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Synthetic Games S\TII}IETIC GAh.fES Synthetic Garnes Play a shortest possible game leading tCI ... G. P. Jelliss September 1998 page I S1NTHETIC GAI\{ES CONTENTS Auto-Surrender Chess BCM: British Chess Magazine, Oppo-Cance llati on Che s s CA'. ()hess Amafeur, EP: En Part 1: Introduction . .. .7 5.3 Miscellaneous. .22 Passant, PFCS'; Problemist Fairy 1.1 History.".2 Auto-Coexi s tence Ches s Chess Supplement, UT: Ultimate 1.2 Theon'...3 D3tnamo Chess Thernes, CDL' C. D" I,ocock, GPJ: Gravitational Chess G. P. Jelliss, JA: J. Akenhead. Part 2: 0rthodox Chess . ...5 Madrssi Chess TGP: T. G. Pollard, TRD: 2. I Checknrates.. .5 Series Auto-Tag Chess T. R. Dar,vson. 2.2 Stalernates... S 2.3 Problem Finales. I PART 1 I.I HISTOR,Y 2.4 Multiple Pawns... l0 INTRODUCTIOT{ Much of my information on the 2.,5 Kings and Pawns".. l1 A'synthetic game' is a sequence early history comes from articles 2.6 Other Pattern Play...13 of moves in chess, or in any form by T. R. Dar,vson cited below, of variant chess, or indesd in any Chess Amsteur l9l4 especially. Part 3. Variant Play . ...14 other garne: which simulates the 3.1 Exact Play... 14 moves of a possible, though Fool's Mste 3 .2 Imitative Direct. l 5 usually improbable, actual game? A primitive example of a 3.3 Imitative Oblique.. " l6 and is constructed to show certain synthetic game in orthodox chess 3.4 Maximumming...lT specified events rvith fewest moves. is the 'fool's mate': l.f3l4 e6l5 3.5 Seriesplay ...17 The following notes on history 2.g4 Qh4 mate. These moves 3.6 New Opening Arra5's... 17 and theory of the subject also serve apparently first appeared in print Philidor as a bibliography. Some other in Arthur Saul's Famot{s Game af Queen Odds sources relating to individual Chesse-Play, 1614 (according to Bishops All on White problems are cited alongside the H. J. R. Murray, A Historv o_f AII Men Ctuarded problems in the text. Chess, Oxford Universlt)' Press Special thanks are due to the l9l3; reprint 1969, note p"832, Part 4. Yariant Pieces . ".. 18 Rev. Peter Kings for sending fte who notes that "The r,lark is more 4. I Nerv Kings... l8 details of the C. D. Locock L944 curious than useful, but its Capturable Kings article in the BCM. classification of the different mates Scorpions deserves to be remembered."). Flying Kings Presentation Saul lvrote there "but seldome or 4"2 New Queens... 18 Within each section the never shall you see a good player Q+N,,'r?+.V / Lion problems are listed in order of receive such a, mate", but Grasshopper lengfh of solution, w.hich is sholln (according to Ken Whyld, Varianf Nightrider / Sh-Qneen in square brackets after the bold Chess 1991 vol. l, p. 96) the term 4.3 Nerv ltuights... 19 heading w.hich states the aim. 'fool's mate' first appeared in a Csmel / Zebrs t'Giraffi Promotion is shor,rm by the later edition revised by Barbier . Nightrider upward pointer n instead of the Fool's mates can be inv'estigated 4.4 New Pawns... 19 more usual equals sigr, - which in all chess variants; they solve the Side-Step Pawns servss for stalemate or draw. A problem: Play a Shortest possible Reversible Pswns single dagger f means check and a flame ending in checlanate. 4.5 Multiple Nerv Pieces.., 19 double dagger $ checkmate. Akenhead's Game Numbered ssctions cited: $3. I . Ssm Loyd Months in dates are shown by Like so nrany other gmd things Part 5. Variant Rules . ...2A lorver case roman numerals i - xii. in the world of chess and puzzles, 5.1NewBoards...20 Square brackets are also used at however, it was Sam Loyd (lS4l - Alice Chess the end of, a game to give its l9l l). 250 )'ears later, who really Moebius Clqe,s,s composer and source, and at the launched the subject by publishing 5.2 New Capture Rules.. .21 end of the statement of rules of a his solutions to a set of five Antipodean Chess variant to acknowledge its problems in Le Sphinx x 1866 (and Free Capture Chess inventor. The following initials are subsoquently in several other Oppo-Surrender Chess used to abbreviate frequent entries: places). He gave shortest games page 2 S1'I\ITI{ETIC GAMES leading to (a) checkmate, w.ith Stratford Express, l, 8, 15, 22 ii 1.2 TFMORY imitative play i,e. Black's 1930; and in his book on Ultimate The challenge to tlrc compossr moves copFng those of White, Themes,l938. of a synthetic game is to determine, (b) selfmate, again with imitative In his survey of synthetic games to w.ithin a limited range of play; (c) discovered checlnnnte, in CA 1914, Dawson mentioned permissible variatioil, & lengthy, (d) stalemate, {e) perpetual check. G. R. Reichehn, A. M. Deane, and complex, interesting, ingenious, Loyd republished this set of W. A. Shinkman as well as Loyd artistic, humorous, outrageous, of problems ten years later. 