Page:Amusements in mathematics.djvu/117

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CHESSBOARD PROBLEMS.
105

344.—THE KENNEL PUZZLE.

A man has twenty-five dog kennels all communicating with each other by doorways, as shown in the illustration. He wishes to arrange his twenty dogs so that they shall form a knight's string from dog No. 1 to dog No. 20, the bottom row of five kennels to be left empty, as at present. This is to be done by moving one dog at a time into a vacant kennel. The dogs are well trained to obedience, and may be trusted to remain in the kennels in which they are placed, except that if two are placed in the same kennel together they will fight it out to the death. How is the puzzle to be solved in the fewest possible moves without two dogs ever being together?

345.—THE TWO PAWNS.

BLACK

WHITE

Here is a neat little puzzle in counting. In how many different ways may the two pawns advance to the eighth square? You may move them in any order you like to form a different sequence. For example, you may move the Q R P (one or two squares) first, or the K R P first, or one pawn as far as you like before touching the other. Any sequence is permissible, only in this puzzle as soon as a pawn reaches the eighth square it is dead, and remains there unconverted. Can you count the number of different sequences? At first it will strike you as being very difficult, but I will show that it is really quite simple when properly attacked.

VARIOUS CHESS PUZZLES.

"Chesse-play is a good and wittie exercise of the minde for some kinde of men."
Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy.

346.—SETTING THE BOARD.

I have a single chessboard and a single set of chessmen. In how many different ways may the men be correctly set up for the beginning of a game? I find that most people slip at a particular point in making the calculation.

347.—COUNTING THE RECTANGLES.

Can you say correctly just how many squares and other rectangles the chessboard contains? In other words, in how great a number of different ways is it possible to indicate a square or other rectangle enclosed by lines that separate the squares of the board?

348.—THE ROOKERY.

The White rooks cannot move outside the little square in which they are enclosed except on the final move, in giving checkmate. The puzzle