Have you ever heard of the Poltava Mate? This may actually be the wrong name for it, and it may have to do with Turkey instead of Russia. The story goes that Charles XII of Sweden was playing a game of chess as a battle raged on and he looked at the board and said "I have mate in 3 moves" just then a bullet whizzed by and knocked one of his pieces from the board. He was astonished, looked at the board and said "I have mate in 4 moves". Bang! Another bullet comes through the window and takes away yet another piece. Flummoxed, Charles then states "I have mate in 5 moves!" and went on to deliver mate (I guess he closed the blinds to the window).

At any rate, I don't know the full story, but I have a friend who writes some interesting articles and he is looking for this problem. It once appeared in an old chess book, by Chernev or the like. If you, or anyone who knows of this story/problem, please send me the information.

Thanks!

Fun problem Kamus, like I said, they are perfect for my morning coffee breaks.

I just did a Google search (''chess Charles XII'') and the first result at least looked quite promising:

http://www.chessproblem.net/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=308

Also, from a German forum: http://www.schachkiste.de/faschingsschachaufgaben-scherzprobleme-f98/geschichten-aus-dem-schachproblem-leben-t603.html The Chernev book you're looking for is ''The 1000 best games of chess'' according to this source.

Probably you mean "1000 Best Short Games of Chess" though there is a book (not by Chernev) called "100 best games of Chess".

Many thanks Fox! That's awesome. I did a search and came up empty. I'll forward this on to my friend.

Damnit, I was gonna solve the problem but Fox beat me to it. There is an Icelandic book from around 1900 that has been reprinted since and is very famous. It is called "Í uppnámi" which I guess means "En prise" or something of that kind. Anyway this problem along with many others is in the book and also many old games with King's Gambit etc. I am glad you found the problem but I am a little bummed I was too late to help since I got so excited because I knew immediately where to find it ;-)

Something weird- we lost the icon in the forum index for some reason and a search of this topic indicates that it doesn't exist while it clearly does. . Something bizarre happened when I tried to update this video ( it was miscredited). Perhaps if admin gets some time, he could figure this out.

dude that is some trippy shit. i got chills down my spine reading it.

i hope admin can save us. i know he can.

It's like we were transported to some sort of irrational parallel universe!! (LOL, katar)