An Ancient Chess Problem From One of the First Chess Books Ever Written!

Chess Puzzle 5/2/24

Chess being introduced to the Persians from India in the Pre-Islamic Sassanid court

Two years ago I read David Shenk's 2007 book, The Immortal Game: A History of Chess or, How 32 Carved Pieces on a Board Illuminated Our Understanding of War, Science, and the Human Brain. It's a great read and a book that I would recommend to anyone, chess fan or not!

I saw the book recommended in a store over spring break while I was in Austin and was reminded of a chess problem featured in the book from 1200 years ago!

I wrote a post about the problem on chess.com and thought I might reprint it here for any chess heads or interested parties.

Back then, Persian chess (called shatranj, an evolution of even earlier Indian chess) had slightly different moves than the modern game. The Queen (called the Minister at the time) could only move one diagonal square at a time, and what we now know as the Bishop would jump to the second diagonal square upon its move.

All this is to say that, though the rules were different, this particular problem I'm featuring only includes Pawns, Knights, Rooks, and Kings which all had the same technical moves in shatranj as they do in chess. And even from a book on shatranj written by the grandmaster, or aliyat, al-Adli from 840 CE the puzzle is still totally playable today! 

The scenario is White’s turn to move and checkmate in 3 moves so please feel free to give it a try and know that you're puzzling over a chess question that has challenged chess scholars for millennia!

I'll include the solution below if you want to scroll down and check your answer or just see for yourself: 👇 

1. Nh5+   Rxh5

2. Rxg6+   Kxg6

3. Re6++

Checkmate! Or Shah Mat! as the Persians would say (literally meaning the ‘King is frozen’). I hope you enjoyed this puzzle and let me know what some of your favorite books are for historical chess knowledge or problems like this one.