Thanks Nelson. I always found myself in this position before

Just for context, which World Championship match was this taken from? Would love to be able to look more in-depth into which player I need to play like in order to exploit this position

Also interesting about this is to ponder whether the starting position is even legally possible. And - it is! To get Black's pawns to move across the files they have to do 1+1+2+3+3+3=13 captures, and white has lost 14 of his pieces. So that works.

Since white is down 25 points when they get the knight, a draw by repetition also seems like a respectable outcome!

Weirdly, having not played chess in years, I didn't realize that white's pawn on H2 hadn't moved at all and had a double move available, ironically getting me to the solution easier because I only thought you could move it one space at a time. XP

the real problem is how did black get into this position

Move the king hoping that black has pre-moved the queen

I quickly saw you needed the right tempo to take the Rook, but instead of calculating whether you should play h3 or h4, I said, "it's a puzzle, h4 is the obvious move, so the solution must be to play h3".

I remember seeing this one a few years ago, amazing puzzle really

Great, if I ever get into this position during a game, I know what to do now.

This was the first one of these that I've seen that I've been able to solve entirely by myself right from the beginning! I think this one was probably a relatively easy one since the idea of promoting the pawn is pretty obviously the only strategy available, and once you consider promoting it to a knight instead of a queen, it pretty much solves itself from there.

Interesting puzzle. This one really shows how if we don't calculate all the moves up to the checkmate, it might not work, since we should have moved to h3 instead of h4.... what a tricky position! 😄 Thanks, NM Nelson!

3:55 in that play, you can move you're king to F2, if the opponent put the queen back into A1 chekmate, but if it loose a tempo pushing pawn to C4 you take it with the knight then (when queens move back to A1 and then A2) you put knight back into A5 and then move the king to E1 and then chekmate, i think about that

Brilliant puzzle. Having to take the other pawn first just to prevent a move was funny.

Moving the pawn to h3 instead of h4 was some insane calculation

I really like the process of the white/black tempo. You couldn’t land on a5 (black) while the queen was on a1 (black). So you had to switch the order so when you moved to black, the opponent was moving onto a white space. Changing the tempo to 1-2 (white moves to black, and black moves to white) to a 2-1 (white moves to black, and black moves to black). The final bit is interesting because the black pawn allows the opponent to upset the tempo back to 1-2 by not moving the queen while your knight has to move. Very interesting and thought provoking. Great video!

This puzzle is so interesting, so many little details that can't be missed, great video!

Congrats on all the upgrades! Especially with the merch! I've been following your channel since you started and I'm so happy to see your deserved success!

That was a really nice walkthrough, clear and concise. Thanks!

Thank you for finally explaining tempo in a practical way !

Good one, i know this! But where you find these brilliant puzzles?

the hardest puzzle is: how tf did black get in that position

This is the first one of your puzzles that I actually figured out from start to finish!

This is great, but regarding the tempo problem, couldn’t you move the king to f2? It doesn’t leave any pieces to move and the knight doesn’t have to move.

Excellent video. The number of moves by white needs to be even (so Nb3# is on an even move so that black queen is on a1). For knights, when moving from a dark (or light) square to a square of opposite colour it is odd number of moves. If moving (eventually) to a square of the same colour it is even number of moves. Using some math (odd + odd = even, even + odd = odd), Ke1 (odd), Nh8 to Nc5 (even), Nc5 to Nc4 (odd), Nc4 to Nb3 (even) - adding up to even number, therefore working backwards, pawn on h2 to h8 must be an even number of steps hence you push 1 (6 moves to promote) instead of 2 (5 moves to promote).

I was only able to solve this by trying what worked after my nth time. I would never be able to see through the “tempo” required. Stockfish even promoted the pawn to a queen and was satisfied with 3-repetition draw.

The Pawn walked so that the Knight could run.

These are so cool. These are some of my favorite videos you’ve ever done.

I dunno about these puzzles, they always try to trick you, so for me I already thought about stuff you could overlook in advance, like moving the pawn 1 square on the first move or promoting to a knight instead of a queen. The only thing that would've required me to think was the pawn move of black.

