good puzzles, Nelson, thanks. 10 min for the first, 5 min for the second, 20 min for the last. I like this kind of puzzles, great entertainment!

These puzzles are absolutely great. Definitely need more from Sam Loyd. Didnt get any of them but I'll give myself more time next time

I loved this puzzles, even if I did not solve any one ! Great explanations !

Thank you so much for these fascinating puzzles! I solved all three of them, but it took a considerable amount of time each. I needed most time for the second one. The last one I solved fastest (Rf5 needs to pin the black rook (otherwise Rg7 check) and the white queen needs to pin Bg4 (otherwise Bf5: check), so Rh3 had to move somewhere).

The third puzzle felt easier then the first one for me but nice puzzles.Stay safe!

Great puzzles! Let me list down my thought processes for solving these puzzles: 1) Black's king cannot move. Qg8 is mate if rook isn't there. So you force rook to move. You can just make a random queen move and if the rook moves from the 6th rank, its mate. But Rg7 is a problem, but notice king cannot escape h file then. So backrank checkmate is possible, and only possible move is using Queen, at a8. No other piece can move, as Rg7 is a problem. Only one move deals with Rg7. 2) Again, Black's king cannot move. There are two issues: Our rook us hanging, and enemy Rc3+ is a problem. But notice that Rc3+ is not an issue if we can take back with the knight on b1, and if rook is defended, Nc3# is mate. So we must defend our rook. How? Queen anywhere except g3 and e3 run into Rc3+, those moves also don't work. So its not a queen move. Bishop can defend rook from Ba4, but Rxa4 and our rook is hanging again, so no checkmate possible. We must defend our rook but also prevent it being captured by black's rook. Nd2 again runs into Rc3+. Only move left is Na1. Looking into Na1 confirms it is the right move. 3) Again, Black's King cannot move. Also, immediately notice that forcing Black's dark bishop to move leads to mate by Qe8#, Black's rook is pinned. Now, we cannot move rook on f5 anywhere, Rxe5 isn't mate in 1, Rxg5 isn't mate in 1, move anywhere else and Rg7+ is stalemate and Bf5+ is a big issue, but its not an issue if we can recapture using something other than the queen, so we need to recapture using our other rook, keeping our f5 rook to pin black's rook to prevent stalemate. Moving queen also not possible to pin the bishop from defending when we move our queen. Only one move does that, Rhf3. Looking into this confirms it is the answer. Let me know if I missed anything.

Got all of them! ...but holy I almost gave up on the second one. In high school state tournaments there used to be a guy that sells merch and he would set up a lot of these really tricky mate in 2s to solve that have everyone stumped but were such a thrill to solve. Haven't seen any of these in the video so always cool to see new ones.

More odd ball puzzles please

Great video

4:03 I finally solved one of these! It took me a long time but the winning move is Na1. The Knight is undefended but it defends the Rook so the King can't move anywhere except by taking the a1 Knight. If Black takes the Knight the other Knight goes to C3 and it's a discovered attack checkmate. The Rook is no longer under attack and is trapping the King with the Knight. If the King doesn't take the Knight then the Black Rook is the only piece that can move and it can't stop checkmate. If Rook checks White at C3, Knight takes C3 and it's checkmate. If White Rook goes to C2 waiting for the Knight to move to C3 so it can take it, you abandon the Knight move and go Queen to A5 checkmate. Rook can't stop both threats.

Solved 1&3 feel emberressed to have failed 2

I figured out the right idea on the first one, but played the video instead of solving it. I got the second one without too much trouble. I thought I had the third one, but missed the bishop check threat. After that got pointed out, I reevaluated and found the correct solution. Definitely a fun exercise.

All 3 are insane and brilliant

I solved all three, although I am a rather weak chess player and cannot solve most puzzles which you publish in your excellent channel - but have a lot of experience with mathematical, and particularly combinatorical, puzzles. I believe that for solving Sam Loyd puzzles mathematical skills are more important than chess ones. Remember that Sam Loyd was not only a chess player but also a prominent recreational mathematician who invented, I believe, more mathematical puzzles than chess ones. I am definitely interested in seeing more Sam Loyd's puzzles in your channel!

I solved the second and third, but not the first one. The last one took me about twenty minutes, although I realised the f5 rook and the queen had to stay in place to preserve the pins and avoid the possible checks. Finding Rh to f5 made me very happy! Please share more of Sam Loyd's puzzles: they are always challenging and stretch the imagination.

3/3!!! Very nice positions!

