Inquisitor 1371: Conclusion by Kruger

10 comments on “Inquisitor 1371: Conclusion by Kruger”

1. I finished the puzzle, but didn’t get all the clued/unclued letters, just enough to get ‘final position’ which led me to the game of chess. I believe the last move was B to d7 before Spassky resigned. Very enjoyable.

2. I had much the same experience as kenmac with this one, including NERVAL for NEURAL – in my case compounded by guessing FEN instead of YEN for the old currency. I’m just old enough to remember the event being in the news so I managed to work backwards from Reykjavik and sort it all out. I also noticed the discrepancy in the final position but did not investigate further. On the whole I found this to be a good deal trickier than recent puzzles, but no less satisfying. Many thanks to Kruger for the puzzle and to kenmac for the blog.

3. My thanks to Kenmac, as always, for his blog.

   To clarify …

   In the era of the Spassky-Fischer match, chess games could take place over several sessions. At the end of each session, when the “time control” was reached, one player would make a hidden (“sealed”) move in an envelope to be held by the arbiter and opened at the resumption of play in the next session.

   In the 21st game of this match, Spassky’s sealed (i.e. intended) move was Be6-d7. However, he resigned the game overnight without resuming so his sealed move was never actually made and the final position on the board at the end of the match was as I have given it.

4. Felt a little flat at the end of this, all the thematic material having emerged en route to completing the grid, so nothing left to do.

   Knowing that each of the darkest and lightest squares had to be one of B, K, N, P, Q, R helped a bit towards the end.

   Used Google only after it was all done to check that it was indeed the final game of the match and spotted the e6-d7 discrepancy – soon resolved when I noticed that the resignation came before the sealed move was actually made, just as Kruger says.

   Thanks to all.

5. I absolutely loved this puzzle, and managed to complete it for a change. I thought it was very cleverly designed and executed – many thanks Kruger.

6. No real trouble with this one, thanks to a quicker start than average. My main route in was via the anagrams, which fell into place quickly, other than Venus’s Girdle, which took some chewing over.

   I’m not quite old enough to remember the significant event as must admit to never having been a chess player so the final board and layout meant little to me.

   Thanks to Kruger and to kenmac for the blog and associated coloured animation.

7. I must confess to having been a bit disappointed with this, feeling that more could have been made of the theme. I thought it a bit light on thematic material (three names and the piece positions is only 32 cells), and there was no endgame to speak of (like games of chess, puzzles are always better with a good endgame!).

   There have been better chess puzzles over the years – I remember an old EV by Samuel, and a couple of Magpie puzzles – in which one had to move pieces in accordance with a game of chess in order to generate the final grid position, for instance.

   Some nice clues, but for me the weakest IQ so far of 2015.

8. Cheers Kruger, very enjoyable and good to break my duck for the year.

9. The official game score in all sources I find includes the move Bd7. Thus, although the move was never physically played, it still counts as having been played once the move was sealed. Open to interpretation, perhaps, but Spassky resigned after he’d decided to play Bd7 (and was forced to, as it was sealed), and so it does count as a move played. See, eg, the chessgames record for the game at http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1008424 , or search for the game on the chesslive database.

10. I’m no chess arbiter but I’ve been playing the game for 55 years so I’m reasonably familiar with the rules.

    The laws state that a move that is not a capture or castling is completed when the mover releases the piece on the destination square. In the case of Spassky’s sealed move, this would have been performed by the arbiter on resumption of play but never was.

    I can’t see why the official game score should include it. It was never completed and therefore never made.

    Just out of interest, perhaps an arbiter out there can shed light on this. (Although adjournments no longer exist in modern play).

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