Puzzle #91: Black to Play; Black to Tinue

Good evening, Takolytes!

This week's puzzle is courtesy of Londoner54. So, a big thank you to him for sending in a nice board state!

For those new to my puzzles, I try my best to post one every Saturday night (EST). They are usually one of the following types: Tinue (game ending via forced road), Tinue Avoidance (is there a way out?), Gaelet (game ending via flat count), and Best Move (what would you do, and why?).

The type featured tonight is a Tinue puzzle. Tinue is defined as a board state in which no matter what the opposing player does during their turn (White, in this instance), a road win will be awarded to the other player (Black) on their next turn. If you are familiar with Chess, Tinue is very similar to Checkmate.

The best way to solve these puzzles is to find a move that forces your opponent into doing something. Then, you use that forced move to force another move, until you have won. Sometimes there are more ways than 1 to go about this. While I love seeing the different variations, usually the shortest path to a forced win is considered best. The following is a simple example to show how this works. Use the forward arrow to see the best move for White and some example responses by Black.




Please form your answer with PTN or a link to your solution via ptn.ninja. Also, be sure to use the spoiler tag so as not to ruin it for later puzzle solvers.

** I have noticed some people commenting directly to my blog post when answering puzzles. I would kindly ask that you post your answers on the appropriate post on the Reddit page for Tak (r/tak). This will make it easier for me to respond in a timely manner. On that note, I would like to also apologize to those same people for my delayed replies.

The new Reddit spoiler tag is shown below:

>!spoiler!<

Ex:  >!35. a3> 3b2+!<

Thank you and enjoy!!

P.S. There may or may not be a puzzle next weekend, as I will be attending the PAX Unplugged convention in Philidelphia. I hope you are able to attend and participate in the Tak events. But, if not, stay tuned for my post mortem on this convention and tournament.

Puzzle #90: White to Play; White to Tinue

Hello, Takkers of the world!

A couple announcements before the puzzle:

Congrats to Nohatcoder for becoming the 2018 Tak Champion!
I hope you all got to see the final matches of this tournament. If you didn't get to view them live, almost all matches were recorded and posted to the USTA youtube channel.

Now that the Open is finished, it's time to get ready for the next event :)

The USTA will be attending PAX Unplugged in just a couple weeks. We are running a small tournament, trying to get in tons of casual games, and unveiling a prototype tournament/teaching Tak set.

After that, I think the next event will be my puzzle contest, happening around the end of January, to celebrate my 100th puzzle!

For those new to my puzzles, I try my best to post one every Saturday night (EST). They are usually one of the following types: Tinue (game ending via forced road), Tinue Avoidance (is there a way out?), Gaelet (game ending via flat count), and Best Move (what would you do, and why?).

The type featured tonight is a Tinue puzzle. Tinue is defined as a board state in which no matter what the opposing player does during their turn (White, in this instance), a road win will be awarded to the other player (Black) on their next turn. If you are familiar with Chess, Tinue is very similar to Checkmate.

The best way to solve these puzzles is to find a move that forces your opponent into doing something. Then, you use that forced move to force another move, until you have won. Sometimes there are more ways than 1 to go about this. While I love seeing the different variations, usually the shortest path to a forced win is considered best. The following is a simple example to show how this works:




Please form your answer with PTN or a link to your solution via ptn.ninja. Also, be sure to use the spoiler tag so as not to ruin it for later puzzle solvers.

** I have noticed some people commenting directly to my blog post when answering puzzles. I would kindly ask that you post your answers on the appropriate post on the Reddit page for Tak (r/tak). This will make it easier for me to respond in a timely manner. On that note, I would like to also apologize to those same people for my delayed replies.

The new Reddit spoiler tag is shown below:

>!spoiler!<

Ex:  >!35. a3> 3b2+!<

Thank you and enjoy!!

Puzzle #89: Black to Play; Black to Tinue

Hello, all!

The puzzle this week was sent to me by archvenison, from a game he played against Takticianbot late last month. As a side note, congrats to him for taking 3rd in the 2018 USTA Open!

Make sure you tune in tomorrow at 1 pm Eastern to the USTA Twitch channel for the final match between Nohatcoder and fwwwwibib. If all goes according to plan, I'll be co-commentating this one with Ben Wochinski.

For those new to my puzzles, I try my best to post one every Saturday night (EST). They are usually one of the following types: Tinue (game ending via forced road), Tinue Avoidance (is there a way out?), Gaelet (game ending via flat count), and Best Move (what would you do, and why?).

The type featured tonight is a Tinue puzzle. Tinue is defined as a board state in which no matter what the opposing player does during their turn (White, in this instance), a road win will be awarded to the other player (Black) on their next turn. If you are familiar with Chess, Tinue is very similar to Checkmate.

The best way to solve these puzzles is to find a move that forces your opponent into doing something. Then, you use that forced move to force another move, until you have won. Sometimes there are more ways than 1 to go about this. While I love seeing the different variations, usually the shortest path to a forced win is considered best. The following is a simple example to show how this works:




Please form your answer with PTN or a link to your solution via ptn.ninja. Also, be sure to use the spoiler tag so as not to ruin it for later puzzle solvers.

** I have noticed some people commenting directly to my blog post when answering puzzles. I would kindly ask that you post your answers on the appropriate post on the Reddit page for Tak (r/tak). This will make it easier for me to respond in a timely manner. On that note, I would like to also apologize to those same people for my delayed replies.

The new Reddit spoiler tag is shown below:

>!spoiler!<

Ex:  >!35. a3> 3b2+!<

Thank you and enjoy!!

Puzzle #88: White to Play; Capture the Stack

Good evening, Takolytes!

I hope everyone had a good week and is settling into their weekend. It's been a busy one here so far, but tomorrow I plan to do nothing but read and play a few games of Tak :)

For those new to my puzzles, I try my best to post one every Saturday night (EST). They are usually one of the following types: Tinue (game ending via forced road), Tinue Avoidance (is there a way out?), Gaelet (game ending via flat count), and Best Move (what would you do, and why?).

The type featured tonight is a new type that I'm trying out called Capture the Stack. The name pretty much says it all:  your goal is to capture a certain stack on the board. This type of puzzle is not a game-ending one, but capturing a valuable stack can certainly tip the game in your favor. So, I thought it would be nice to practice doing just that.

The best way to solve these puzzles is to find a move that forces your opponent into doing something. Then, you use that forced move to force another move, until you have achieved the goal of the puzzle. Sometimes there are more ways than 1 to go about this. While I love seeing the different variations, usually the shortest path to the goal is considered best. The following is a simple example to show how this works.




Please form your answer with PTN or a link to your solution via ptn.ninja. Also, be sure to use the spoiler tag so as not to ruin it for later puzzle solvers.

** I have noticed some people commenting directly to my blog post when answering puzzles. I would kindly ask that you post your answers on the appropriate post on the Reddit page for Tak (r/tak). This will make it easier for me to respond in a timely manner. On that note, I would like to also apologize to those same people for my delayed replies.

The new Reddit spoiler tag is shown below:

>!spoiler!<

Ex:  >!35. a3> 3b2+!<

Okay, since this is my first time trying this type of puzzle, I'm going to do two of them, 1 easy, and 1 harder one.

In the first, your goal is to capture and successfully spread e1:

And... here's the second, where the goals are to capture both e2 and then d4:




Let me know your thoughts on this puzzle type. If it works out, I'll try to find more examples to play around with.

Enjoy!