STAIRWAY TO CHECKMATE

Well-crafted chess puzzles have this uncanny knack of driving your mind crazy. Every chess lover is familiar with that helpless feeling when the elusive solution seems just around the corner only to evade us again and again.

Sometimes when you can’t solve a chess problem you get so exasperated that you just feel like climbing up a staircase and jump from the top. Following creative chess problem composed by B S Barrett in 1874 can be solved by doing exactly that. To be more accurate, the maneuvering of the white queen strongly resembles climbing a staircase and jumping off the top.

WHITE TO PLAY & MATE IN 12 MOVES

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A CHESS HORROR STORY - FRANKENSTEIN VS DRACULA

Chess humour is a constant topic in most of my posts so perhaps now is the time to discuss something completely different.

  

According to “The Oxford Companion to Chess”, there are 1327 named chess openings and variations. Out of all these openings/variations which one is the SCARIEST? Which chess opening can make you wake up in the morning in cold sweat?

If we only consider the names of chess openings we don't really have to go any further than the aptly named “Frankenstein-Dracula variation” (yes, that is indeed the name of a REAL opening and not a silly invention of mine) of the Vienna game. The character of this variation was deemed so bloodthirsty that one monster alone was deemed insufficient to express the horrors associated with it. (Read more about Frankenstein & Dracula if you are unfamiliar with them)  

Let’s see what’s so scary about this "one-monster-is-not-enough-so-let's-have-two" variation. But be afraid. Be very afraid….

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