Lesson to learn - if you have one pawn ready to become a queen, don’t wait for 2 more.

That basically combines every weird rule in chess into one puzzle, ie - double pawn first move - En passant - Castling - Promotion and under promotion

The real puzzle is how the king and the other rook didn't move while three pawns made their way into the second rank

I love the thing that the bishop at c8 is just chilling and watching his king and pawns fight for the king's life

These puzzles where you have to randomly castle are really wierd. How could I have known, this was still an option?

"Imma castle with no pawns on the 2nd rank, in the end game, on move 30-something." Utter madness lol.

The castle move is hard to spot because it is not even clear that casteling is still alowed, in a position this late in the game the king or rook most probably moved at some point (and end up at starting squares) making casteling ileagal.

A Google search says that this problem was composed by Yochanan Afek in 2011. I don't think that KZfaq will allow me to post a link, but try searching for the ARVES chess endgames study association.

Actually this puzzle shows the so-called "Valladao-Task": an en-passant capture, castling and pawn promotions in the same chess puzzle :)

Great find! This is the so-called Valladão Task, a problem showing promotion, en passant capture and castling. The underpromotion to a knight is a bonus. Btw., I have not found this problem in the known problem databases. Probably someone else will have more luck.

Ah. Hidden castling. I hate those, since you can‘t know if the move is legal.

The purpose of the bishop on c8 is to prevent quicker checkmates that include Rf5

Just to clarify: it's a convention in chess problems that castling is valid unless you can prove it isn't. The convention is made that way round, because, otherwise, problems wouldn't be able to involve castling, because you can't *prove* that castling is valid. In some problems it looks as if black may castle, but something about the position means you can prove that black has lost the right to castle, so white may do something which works, but would fail against castling.

Hard to plan a move if castling is unknown to be available this late in a game.

Study by Yochanan Afek from 2011 (a famous israelien chess study composer and also IM as a chess player). He received 3rd commendation for this Valladao theme study (but in his carreer he often got first prizes in many tournaments).

Chess Vibes uploading chess puzzle videos speaks for itself.

Love these types of videos!

Great composition! It has all of the little tricks that make a puzzle interesting.

Thank you for the amazing video!

You didn’t forget the “en passant” rule. Pawn to G4. F4 takes G4 by moving to G3. I was very surprised when I learned that rule.

Your lessons are the best on KZfaq.

en passant is the most obscure move in chess, yet it makes this puzzle so much harder...

I knew that as soon as I saw the white king and rook's position in the thumbnail, that there was going to be a hidden castling move here

Thought I was clever for seeing the pawn to g4 forcing en passant but I missed the castle check and never would have gotten the rest of the puzzle lol. Great but very complex

Nelson really found a good study

The castle was the first thing I spotted, it would've been my first move if I were working through this puzzle myself

As @TeaInTheMorning4929 pointed out earlier, it is not clear that castling is possible. I have seen puzzles where the king and a rook were on their starting squares with solutions which hinged on proving the fact that castling was not possible. Accordingly, does it not make sense to provide a proof game for the given position to show that this position (with castling allowed) is feasible?

What's the problem with castling first and then playing g4?

En passant, castling, and underpromotion! Love it!

Pretty sure I found the solution from the picture Push pawn, opponent queens , you move king, opponent takes rook, you queen mate, but they will probably defend the promotion with the queen

I started with 0-0 as the 1st move, and I still do not see why it does not win. White threatens mate in 3 (g4+, Rh7+, Bg5X), and it seems that after 1....Kg6 2.g4 we are back to the propsded solution (B:g4 does not help). So the interesting defense is 1....f3 2. R:f3+ Kg6 3. Rg3+ Kf5 (3.... Kg6 4. Bg5+ and mates) 4. Rg5+! Kf4 (4....K:f6 5.R5-g7+ Kf5 6. g4+ Kf4 7. Rg-f7+ Bf5 8.R:f5X) 5.f7! letting black to promote 2 queens, but it looks like they can't help, like 5.... c1-Q+ 6.Kh2 b1-Q 7. g3+ Kf3 8. f8-Q+ Bf5 9: R:f5+ with mate, or 5....b1-Q+ 6.Kh2 Qg1+ 7.K:g1a1-Q+ 8.Kh2 Qh8 9.Rg8 and wins. So it looks like the solution is not really unique. Or did I miss something?

Tip for doing puzzles: A check is usually the answer

I swear I've seen this one too but couldn't tell you where sadly

I feel like the castling was a bit of a cheat, as it seems unlikely that castling would still be possible this late in a game.

This 76 year old remembers my favorite puzzle where both kings were almost totally locked into their respective back two ranks and the drawing side had to “ match” squares with the side trying to win…. I loved that long lost puzzle.

At 8:11 the checkmate could still be delayed If the black king move to Kh4 the white queen can try to move Qh6 for check Black queen can blocked Qh5 but the bishop for white will checkmated at Bf5#

Underpromoting to a knight is subtle - and brilliant!

Pretty good puzzle, like that it uses enpassant, which I have never been able to use in an actual game XD

Black's bishop: 🍿

Anyone else thinking that there is no way that king and rook hasnt move this whole game to even think that castling was an option

The Greatest Forgotten Chess Puzzle speaks for itself

Superb puzzle as usual 🎉

2:14 so unless it’s the only move you have you can’t en passant out of check.

Since it initially looked impossible, I realized that there had to be a castling move to gain tempo while protecting the king. :-)

I knew it should become a knight at first glance!

The black bishop could take that pawn, then in line of sight to take out the rook, so the rook would have to move, unless you want to sacrifice your rook, or try to keep black's king in check.