18?6, in among pioneers of the subject, and otherwise qualified ssqusnce of the first issue of the Arnericsn later work by H. A. Adamson, moves by providing minimal Chess Jyurnal, where he wrote: E. N. Frankenstein, J. Jespersen, infonnation about the aims to be "It $"ill not be amiss to have a little H. E, Dudeney, M. Sieurac and fulfilled by the ssquence. impromptu extribition, bearing P. H. Williams, with C" D. Locock The composer of a syrthetic upon conditional positions pro- as the leading exponent at that gams is really a solver" He starts duced from the position of thc time. I have not been able to trace with a 'specrfication' and seeks a forces as arranged for actual play. examples by all these compossr$, sequence of movss to satisfy it, I find two by Breitenfel{ one by no doubt they are hidden away in A synthetic game can also be Max L,ange, soms from 'Si$sao, &e many newspaper chess columns described as a 'help-play gEnme', Dr Moore. sh, but as all can be that flourished in the late lgth and since the two players co-operate in solved in less moves than irrtended early 20th csnturies. If readers cary{ng out specified objectives} by the authors, I give them under unearth any of these earlier uslng the fewest moves. one heading, w.ithout authorship, examples please let me know" for and have thrown in a few similar future editions of this coltrection. Inexilctness ideas that occurred to me ..." {C. J. Feather, reported to me that In helpmates, and indeed in (as quoted by A. C. White tn Sam unforhrnately there ars no s1'rrthetic problems gpnerally, it is a currently Loyd nnd his Chess Probleffis, gamss in Dawson's problem accepted requirement of most 1913; Dover Publications, New collection, which he now holds.) practitioners that the ssquence of York, reprint 196?, pp.58*59). moves leading to the solution From this it seems that some of C. D. Lococh should be uniquely determined. ths questions had been proposed The plalrr and problemist This moans that not only are the earlier, but Loyd gathered them Charles Dealtry Locock (1862 moves deternfnd but also their together and improved on them, 1946) publishsd two little bocklets order canmt be varied. with lastirry impact. It is often the containing a selection of his rvork, In synthetic games how$ver, it is case that the first solution by the I20 Chess Problems and Puzzles seldom that all the movss, ffid their proposer of a synthetic game in l9l2 and 70 More Chess sequsnce, ars determinate, because problem is later improved on by a Problems and Puzzles in 1926. the composer is trying to control so solver. Where known t have cited These contain only a small part of much with so little. both proposer and solver. his output, &s is shown by his Games which are determined comment on synthetic gafires uniquely frorn start to finish, with fl Jl' Dawson leading to positions in w{rich the no possibihty of transposition of Synthetic gilmes lvere a special 2Ks and 16Ps are left to delineate moves are termed 'exact' synthetic interest of the fairy chess expert the initials of some dedicatee: girmes, and forrn a specialised Thomas Rayner Dawson (1889 "I give tr,vo specimens of some 30 subject of study in themselves. 195 t ) who published articles on which I have made". The 'enurneration' of how many the subject in various publications Locock was also the main shortest games there are that that he contributd to or edited, contributor to a series of syrthetic satis$' the given conditions can be including: Cheltenham Etcominer, garne problems published in the regarded as an unstated rider to 20 ii 1913; Reading Obserlrer, 12, 'Problsm World' section of the any synthetic game problem. For 19, 26 vii l9l3; Chess Amateur, British Chess Magazine, 1942-7. example, the fool's mate in vii, viii, ix l9l4 (sec also The TRD Other solvers being J. A. Lewis, orthdox chess can be played in Book, a manuscript in the British D. B. Pritchard, P. C" Taylor, eight ways: there are two squarss Chess Problem Society" Library); T. G. Pollard M, E. M. Jago, to n'hich the f-palvn can go (f3 or l'Echtquier iii, d,, vii, viii, L929; J. Akenhead and T. R. Dawson. fi[], two for the e-pawn (e6 or e5) page 3 SYNTHETIC GAI\,.MS and tlr.o orders for the White the fool's mate is of length 2 and problem in diagram form mav moYes (f-paurn or g-pa\vn first), Loyd's stalemate, erding en sometimss be justified on grounds giving 2xTx2: I sequsnces.
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