Talk:Excelsior (chess problem)

The moves are very unclear and don't seem to be in proper notation. Also: Who is supposed to be moving, black or white? A table would clear that up. As it stands this article is confusing, and I've played Chess with clocks and notation for years.--Lazarus Plus 01:34, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Really?

I don't find the notation at all confusing. I am, however, unclear on how Bc7 may defend against Rd5 or Rf5.--69.196.212.30 18:03, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I do not find the notation confusing either. However, it took me some time to understand the point of the Excelsior problem. I now understand that the challenge was to mate with the small little pawn that nobody or so would have said it could mate in five. And I find it brilliant. Also, it is unclear to me how Bc7 can defend against Rd5; it cannot even stand in the way !?--Jnorguet 15:39, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

After 3...Bc7, 4.Rd5 fails to 4...Bxg3 and there's no mate (5.Rd1+ Be1). As Ruziklan already pointed out in his edit summary, 4.Rf5 fails to 4...Bf4. --Camembert 17:28, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

1...Rxc2

Line not covered. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ChessCreator (talk • contribs) 11:48, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, I have elaborated on solution comments. While Wikipedia is surely not a textbook on chess composition, I think this specific problem allows to enlighten some concepts, like motivation, defence (chess composition), half-defence, thematic variation, secondary variation, so that it might be useful to quote when writing about them (in the future) --Ruziklan (talk) 13:40, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. This is one of the truly great chess problems, so the details are justified. :) -- 88.195.207.122 (talk) 10:18, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Confused by 3...Nc7

3...Nc7 seems to prevent promotion, although not mate in 5. Which, if you are being literal, seems to defy the intent of the puzzle to mate with the least likely piece or pawn. Am I missing something? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.71.201.190 (talk) 15:27, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

In the course of the solution many various mates are threatened by rook b5 and that surely is not the least likely piece to mate. Yet black defends as if there was no additional requiements for mating piece. Thus the requirements of least likely piece to mate should not be taken literally, rather freely and the problem is correct as normal #5, with additional benefit of final mate given by very unlikely piece from initial position. By the way, for me personally the least likely piece to mate in the diagram would be wK... --Ruziklan (talk) 16:59, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Stipulation

This problem was not first published under the stipulation that suggested that the mate is to be done by the least likely piece, as claimed by this page (since corrected everyewhere except in the quotation from White). Scans of the original issue of The Era can be found through British Newspaper Archive, and the show the motto was just 'White to move, and mate in five moves'.Athulin (talk) 13:30, 30 September 2019 (UTC)