I was completely thrown off by the first two, but somehow I managed to find Rhf3 in the third one. It's absolutely astounding to see how everything just falls into place and how obvious the checkmating move is from that point on, in every sequence, once the move is on the board.

Great puzzles

Amazing puzzles. I solved all of them but only because they faszinated me so much, I just had to solve them. Even thow it took me more than a hour in total. Love your videos.

Weirdly enough saw only puzzle #3, but I'd say that is to be considered due to conditioning. We saw the deductive thinking in the first two puzzles, so then you kind of realize early Bxf5+ is a huge threat for #2 and the move played is the only one preventing that. In hindsight, it makes preventing Rg7 (there I thought any king move would #2 btw) and Kxb3 crucial keys in these positions.

I haven't played chess since 1993, and yet you're currently my favorite channel.

God bless you Nelson!

is it rf3 for 3rd

took me quite some time, but i got all 3 eventually - nice puzzles

Incredible! I solved the first and third puzzles. For the third one, I knew I couldn't allow Bxf5+ or Rg7+. That significantly narrowed the possibilities and I eventually saw the solution.

In second puzzle what about qe6 if rook moves to c3 for a check Nxc3#

I got all three! Great puzzles, loved them

I find the first one the most difficult. For the second one, it didn’t take me long before seeing that the rook on the b file is doing a great job but Kxb3 is a big problem and I need to defend the rook, so I look into all possible moves I can achieve that before finding Na1. For the third one, there are actually much fewer options to consider: taking the pieces around the king don’t work, and you need to deal with checks if you releases either the rook or queen pin, and the other bishop also cannot move since there is Qe8#. You also want to prevent Bxe2 since there is no checkmate in 2 moves without the queen (except 1. Rg3 Bxe2 2. Rxg5#, but 1. … hxg3 solves the problem. That cuts the possible moves down to nothing but Rf3. In fact stockfish actually agrees with me. I tried all 3 puzzles using stockfish (with default max depth 20), and it actually shows M3 for the first puzzle, and M2 for the other 2. For the first puzzle , only after I played the correct move and undo, it changes the score M2😂

Here's gow I thought you can solve the first one: white makes SOME move, but if black replies with Rg7, that rook blocks the queeb and the king gets h6 as a square. If queen stays on f8 on the first move (whatever it is) bothing can mate the king on move 2. Thus the queen must move somewhere it CAN check the king and control h6 onnthe second move. So there it is, the juicy a8 square! Then it ia easy to determine it works. :)

If I were to give a hint on the first puzzle, it's "look for a waiting/setup move to put black in zugzwang".

That 3rd mate in 2 is nasty

more please

Couldn't get any of them. Was disappointed by not solving the first one, as I had gone through almost all moves except that one and of course it's obvious when you see it. Kind if the same with the second puzzle, calculated a bunch of different things, but didn't spot that cheeky knight move. 3rd I gave up on fairly quick

So first one I thought Kg2. Didn't see that Rg2 covered the h6 square(saw it on stockfish because how could it not be mate in 2!) I SOLVED 2ND ONE!!! It was hard but after like 10 minutes, I found it(last move I checked). Last one I found quicker than the second one because I analyzed the captures(not mate in 2) then the moves of the first rook(rg7+ eliminates all of these moves). Then I analyzed the 2nd rook's moves and the second one I checked was the good one. Ggs if you found all of these. My score: 2 out of 3

Solved all three in about 15-20 mins total. The trick is to imagine how you do want to checkmate. For example, in puzzle 2, I wanted to protect the rook and give mate with the knight (which was the only way that would stop the rook check). How to protect the rook? Queen was not helping, Nd4 could be captured. The last alternative was the solution. In the last puzzle, I realized there was if the black dark-square Bishop moved you could mate in one. White rook on f5 had to remain there, queen cannot leave the diagonal and the column. Once you realize that the rook on h3 has to move, the solution comes naturally.

Solved the first two (after a *lot* of thought), haven't yet attempted the third. My solution to the second puzzle started with me noticing that black could go Rc3+, so my first move has to either prevent that (by checking black, pre-emptively blocking, moving my king, or pinning the rook) or set me up to respond with checkmate. I then laid out every possible way to do those things and worked through them, ruling out the ones that didn't work. And at the end, I'd ruled out the entire list. So I went back over the list, where one of the items was "Set up Nxc3++" and the options I'd considered were Ba4 and Nd4, which both revolve around protecting my rook... and I suddenly realized I had overlooked Na1. That looked like exactly the kind of bonkers move that would fit this puzzle. So I tried it out and realized it worked. But I'd never in a million years find it in an actual game.

estos puzzles estuvieron increíbles.... de verdad hay que pensar de forma ilógica... por mas que debute el video y pensé, no vi la solución... por que pensaba de forma lógica.... buen video amigaso del ajedrez

Great puzzles! I only solved the third one, probably because preventing the bishop to go f5 was an obvious goal.

