Some Novel Chess Problems
The simplest example of dead reckoning
Who moved last?

I love designing retrograde analysis chess problems. These are problems where you have to apply detective work to figure out what happened in the history of the game. I don't know why I like them - they are just so neat.

When I was a boy, I enjoyed Raymond Smullyan's "The Chess Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes" but the problems are elementary, and it lacks a bibliography. At some point around that time, I met the friendly endgame specialist A.J.Roycroft, who sent me a chess problem magazine, containing one very hard retro problem by Nikita Plaksin, which at that age I completely failed to understand. So, stuck between the too-easy and the over-difficult, I put the subject down.

Thirty years on, I stumbled across the curious idea that became "Dead Reckoning", and corresponded with Noam Elkies, who was encouraging, and introduced me to the world of retro composition. I was hooked!

Dead Reckoning
- (start here) DR Tutorial
- (then read this one) "StrateGems" Article
- Apparently controversial h=1 cycle
- "The Problemist" Article
- French DR problems
- A published DR problem
- Another published DR problem
- DR by Insufficient Material
- DR by Stalemate
- DR by Blocked Position
- International Arbiter rules: "DR is OK!"
- DR FAQ
- Find Problems by Number
- Solutions page for published DR problems
- Quick Answers
- Open Challenges

These days, like many in the retro field, I have been swept away by enthusiasm for Proof Games - the Rubik's cube of retro chess.

Proof Games
- "At Home" (Homebase) PGs
- Belfort Champagne PGs
- Paradoxical PGs
- Drawn PGs
- Proof Game "Oddities"
- Infinite A→B Proof Game
- and Various Other Motley PGs

There are also a few easy helpmates, many of which have a retro flavour:

Helpmates
- Parity Helpmates
- Adding Units to Helpmates
- and Various Other Motley Helpmates

The state of the art of various records:

Some Retro Records
- Last Move Length Records
- Type A retro puzzles
- Type B retro puzzles
- Type C retro puzzles
- Type D retro puzzles
- Type F retro puzzles

And other even weirder chess problems:

Other Neat Chess Problem Topics
- Endgames to Make Your Head Hurt
- Seriesmover
- Quantum Logic in Chess (by others)

But I am still intermittently very busy, so I don't get a chance to update the site as often as I'd like. Apologies for that.

Thanks to all the chess problem community for support and encouragement. The Links Page is here. Any comments, corrections, new problems or suggestions, please email me - I do still respond.

Enjoy!
Andrew Buchanan
Site launched: 23-Jan-01
Last updated: