Look! It's a Knook!

Anarchy Chess has had its fair share of moments. From PIPI, to Beads, to bricks.

The infamous subreddit has always been in the headlines for varying reasons, some more questionable than others. Recently, AnarchyChess has come up with 2 new pieces. Their names are respectively the knook and the look. These pieces are quite interesting and could eventually become a variant. After all, look at what happened to Duck chess, it started out as a funny chess joke, but now, it is a full-fledged serious variant! But what actually is a knook and a look?

This is duck chess, right?

Knook

A knook is a combination of a rook and a knight. Basically, it can move like a rook and a knight. The piece design is a rook with an extension of a knight's mouth.

Its piece notation will be a lowercase k. This seems like a creation of a 10-year-old who just learned about chess, but the tactics connected to this piece add new levels to chess                                                               

Look

A look is literally the left half of the rook. Creative right?

Pawns can promote to this and it can come in handy in some positions (foreshadowing)

It can move everywhere a rook can except for its right, and its notation will be an L

So what do I do with this information?

Nothing. I mean these may seem like pretty boring pieces right? It looks like something a 5-year-old would make after just learning about chess. But the true beauty comes from the puzzles that can be made with these new pieces. These puzzles come from r/AnarchyChess because surprisingly, they made some pretty exciting puzzles.

Puzzles

These should probably take around 1-5 minutes to notice, besides the last one, since the last one is so beautiful (and it's impossible).

Anyways, enough of my gibberish, good luck!

easy

(Scroll for Hint)

Hint: Remove the Defender

Answer: 1. kc1+, kb1 2. Qxd4+!, exd4 3. kc2#

Takeaways: A classic example of the smothered mate and removing the defender. This is just the easy puzzle though, the next ones will be much harder...

Medium

(Scroll for Hint)

Hint: Funny move

Answer: 1. axb6+!! (any en passant is double exclam), Kb7 2. ka7+, Kxb6 (Note that the King can not go to c8 because the knob controls that square) 3. kec6#

Takeaways: Always play en passant even if it is an illegal move.

hard

(Scroll for Hint)

Hint: Look closely

1. d8=L+!!! (1. d8=Q+? or 1. d8=R+? leads to stalemate after Kh2, and white must take the rook and stalemate to avoid ...La1#) , Kh2 2. Lxd1 ( Now it isn't stalemate since the Look doesn't control h1)

Takeaways: Never disregard other options besides the queen when promoting.

Impossible

(Scroll down for Hint)

Hint: You might get the answer if you guess a random rook move

1. Re3!! and it is zugzwang. Every single move runs into a checkmate.

Takeaways: Beautiful puzzles never have a reasonable solution.

Final Thoughts

Was the final puzzle actually impossible? What do you think of the knook and look? Do you think they will have their own variant? But most importantly, have a nice day, and be sure to leave some feedback.