Comment by bryanrasmussen
6 hours ago
well there are all sorts of irregularities in the stated puzzle, since you cannot move into check or checkmate it follows that you should not be able to place it on the board and have it be in those conditions.
However let us suppose that you can place it on the board and have it be in either check or checkmate.
If it has been placed on the board and it is in check, since it cannot move into check it follows that it is the king's move. If it can move out of check by taking a piece or another way of moving it is not in checkmate, this seems a pretty weird trick then, because it is not so interesting that you can place the king on the board and it will be in check and it is the king's move to get out of check.
If it can get out of check by taking an unprotected queen then it is again not very interesting, and why would I not just put the king on one of those positions and take the queen from the first.
If I cannot put it on the board without it being in checkmate, it must mean that the placing it on the board is itself the move, and you cannot move into checkmate, but if placing it on the board is the move then it follows you can take a queen with that move if you can place the king anywhere on the board.
The phrasing of the puzzle is inadequate, it seems.
> If it can get out of check by taking an unprotected queen then it is again not very interesting
I don’t see why that would be uninteresting. Before analyzing this, it isn’t clear that there is no way to place four black queens and a black bishop on the board in such a way that they attack all blank squares _and_ defend each other against capture.
If that were the case, the puzzle where you have to find a setup where you cannot place a king on the board without it being in check is easier than the one where you have to find a setup where you cannot place a king on the board without it being in checkmate.
Also, if you interpret the puzzle description in the latter way (and that, I think, is the most natural way to do it), it seems the puzzle doesn’t have a solution (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48129115)], so do you think this puzzle is not very interesting?