End game teaching excellent

In this puzzle, It is very good exam that king safety is the most important. Despite has three extra pawn nearly promote, black lose. Fascinating!

Move the white peon two spaces up, you check the king, so has to move from f5 to g6, move tower in front of king g7, only place left to move for the king is h6. Peon that moved two spaces finished the deal

1:37 En Passant:

Thing is, if I was white in that position, I would’ve already assumed that I couldn’t castle.

Gonna remember this when i get to this position

You can move 2 to the white paida Or soldier

Man that was insane and interesting

I finally got one of these puzzles right!!!

If castling is available in what's approaching an endgame, it should be stated up front.

The purple is wrong 6:20 we can just promote the pawn by pushing it

Yeah, I've seen parts of it, like first three moves I did it just by looking at the picture, then I got confused somewhat.

The king side castle is dirty. Because, we don't know if it's still available.

i saw mate in 3 and thought you lost your edge, then on croissant

At 6:21 I’d like to explore the black pawn moving to G1 and becoming queen instead of taking the bishop. I’m sure it’s clear but my mind can’t work that far ahead.

I like this dude because he every possible move

NGL this is the first time I've seen An pasant in action. I've only just heard of it

There is a much easier solution, Rock to f5 while bishop is in g5 and king in h5 is the key, you don't need to castle in that position.

Love the cadtling idea but its hard to know if it isnt stated that the king has never moved

hmm, there seems to be an out for black throught promoting pawn C1 into knight and check on the king

1:32 my guess is which should castle to get the rook in like to attack any potential queens. 1:36 en passant... don't need to move the king. Moving the king is a blunder here

I actually thought about Qc1 usntead of Bc1 to trade and maybe bishop & rook vs bishop is winning since they're on opposite squares? I guess not though

That's rather cheesy since it's hard to imagine the king has never moved with that kind of carnage on the board.

Very nice puzzle.

Wasnt aware the king hasnt move to allow castling.

Castling in end games are crazy 💀

OMG THAT'S THE FIRST TIME I SAW EVERY BEST MOVE ON A TRICK PUZZLE ON THIS CHANNEL * _ *

i didn't know castling was an option.

At 3:00 how do we know if rook or the king didn't move and we can castle?

What I don't like about the castling situation in a puzzle is you're assuming up to that point in the game the king hasn't been in check already, either of those 2 pieces has moved or castled already. It's a late game situation, so chances are one of those 3 situations probably has happened.

This puzzle goes crazy. Good explanation though!

Did not see this one. Got distracted by the pawns and tried to figure out how to stop them...Lol

Wow there are so many rules I didn't even know about

7:24 , black moves queen to F2, forcing the trade and ultimately wins? Edit: It leads to situation where you have to choose between eating bishop or a pawn with the king, if you eat bishop you will lose and if you eat pawn it leads to draw.

g4+ was the pretty obvious 1st move (only move, w/o much thinking actually.) 0-0 was a bit tricky, as we didn't know if it was still an option at such a late point in the game. Once 0-0 was allowed, rest was also pretty obvious, as all moves are more or less forced.

I too completely missed the castle. It might help if you saw the game from the beginning, but OTOH you might get distracted by other possible moves.

if you played bg6 at 5:20 black would be forced to take the bishop with the queen and afterwards rxg5 if you make a queen it doesnt help because i will play f8=q+ and i think that is loosing for black. and if bg6 qxg6 rxg6 and kxg6 i think h4+ and maybe h4 is not needed because we can promote to a queen ultimately drawing the position

It was unclear that castling was available because it wasn't stated whether King and Rook had moved.

Yea, thought about this for like 15 minutes and never considered castling was still legal

But there is no condition in this problem to determine whether either the rook or king for white has moved already. We don't know whether we can castle.

I saw correctly until castles part which seemed funny at such an endgame scenario

6:11 (pause and think) A2 Pawn promotes to queen. if you promote your g7 pawn to queen or anything else then black can win because you cant put him in check without saving your king, he can move his queen to a7 delivering a check and if you block with your rook to F2 he can eat the rook with the queen and checkmate you, if you move your king to h1 its checkmate with the bishop to B7 (black wins by checkmate) also if white blocks then queen check with his bishop to E3 then black can simply take the bishop and still checkmate white

i knew you would castle

What about king to D2 for white to move on the first move so that way black never gets a queen without it being taken?

6:20 what happens if black pushes the pawn instead of taking the bishop ?

6:12 if you look carefully there's that black bishop that can take down the white pawn then threatening the white rook forcing it to move it's position where it's unguarded by the queen. Then black pawn to a1 forcing the rook to take it down and black getting another queen using the b2 black pawn to take down the rook and getting promoted then forking the rook and check matting the white king without yet getting the pawn promoted to a queen forcing the king to move then black queen taking down the rook and threatening the pawn from promoting

This is the second time you've done this in a puzzle I've seen. When a game is THIS far along, how are we supposed to know if castling is still possible? Should it just be assumed because they're in the starting positions?

how do it know if there is a castle it is literally like a endgame

Black be like: Let promote! PLS LET ME WIN!

I’m getting better at these. I actually called most of these moves

7:24 has Qc2 forcing queen trade...but still winnable with bishop and rook....

I don’t understand the end, why checkmate? Can’t black go bishop h3 and offer an escape even if white goes queen h8 and then promote a pawn in the meantime?

This is like the opposite of don’t put all ur eggs in one basket, spreading them too far out is too hard to defend and is an inconvenience, if black pushed one of the pawns less he would have gotten another queen already and may have won the game

Always an unfair puzzle when you have to assume that castle is an option