7:04 Zuckswang?

Classical example of logic in chess. I found the solution in smothered mate and Zuzwang just observing the position for a minute.

The problem of the queen always defending that one pawn could be solved by not moving two squares in the start. Thought of that, for those who just left? You have to “calculate” moves, this is why puzzles are useful and you should watch this guy.

"h3 or h4" is the biggest hint to this whole thing. King captures is easy, and noticing the best mating square after dealing with the defending pawns is rather easy. But calculating the timing of the queen with the number of knight moves required is rather tedious if you don't want to just try it with both h3 and h4 separately.

These are great! I´m studying the endgame right now. I think that puzzles are a great way to study the endgame, because it shows how complex they can be! In the middle game you rarely get a long line of only moves. Usually it´s just many branches.

Really cool puzzle. Tempo is so important in the endgame

Great stuff. Numerous lessons to be learned.

darn, I thought I had a way to capture all the pieces and force the black knight out(and doing a checkmate by eating the rook with the queen), but I get stuck with the black square bishop checking me out :/

I remember seeing this puzzle on a different channel. Still a surreal puzzle.

Amazing puzzle, and I can't believe I solved it! Including the 1 space 1st move for the pawn, so the queen is out of sync. I also captured the top pawn 1st, then the 2nd, before the checkmate. I think I did this more by habit of getting all troublemakers.

The fact I knew it was a puzzle kind of gave the pawn push away, but in an actual position I would never have found this

Before watching the video: After king takes in D1 the white pawn should h3-h4 ect while the queen moves. Once it promote make it into a knight and goes f7, d6, b7, a5, and b3 checkmate because the queen is the only piece that can be moved for black the whole time and when the Knight is on b3 the queen is in a1. Edit at 3:04 : ok I'm dumb, so when you have the Knight it's f7, e5, c4, a5, at that point Black's queen on a2 so black does pawn c4 then white do Nc4, now only Black's queen can move, then for white it's na5, nb3 checkmate. Edit 2 : I quit chess.

you know that you can have a stalemate with the queenif he got one

I didn't notice the knight checkmate position, and when I did, I realized the tempo problem but didn't see the necessity of capturing that second pawn

i feel so smart because i've watched another one of your puzzle videos and it involved a pawn moving 1 square not 2 at the start

Me: wow! Cool puzzle i wanna try puzzles like this *Proceeds to find a chess puzzle app and finally play puzzles* Puzzle: Me: *Proceeds to uninstall the app*

What is amazing or great about this puzzle is while it looks simple at first, the moment you make the first move with the pawn without computing ahead, you are in trouble.

To be honest, if a person finds themself in this situation they are not going to be smart enough to get out of it.

excellent puzzle. Shows how important a tempo is in chess.

What would happen if we moved our king instead of moving the Knight in the first scenario?

I completely disregarded the fact that the c4 pawn defended the rook and that the c5 pawn could be pushed to defend it if freed, but as this doesn't impact the tempi order, I got the correct answer regarding the initial push of the h pawn by only one square, so I'll consider that I solved this as I could have improvised on the go :D Lovely puzzle, thanks

Thoroughly enjoyed that!🤓 Subscribed.

this video really helped me out! now i know what to do in this pretty common position

Couldn’t you just move king to f2 so the queen moves

Chess talks done it few years ago😅

Just saw this in my bullet game, I couldn't figure out what to do but then I remembered this puzzle. Thanks!