Incredible puzzles

I thought outside of the box and on the first one, I put the knight on i5 : mate in one !

I got all 3. On the first I weirdly saw Qa8 early and for some reason discarded it, and took a while to get back. On the second I did spend a while on all the attractors, but saw that the key was protecting the rook, because any move of the rook made the checkmate harder. Of course I tested all the wrong protections first before the brilliant corner move. On the 3rd I saw that the pins were key, and thought I had it with Rg3 when hxg3 blew it for me, but then Rf3 appeared. But still I think it took me about 10 to 15 minutes per puzzle. Not so easy. Simple mate in 2? Hah, no. But beautiful all the same. What helps me out in these is trying to figure out why Loyd put pieces where he did. Those are the big clues that make you think of all the ramifications of any piece on the board. Great puzzles!

LETS GOOO I got the last one quickly, although I think I only found the move fast because it’s a close quarters move unlike the first one with the queen

I have solved all the three. 😃 The first I solved in one minute, the second and third took about 4-5 minutes to find.

The only one I got was the last one! Rf3! incredible solution.

1st puzzle i got in like a minute, but last 2 took me well over 3 minutes to solve. 2nd imo was the hardest one bc of the weird position, so it was hard to imagine what the checkmate would look like. on mate puzzles i usually try to figure out all the possible checkmate positions first and check each one by working backwards from that position. is it a practical approach in games? probably not, but it helps you get 2300 puzzle rating despite being 1400 blitz 😂

I was somehow able to solve all the puzzles after something like ten minutes of fought at each position but at the first puzzle I missed the king move and on the last puzzle I missed that bishop takes was check but it didn't matter so I guess it still counts as seeing all the lines on that puzzle

I solved the 1st one and the 3rd but not the second

Luckily I was able to solve all 3. Second one took most time. Third one was surprisingly somewhat on easier side due to so many pins. In solution of 3rd puzzle also black pawn can move to h3 but rxh3 is again checkmate.

The first problem is simple if one thinks about it in the correct way. The white queen is the only piece that can control the h8 square so the queen must stay on the 8th rank on the first move. The only black piece that can move is the rook which must maintain the defense of g8, so 1. ...Rg7 is force, if the queen is on the 8th rank. I think these two ideas lead to the solution. The key to the second solution is the prevention of 1. ...Rc3+, if this move is allowed there is no mate in 2 unless the rook can be captured or the check is blocked. This idea led me to the first move. I solved all three but not quickly, they aren't the easiest of mates in.2. To all players new to chess I give the following advise, 1. learn as many mating patterns as possible 2. In mating problems be systematic, I tend to look at moves in piece order, Q, R, B, N and then pawns. 3. I look a moves in rank order eg. Qa5, Qxe5,Qb4 etc 4. Gather information about each pieces potential. eg Bxf5+ etc 5. It is important to note that checks can be used to delay mate I use a system I have developed call "Check CIM" When a check is played or threatened the opponent has three possibilities. CAPTURE the checking piece INTERPOSE to block the check MOVE the king out of check This idea is particularly useful when looking for the mating move. Noting pins and flight squares, or lack of them, is also key to finding mates. There are whole books written on this topic but hopefully these ideas might help some of you in your quest to solve these types of problem. Being able to see why moves don't work is crutial and "Check CIM" helps me greatly to do this.

Solved all 3 of them. That last one is insane tho

Sam Loyd was a genius at creating puzzles, not necessarily chess problems. 5:24 If a knight on the rim is grim, what is a knight in the corner? (A mourner?) 7:33 I actually got #3. There seems to be a common theme here: put Black in Zugzwang.

Incredible and stunning puzzles but i found the last the ROCK TO F3 😂 i get it without see the solution

I have to agree, Na1 in the first puzzle is a surprising move.

Here's how I solved the second: first, like any diligent chess player I checked for checks and captures, which you quickly see havr no 2nd move follow up (with the capture being worse - stalrmate). Thus the first move is not a check, which essentially puts the ball into black's coirt. So, black has two things: it can check white's king and ruin a beautiful mate in 2 - unless we are ready to counter that move with a check, thus Nxc3 must be one 2nd move matr. But also white can take the rook, and there just doesn't seem to be enoigh controll around the black's king so that after the rook capture we can checkmate. So the first move must be onenthat either directly or indirectly defends the rook. I tried things likr Qe3, or Qe5 (indirectly defending and prepping for the rook to move, unfottunatelly after Kxb3 there ia no mate). Kd2 not possible since this knight watches c3. Also, Ba4 gives nothing after Rxa4. The knight on c2 is the last hope, hopping to d4 makes it look ailly after Rxd4, so there you go, Na1!! Then you analyE and find the mates after all possible black replies. Very nice one, Nelson!

