Can YOU Solve This Puzzle That BROKE Stockfish?

🎁 GM Smirnov’s B’day Special
50% OFF on all courses + FREE course – (till 2nd Nov)

Learn 3 Main Ways To Improve Your Chess Results Significantly
FREE Masterclass ►

Take Your Chess Skills To The Next Level With High-Quality Courses
Learn here ►

💰💲 Join the RCA Affiliate Program, promote our courses, and get 50% commission –

♛ Find the puzzles and their solution in this blog-post –

In this video lesson, GM Igor Smirnov shares with you two interesting chess puzzles that left him speechless. In fact, even Stockfish could not solve one of these puzzles; Stockfish broke as it changed its evaluation from 0.0 to a forced checkmate after just one move!

This chess puzzle is really out of this world; try to solve it on your own if you wish to squeeze your brain a bit. The second puzzle is from a real game played between Viktor Kortschnoj and Vitaly Chekhover. Solving these puzzles will give you great satisfaction.

▬▬▬▬▬▬
► Chapters

00:00 2 Mind-blowing Chess Puzzles
00:03 Puzzle-1: Even Stockfish couldn’t solve this chess puzzle
01:41 Solution: Out-of-the-world move!
04:18 1 move wins, other move loses
07:04 Puzzle-2: Can you solve it?

#GMSmirnov #ChessPuzzle #Stockfish #ChessPuzzles #ChessProblems

47 Comments

  1. Happy birthday! Impressive puzzle. SF16 gave me the mate in 12 with BC7 … after a while, at a deep of 157.

  2. mutual zugzwang! i love it. thanks for this!!! i am grinning from ear to ear.

  3. I analyzed the first position via Komodo. It was able to get mating move at depth 16. I have seen this with other puzzles as well that Stockfish 16 is not able to find the mating move at even 30 depth but Komodo does it under 20 depth. The Dragon Engine does it even faster.

  4. ► Chapters

    00:00 2 Mind-blowing Chess Puzzles

    00:03 Puzzle-1: Even Stockfish couldn't solve this chess puzzle

    01:41 Solution: Out-of-the-world move!

    04:18 1 move wins, other move loses

    07:04 Puzzle-2: Can you solve it?

  5. This is wicked. I never fathom moving the bishop, as that would lose the white queen. No wonder I'm hovering around 1100.

  6. i solved it!! ..incorrectly:) – 1st of November, November's Fools, folks

  7. Compré un curso doble (109$) pero no había opción para adquirir el segundo (o segundos) gratuitamente.
    Tampoco tengo respuesta al correo que envié.

  8. Rd8+!! then Rf8+
    if the king does not take then Rxc7+!! Qxc7 and Rd7!

  9. oh and at the end… i actually saw it before i was supposed to….. i thought it was white to move before black played Rxb2 and so i started thinking about it, probably because of the rotation of the board… it is always satisfying to counter sac, yeah, especially when it wins on the place

  10. There's probably something better, but Rxc7+ looks pretty good. After all the trades, white has one extra pawn for the end game.

  11. i am thinking rd8+,if king takes then ladder mate with qh8 or rf8, thus kb7 is forced. rxc7+, if king leaves check then rook take queen and winning. If queen takes then rd7 pinning queen to king. If qxd7 then queen recapture with check and then our king picks up the rook. If king leaves the pin we take the queen and the other 2 rooks are both hanging thus also winning.

  12. Wow !!!! Thank you, your stream is the best by far

  13. Actually, Stockfish 15 found it on my computer!

  14. Stockfish tells me to do exactly this move. MAYBE you should allow Stockfish A LITTLE more search depth?

  15. 7:57 puzzle: maybe Rd1 to d8x? if K takes than Rf7 to f8x, Q blocks than take Q e8x into Q takes g6x and after that take the R on b2 with your K, Q up life is good – if K hides going to b7 than Rf7 takes Pc7x, Q takes back on c7 or will be captured, Rd8 to d7 pinning the Q, Q cant take if cause my Q will recapture with check, also black cant save his Q at this point and is in trouble cause his R is still under attack by my K aswell, game over I think.

  16. I am seeing this as solution to puzzle. Rd8+
    If Kxd8 then
    Rf8+ Qe8
    Rxe8 Kxe8
    Qxg7 no matter where the black king moves white plays Kxb2. White is up by a queen

    If black plays Kb7 then
    Rxc7+ Qxc7
    Rd7 Qxd7
    Qxd7+ wherever the black king moves white can play Kxb2 in which white gets a queen vs rook endgame which should be winning

  17. You meant Torch, not Stockfish, right? Stockfish is in the past.

  18. Rd8+ Kb7, Rxc7+ Qxc7, Rd7 Qxd7, Qxd7 King moves somewwere and then Kxb2.

  19. Puzzle 2: 1. Rd8+. If Kxd8, R or Q to back rank leads to mate. King must 1….Kb7. 2. Rxc7+ Qxc7 3. Rd7 pins the Q. 3….Qxd7 4. Qxd7+ Ka6 5. Kxb2 and White has Queen vs Rook.