before i watch the video, just looking at the board, it seems like our first move has to be taking the knight with our king. any other move would allow the knight to move, and the pawn could promote on the next turn, which then frees the rook - just a bad time all around. after we take the knight, blacks only legal move is to move the queen, and at that point, as long as we block the pawn with our king, we can promote our pawn as they shuffle their queen back and forth. i think keeping track of the queen may actually be important, so ill do just that: as we move our king to e1, the queen moves to a1. then, as we move our pawn to h3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, the queen moves to a2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1. so, at the point that our pawn is at h8, the queen is on a1, directly opposite our... knight?!?!? here what im thinking: if we can remove the two pawns on c4 and c5 that defend the rook on b3 as the queen is on a1, we can checkmate the king before the queen can make the two moves necessary to capture our knight. but is that possible? we need to arrive on b3 in an odd number of moves; if we could take both pawns and the rook the turn after we promoted, we could checkmate the king, but if we made another move first, the queen moved to a2, and then we magically captured everything and moved to b3, the queen could just take us immediately afterwards, escape, and checkmate us after freeing the rook. so, with the queen on a1, heres what we do: Nf7 Qa2 Nd6 Qa1 Nc4 Qa2 Ne5 now, at this point, our opponent has two legal moves: continue shuffling their queen, or move their pawn. if they move the pawn, just move back to c4 to capture them. if they go Qa1, we go Nd7, now threatening to capture the pawn. if they move the pawn to c4 and out of immediate danger: Ne5 Qa1 Nc4 Qa2 Na5 Qa1 Nb3# if they dont move the pawn, letting us capture it, then we just go: Nc5 Qa1 Nb3# i dont believe our opponent has any other moves during our adventure around the board, so im going to say that ive solved it. now i just have to watch the video and find out if the solution is something entirely different. edit: oh wow i didnt even remember that i could move my pawn two spaces at the start, i guess i lucked my way into the checkmate. edit 2: i guess didnt get the checkmate at all because i took the wrong pawn first 😭 i had the right idea though. im not sure where i messed up in my notations to get to the point where it looked like it was still going to work, but im not going to check 🤷‍♀️

I managed to solve it and then, watching the solution, I knew every twist that was coming. Awesome puzzle! 😀

I loved this puzzle :D thanks for sharing! I guess I'm wondering why we couldn't have moved the king to break the tempo instead of the fancy H3/H4 footwork?

I was trying this Out and it also works when you Take the C4 pawn first.and you Don,t have to move to the h3 square as well

I’m always in this position I’ve blundered so many times this will help so much

Actually with a queen it would take longer but if you take some of the pawns you could get mate on d2 Also one more thing if they waste a move with the pawn you could re ruin the tempo with a king move I might be wrong tho

Hi Nelson , just been looking at the chessvibes merchandise can't believe you haven't got a shirt with your signature saying on ..Stay Sharp Play Smart .. would deffo be popular .

great puzzle! and explanation!

That was a nice problem! I wonder if someone managed to make a similar one, where you have to lose a tempo again with h3, BUT you also have to lose one later on in the sequence so you have to make a king's move and let some black pieces move, but in a way that at some point they can't keep checking you/escaping AND you have fixed your tempo situation, and you mate no matter what black does!

So trying my solution: The only black with relevant movement is the e1 knight. The first move is obviously Kxe1. The black can now only move their queen back and forth, allowing white to get the pawn forward and build whatever they want. It will be a Knight. The Pawn will move by 1 tile the first turn, to make sure the black Queen starts her turn on the opposite color tile as he. (and he starts his turn on the same color tile) This knight can take out the c5, then c4 pawns with impunity. Importantly, the b3 Rook is now only protected by the Queen, and only every other turn. Specifically, every turn the Knight starts on a white tile. But the turn he can take it, he starts on a black tile. So he takes out the black rook on b3 and wins.

Very unusual situation, a great example of the value of a knight. Sweet checkmate at the end where the knight delivered checkmate whilst also forking the queen and rook. Wouldn’t this be considered a draw due to threefold repetition though if the queen repeats those moves 3 times?

that was litteraly my first thought pawn h3 and knite because i saw that the queen would be protecting the rook when you where in the right position but if they moves pawn down idk what you would do prob the same thing but it would take longer because of it being on wight as well

I just calculated my moves. If the number is even then the last black's move was Qa2 and if it is odd then Qa1. The rest was easy. 1. Kxe1 Qa1 2. h3 Qa2 3. h4 Qa1 4. h5 Qa2 5. h6 Qa1 6. h7 Qa2 7. h8=N Qa1 8. Ng6 Qa2 9. Ne5 Qa1 10. Nd7 Qa2 11. Nxc5 Qa1 12. Ne4 Qa2 13. Nd6 Qa1 14. Nxc4 Qa2 15. Na5 Qa1 16. Nxb3#

Pre-watch idea: Block black from doing anything by capturing the Knight with your king, then get a Knight yourself with your pawn. Then get rid of further two pawns above the black king. Then, all you need to do is make sure you capture the black rook on B3 when the queen is in A1 and you win.

