The longest chess puzzle series
Made by György Honfi, Hungary




INTRODUCTION

The longest chess puzzle series was published in October 2018 in a book entitled Kingdom by György Honfi. This chess puzzle series contains 272 puzzles. This is the longest puzzle series made in Hungary and not even the WFCC (World Federation for Chess Composition) knows about a longer series. I have started the series in December 2015 and I have made the last puzzle of it in May 2018.

The website contains this series.

There is a puzzle for every grid of the board (where the black king stands)
- a mate in two and a mate in three puzzles
- a helpmate in two and a helpmate in three puzzles

I have made a double requirement puzzle for sixteen grids of the board. On one hand, it's a helpmate in two, on the other hand it's a mate in four puzzle!
The standing is the same!

The place of the white king depends on where the black king stands. If possible, it stands on g2, but in nine situations it stands on b2 as it would be too close to the black king. Every puzzle is a miniature, which means it contains seven chesspieces at most, so there are 256 standings and a total of 272 puzzles for the 64 grids of the board.

For those who are less familiar with the world of chess puzzles, white cooperates with black in 'helpmate' puzzles to get the mate in the number of steps required. This ”attitude” may sound a little strange, but trust me there are fare stranger puzzles in chess, like the 'selfmate' where white forces black to mate him.

As for the helpmate puzzles, they deserve a chance as there are lots of beatiful helpmate puzzles, and you need to think rather differently in comparison to direct mates. I hope you will succeed at that! It's well worth it.

I recommend you to start with miniature helpmate puzzles like the ones in this puzzle series. Don't forget that black always starts in case of helpmate puzzles! By that, helpmate in three steps means that black starts, then white moves, black moves, white moves, black moves and white mates.

I hope that this puzzle series brings you closer to the wonderful world of chess puzzles.

Have fun, and I wish you all the best for solving the puzzles,


Budapest, April 2020
György Honfi