  20. Rd8+ black cant take or it leads to checkmate
    Kb7

    Rc7+
    Qxc7

    Rd7
    Qxd7

    Qxd7+
    Ka6

    I guess white takes his pick of which rook to take first seems fairly straightforward after that

  21. my mind is in mutual zugszwang! it can’t stop checking itself 😮

  22. Isn't there black move of Nd5 followed by Nc3 in the first problem?

  23. Just looking at both these insane positions gave me a headache…😢

  24. I see it immediately. Not because I am good but because I saw it before. It still very satisfying to watch.

  25. Puzzle 2: 1. Rd8ch Kb7 (if 1…Kxd8 2. Rf8 Qe8 3. Rxe8ch Kxe8 4. Qxg6ch followed by 5. Kxb2 White is a queen up) …Kb7 2. Rxc7ch wins. If 2…Qxc7 then 3. Rd7 pinning the queen and Black is material up (3…Qxd7 4. Qxd7ch followed by 5. Kxb2 and if 3…Rgg2 then 4. Rxc7ch with a mating attack). Black can try something like 2…Ka6 (Moving the king back to the 8th rank leads to mate for white) but after 3. Rxc6 Rgg2, White is simply up queen for rook and can possibly play his rook back to c7 and look for a queen check on d3 (Or a rook check on h2) keeping one eye on the c2 square for a rook check by black.

  26. How about the black queen following the bishop and using b4 or a3.?

  27. Rd8+ & Black loses queen for two rooks but taking queen with check,So you win a rook by Kxb2. and wins the game

  28. Korchnoi was an absolute legend and is will always be one of my favourite players. His unofficial title of the champion villain of the chess world is well-deserved. He was a Soviet player until 1976, which means the Americans didn't like him by default during the Cold War, but he was also disliked by many Soviets as well (I'm sure the feeling was mutual) and defected in 1976. Not to the USA though, but to the ultimate neutral country Switzerland. And continuing to hold onto his Heavyweight Chess Villain Champion of the world in the final years of his life, by becoming p*ssing off the Swiss and winning the 2009 Swiss championship at age 78, also becoming the oldest player ever to win a national championship. One of the strongest players never to win a world title.

    I can think of two other villainous things that Korchnoi did which involved breaking the rules:

    1. Castled illegally in a game in 1995 versus Stefan Kindermann where everyone forgot his king's rook had moved back to its starting square, and ended up winning. When the arbiters reviewed the game they found the illegal move and by the rules the players were obliged to "rewind" the game back to that point, but they thought it was too hard and decided to agree to a draw instead.

    2. Played a game of chess versus a ghost in 1985, his opponent being Geza Maróczy who died in 1951. Not quite "breaking the rules" but many people would consider involvement with necromancy or spirit mediums to be a "dark art". In any case, playing a game of chess with a decades-long dead guy is worthy of a villainous player. I'd love to see a living GM play the same sort of game with Korchnoi. Might end up being a chess-world tradition for playing against deceased GM's!

    (sorry that this comment is not really relevant to the video or puzzle, but I don't often get to do a fanboy post about Korchnoi and will use any excuse).

  29. In 5:06 what if black move Q to b4 and just start chasing bishop

  30. 2 puzzle:
    The white plays: Rd8+!!
    if black takes the rook move Rook to f8+ Qe8 only move, then take queen, King takes and take rook
    If black plays K-g7, we will play, R-C7+ only move take with a Queen, and we will move R-d7 pinning the queen
    Queen takes the rook, we takes the queen ( check ) King moves & take the rook

  31. After this puzzle I now realize I have a lot to learn in chess

  32. Actually, Stockfish 14+NNUE got this instantly, #12. The only reason is – weird enough – that engine evaluation is set to only one line. With multiple lines it returns a draw. Obviously a software bug.

    [Variant "From Position"]

    [FEN "n1QBq1k1/5p1p/5KP1/p7/8/8/8/8 w – – 0 1"]

    1. Bc7 Qxc8 2. gxf7+ Kh8 3. Be5 Qc5 4. Bb2 Nc7 5. Ba1 a4 6. Bb2 a3 7. Ba1 a2 8. Bb2 a1=Q 9. Bxa1 Qd4+ 10. Bxd4 Nd5+ 11. Ke6+ Nf6 12. Bxf6#

    EDIT: I stand corrected. It got it instaltly because of Cloud computing (113 ply). My bad.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.