A man has twenty-five dog kennels all communicating with each other by
doorways, as shown in the illustration. He wishes to arrange his twenty
dogs so that they shall form a knight's string from dog No. 1 to dog No.
20, the bottom row of five kennels to be left empty, as at present. This
is to be done by moving one dog at a time into a vacant kennel. The dogs
are well trained to obedience, and may be trusted to remain in the
kennels in which they are placed, except that if two are placed in the
same kennel together they will fight it out to the death. How is the
puzzle to be solved in the fewest possible moves without two dogs ever
being together?
345.--THE TWO PAWNS.
[Illustration]
Here is a neat little puzzle in counting. In how many different ways may
the two pawns advance to the eighth square? You may move them in any
order you like to form a different sequence. For example, you may move
the Q R P (one or two squares) first, or the K R P first, or one pawn as
far as you like before touching the other. Any sequence is permissible,
only in this puzzle as soon as a pawn reaches the eighth square it is
dead, and remains there unconverted. Can you count the number of
different sequences? At first it will strike you as being very
difficult, but I will show that it is really quite simple when properly
attacked.
VARIOUS CHESS PUZZLES.
"Chesse-play is a good and wittie exercise of
the minde for some kinde of men."
Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_.
346.--SETTING THE BOARD.
I have a single chessboard and a single set of chessmen. In how many
different ways may the men be correctly set up for the beginning of a
game? I find that most people slip at a particular point in making the
calculation.
347.--COUNTING THE RECTANGLES.
Can you say correctly just how many squares and other rectangles the
chessboard contains? In other words, in how great a number of different
ways is it possible to indicate a square or other rectangle enclosed by
lines that separate the squares of the board?
348.--THE ROOKERY.
[Illustration]
The White rooks cannot move outside the little square in which they are
enclosed except on the final move, in giving checkmate. The puzzle is
how to checkmate Black in the fewest possible moves with No. 8 rook, the
other rooks being left in numerical order round the sides of their
square with the break between 1 and 7.
349.--STALEMATE.
Some years ago the puzzle was proposed to construct an imaginary game of
chess, in which White shall be stalemated in the fewest possible moves
with all the thirty-two pieces on the board. Can you build up such a
position in fewer than twenty moves?
350.--THE FORSAKEN KING.
[Illustration]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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