Author: Terry McCracken
Date: 11:07:15 03/06/02
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On March 06, 2002 at 12:51:00, Daniel Clausen wrote: >Hi > >On March 06, 2002 at 11:56:02, Terry McCracken wrote: > >[snip] > > >>That's the point, you _must_ assume when given a problem when the King is on >>it's initial square along with it's Rook or Rooks that 0-0 or 0-0-0 is >>permissible. > >Not at all. If you give a FEN string, all that counts is the FEN string. If the >FEN string is broken, the problem is broken. If the FEN string indicates >castling is possible, then castling is possible, otherwise it isn't. > >If all you give is the board and castling might be possible (ie both king and >rook(s) on initial squares) you have to solve the problem (ie mate in X) for >both cases. The fact that newspapers (and many chess books too) _assume_ >something doesn't mean a thing. There are also problems where the author wants >you to check both possibilities. (ie "the Chess Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes" by >Raymond Smullyan - a fantastic books if you're interested in retro-analysis btw) >One of the problems in the mentioned book is a position (_without_ a FEN string) >where the problem is to prove that this position is mate in X, although it's not >possible to actually _show_ the mate. The idea is that the position is mate in >X, whether castling is possible or not, but the actual moves in these cases >differ. And since it's not known whether castling is allowed or not, all you can >say is that it's mate in X. (hope I made some sense here, heh!) > >Note: If you use the FEN string in this forum only in order to paint a fancy >diagram, you can always make a lil remark saying, that we should ignore the FEN >string and only watch at the diagram. Of course saying this often gives a clear >hint as to what the idea behind the problem is. > >Sargon Ok then! Well then simply put you must consider castling is a possible option:) If too much is said, then the problem becomes mundane. Terry
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