I made 3/3 of those. The last one was the easiest since it's like one of Chessscape's puzzle.

Dang I was close on the third I considered it but the move to get out of check was the one I missed

Solved all, solved every time, easy puzzles :)))

Nice puzzles, indeed a very talented composer. But it's hard to fool anyone used to solving compositions: #1 was really, really easy, it took me 5 to 10 seconds, mostly to confirm the variations. When solving a composition, one should always look for "broad moves". Moving a piece all the way across the board always look beautiful in a composition, Qa8 was the first move I tried :) ; #2 got me. I was looking at it lazily after #1, so I was simply trying simple themes, such as preparing a pin or a discovered check against black's rook, sacrificing pieces to black's pawn, going for themes such as Qb4 or Rb4 etc. My fault. This took me almost 10 minutes, so yeah, I'd better try harder than simply going for random lines. Then I analyzed the position, looking for what problems it required solving. The check on c3 was an obvious threat, so I'd either stop Rc3+ (e.g. with a pin, or placing something on the third row) or I'd have to take on c3 with check mate; the latter was more likely. The other big issue, I found, was the b3 square. While the rook had a big role, its square was really weak. Nd4 was the clearer choice, it worked in a few scenarios, but failed with Rxd4, even if the queen just gained access to the second row. Well, I still should try to protect b3, then what were my options? I started with Na1 and instantly knew I had solved the puzzle, all I had to do was to confirm it against all black's responses! #3 took me something between 1 and 2 minutes. First attempt? Qb5, it seemed quite a versatile move, perhaps b5 would be the square to wait for black to be forced to expose a weakness. But I suddenly noticed I would have to care about Bxf5+. I also noticed there were lots of pins going on, so d1, e2, f3 and g4 were the only reasonable squares to consider at all. And that was it :)

I managed to solve all 3 puzzles. Puzzle 1 took a bit of time since 1. ... Rg7 was problematic since it defends the only checkmate threat white has, so then I tried looking for a position that specifically countered Rg7 and eventually got it. Puzzle 2 took me the longest, and I nearly threw in the towel. 1. ... Rc3+ was my biggest concern since white needed to do immediate checkmate afterward, so Qe6 was the first option since after Rc3+, the queen defends the rook and theb Nc3#. But a move like Rc6 attacks the queen and defends c3, so Rb4+ is met with Rxc6, also black's king can capture the rook immediately anyway. I was thinking of any sort of way to defend c3 and the rook on b3 like putting the queen on the 3rd rank, but there wasn't a follow-up move afterward. It took me a while to realize it, but white's c2 knight was undefended, so I switched my focus on trying to kind of save both pieces. With that in mind, I saw Ne4 and Na1 where both moves defend the rook on b3, but for Ne4, after Rxe4, the white rook is undefended and there's no way to checkmate and protect the rook, but after Na1, I finally saw the Qa5 checkmate threat and it solved all the main issues I was dealing with. Puzzle 3 I nearly saw right away since it was a move that was similar to the one I was considering in puzzle 2. In puzzle 2, I considered Qe6 to set up a discovered attack which obviously wouldn't work, but in puzzle 3, Rf3 sets up a discovered attack if the g4 bishop ever moved.

I solved all, in less than 2 minutes each for sure. The key is to think about what black could do. Usually they have an annoying defense, and you just have to find in what possible ways could that defense fail?

The only one I got was the third one and I think it's because I learned things from the previous two puzzles which made it easier to solve the last one.

I am so proud i solved the 3rd problem) i realized after like 10 min of thinking that both queen and rook-f5 are busy preventing checks, and so the only piece allowed to move was our other rook. And it has only a couple of meaningful moves :)

I could not solve a single one. Thank you for making this video.

You can also do the second puzzle in 3 with knight to d2- any rook move other than c3 (check) is lost due to queen to b1, rook takes rook, king can only move to b2 and then queen a1 is checkmate.

For the first puzzle, I was thinking of just moving king to g2. This again puts Black in a zugzwang. Pawn and King cannot move. If Rook moves horizontally, Qg8 is checkmate. If rook moves vertically, knight f6 is check mate

Well, I couldn't solve any of them. Please keep them coming.