Such an interesting puzzle! Thanks!

I figured "capture the knight to limit black to just queen shuffling, h3 instead of h4, promote to a knight" just from knowing that it was an unorthodox puzzle, but couldn't think of the rest.

Good practical problem. I hope to use this knowledge in a game soon.

Honestly the queen would be a better piece in this position, and you didn't need to loose tempo if you had a queen

My question is how tf did black manage to get the worst position possible

I used to suck at chess however I have been playing a lot of shot gun king. I actually manged to work this puzzle out after about 15 minutes of thinking about it! Never would have thought I would learn via playing shotgun king x3.

Nice lesson!

made me think that the knight is on a mission/quest inside a horror game.. having to encounter and eliminate problems just to accomplish what must be done

Why can’t you take the pawn in d3 and put the king in check after taking the pawns in c4 and c5? Then that way you don’t need to worry about tempo if you accidentally mess up.

Tempo bit pretty neat. Hadn’t thought about knights like that

That puzzle caught me out. Nice.

I love these unusual position videos u make even tho i will never use them

My solution: 1:kill the night with the king 2:promote the pawn into queen 3:profit

Love the videos Nelson! Is there any chance you can post the FENs for the positions in the videos so we can also try along without having to set them up every time?

in the first position where you play h4 and the knight gets "stuck" because of tempos, why cant you just play king f2 as a waiting move?

I played in this position during the chess world finals in 2018 thank you for the video

Now if black waited for time to run out it would be a tie because of insufficient material

It's also a good example of how 2 wrongs don't make a right. You can't correct for the wrong pawn move by taking the wrong pawn first, allowing the black to move their pawn instead of the queen, because the black doesn't have to play that pawn ever because i thas a choice when, if ever, to lose a tempo.

Is that a tool that can calculate if a position can be reached in a normal game of chess? and preferably shows it to us?

F in the chat for the guy who trapped himself in to a mate in this position

Very Good Puzzle and nicely explained.

Exactly as in real life when we realize that we did not do the correct move some time ago. Unfortunatly we can not rewind back, only learn from mistakes, that's called experience

It never crossed my mind that knights can't triangulate like other pieces can

It is not a hard puzzle and you don't need to calculate all the moves one by one in your mind. After Kxe1 Qa1 you just need to find out when your knight is about to capture the rook, black's queen must be in the wrong square. If we continue with h2-h4 our piece lands in a dark square, then queen lands in a light square, so when the knight reaches a5 (a dark square), black's queen is about to moving to a2 (a light square) which is the wrong sequation, therefore our first pawn move should be h2-h3 so when we land in a light square black's queen also have to land in the same color after our move, then we can be sure when our knight arrives to a5 (a dark square) black's queen must land in the same color which is the wrong square for the queen. By this way I solved the puzzle in less than 1 minute.

2:22 I like how it turns out that there's no wrong answer to this question. Kinda funny looking back after going through the whole puzzle.

I dont play chess but I thought it was obvious because one of the first things you said was pointing out where you move the pawn

4:30 why can’t you just move the king and then the knight?

Very cool problem, different imaginative tricks making it interesting !

Nice, good moves and tricks in any cretical situations in chess.

ok.nice but what ami missing... if you make the "mistake" of moving pawn to h4 and you find yourself in the position where the queen is on the wrong spot. why not just move king to f2 to force yhe queen to move back...?

I think I once saw somthing like this before ad at the start when you said to take the pawn on C4 not c5 i was so confused lol anyway great vid!