CHESS STRATEGY
A collection of the most beautiful
chess problems composed by
‘J. B., of Bridport’
and contributed by him to the chief
chess periodicals during the last fifteen years.
[1865]
An Electronic Edition
Anders Thulin, Malmö · 2007-12-23
PR EFACE
The history of Chess Problems—a delightful subject, by the way—has
yet to be written, and we are uninformed of the extent to which this
beautiful off-shoot of the parent game was cultivated in former times.
At no period, however, in all probability has the attention of so many
Chess Amateurs been devoted either to the production or to the solu-
tion of these ingenious puzzles, as in the present day. Chess Problems
are now, indeed, a distinct branch of Chess study. This is undoubt-
edly due in a great measure to the immense impulse given to Chess
a few years since, but it is partly owing, also, to the more attractive
character of the compositions themselves. The earlier collections of
Chess Problems consist largely of positions of the nature of what are
called ‘End-games,’ positions in which, so long as the resemblance to
a real game was preserved, little pains were taken to limit the number
of moves required to effect the mate. Many of them, again, are of the
‘suicidal’ kind, and others are clogged by special and perplexing stipu-
lations. By degrees the ingenuities of Chess Problem composers have
become limited to a narrower range, ‘self-mates,’ mates in 250 moves;
mates with a particular Pawn, or on a particular square; mates in ‘not
more and not less’ than a specified number of moves, have given way
to the easier, but far more useful positions of three, four, or five moves
only. Of the Chess Problem in this its latest and most captivating form,
many strikingly beautiful examples have appeared of late years in peri-
odicals that devote a column of their space to Chess, and judging from
the favourable reception they have met, this henceforth will doubtless
be the class of positions permanently and generally in vogue.
iv
J. B. of Bridport