Now I was thinking why in first one Knight e5 doesn't work... but then I realized, that all important rook g7

I love coming to your channel, being humbled, and having my brain broken every couple of days. Please don't ask me why.

I solved them all! Actually this is the first time I solve all the puzzles from your video. And btw I'm 1200 in rapid

Solved fist and third, second was out of mind 🤯

I solved all three! The 2nd one was the hardest, and it took me a while.

1st and 3rd solved. Second puzzle was to weird for me :D

Was able to solve all the puzzles!

Ok on the first puzzle I found King G2. I found this and it works too, but I got it before Queen A8 was said. Kg2 works as well and I’m counting it

Incredible puzzles! I solved 3 of 3, it took me only 2 minutes per each :)

lol I saw Na1 for second puzzle while thinking about defending the rook by playing Nd4 but that blunders a knight and has no follow ups

Nice, I got the 3rd one

my intuition told me to play rook h to f3 but i dismissed the move . crazy for sure

I solved the 2nd one! Took me about 10 minutes but I did it 👍 No chance at all with the others but the solutions were nice. Just wanted to say I'm getting your notifications fine so I hope that means you haven't been "shadowed" 🙏

Solved the 2nd puzzle literally by looking at every possible move of white. I started with the King, then queen, and actually the knight was the last piece I looked at. Fortunately, most variante fail due to Rc3+ so it didn't take too much time to calculate

I got the last one. I thought I had the first one with Kg2, I'm gonna have to check why that's wrong with the engine. I suppose unless someone can tell me here, anyway. Edit: I forgot that Rg7 stops the Queen from covering h6, so I thought Nf6 was mate lol

Not a chess player, so can you explain why the first puzzle knight to f6 isn't a solution? you even suggested that rook being out of position as mate a moment later ( queen to g8 )

So annoying. For the 2nd puzzle I first thought of knight moves and I discarded Na1, because for some reason I completely didn't see that the knight was defending the rook. I was also doubting the role of the bishop, but it's simply there to make sure the rook cannot defend both c3 and a5 at the same time. Found the other two. The first one I actually knew and remembered the queen to the corner move. I've seen that puzzle somewhere before. The last one was annoying me, but I soon eliminated the f-rook and queen as movers, because both had issues, so it had to be an h-rook move. Then it was a process of elimination of just 10 moves. The thing with these puzzles is that you know it has to be done in 2 moves, so it's relatively easy to find in the end. If you just have to find the quickest mate, it's way harder, because you don't know if what you found was the quickest way.

I managed to solve all pf them this time through process of elimination, it took about a hour altogether though lol

I haven't solved any of them. Thanks a lot.

the problem with the 3rd puzzle is that you have so somehow walk into a tripple fork to your 2 rooks and queen from a bishop

Solved #1 and #3, without the chess board. Love Loyd's puzzles, I think he is one of the greatest composers of all time.

I saw a position exactly like the third one on the "Chessscape" KZfaq channel in his video: "Cool Mate in 2 That I Missed :("

i found it!!! :D, first one i thought hmm how about backrank checcmate?? then i saw Qa8

On the first one why don't king to g2 work?

I managed to solve them all, amazing puzzles as always

Awesome puzzles, I got the 3rd one, but after 25 minutes trying

2nd puzzle: after white knight c2 to a1 what if I go black rook c4 to b4. What's the next move?

7:10 This was far easier to solve than the first two! Only took me a few minutes. The winning move is Rook H3 to F3! I got to this conclusion by looking for a way to avoid the Rook check on G7. Checks are the easiest way for your opponent to mess up your Mate in 2. But then I realized that the Black Rook is actually pinned by our Rook. So if the F5 Rook ever moved then the Rook could check us ruining Mate in 2. Our King has no legal moves as well so neither of those pieces can be the winning move. I tried a few Queen moves but nothing was working. Then I noticed the Rook on H3 seems useless. It's not pinning anything and isn't threatening anything. So I tried out Rook to F3 and all of Black's responses lead to checkmate! If they take the Rook you take back with the Queen and Black can't block with their Rook because it's pinned! If they push the pawn, you take it with the Rook and the Bishop can't take because it's pinned. The E5 Bishop took a bit of thinking for why it couldn't just move to C7 or something. Then I realized it can't because if it does you go Queen to E8 checkmate! And the final move I didn't consider before I started typing this was what if Bishop takes F5 Rook with check? Then you take back with the F3 Rook and it's a discovered attack Checkmate because the Rook is pinned again!