Dear Readers,
Today we can enjoy sneaky puzzles in honour of Sacha, one of my son’s very best friends who had his birthday several days ago. I will say that his birthday was a particular whole number, n, days ago, and Sacha’s new age then was the square root of (500-n squared).
Your fun challenge is to figure out Sacha’s age on his birthday just past, and also his exact date of birth.
The birthday presents included a lovely chess set and books, and now we have a special bonus chess puzzle…
Imagine that Black has an invisible pawn somewhere on the e-file.
Your chess challenge is to determine exactly where on the e-file the black pawn should be so that, immediately after placing it there, it will be White to move and force checkmate in n moves. n is the same n that featured in Sacha’s birthday number puzzle above!
I wish you lots of fun now, and a wonderful weekend too!
Paul Motwani xxx
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P.S.=Puzzle Solutions!
Sacha turned 22 four days ago, and his exact date of birth is 31 August 1998.
With a black pawn on e4, White forces checkmate in at most four moves via 1 Qf8+ and then either 1…Ke5 2 Qf6# or 1…Kg5 2 Qf6+ Kh5 3 Qh6# or 1…Rf7 2 Qxf7+ Kg5 3 Qf6+ Kh5 4 Qh6# in the longest line.
Paul Motwani 