Nice concept! I enjoy both Sudoku and Chess. However, it takes a lot of time to fully understand the rules of Steinitz Sudoku
Try "Steinitz Sudoku" - a new type of chess puzzle
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Hi KnightAttack1567 -- thanks for your interest! I'll be happy to help you in any way, and you can help me better explain the rules on the Website so that they don't take the time you mentioned. I'm hoping the concept is fairly simple, but I just failed to explain it well. I look forward to helping you (and all others) however I can!
I still don't really understand the rules, but I like the concept!
I don't understand. Can you please make a tutorial video on YouTube?
Thanks for the comments, guys! I will try to clarify the puzzle both in text and (as suggested) with a video. For now, let me know if it helps if I say the following: The goal of the puzzle is to fill in all the numbers of the Sudoku grid, with normal Sudoku restrictions (every row, column, and box must contain each digit exactly once). The chess pieces are used to determine those numbers in the following way: Let's say you see a white pawn on e3. If you also see one on d2 and f2, then of course you know that the e pawn began the game on e2 and has advanced one square. From this you can determine that the Sudoku number on the e3 square is EXACTLY ONE MORE than the number on the e2 square. This is because each chess piece, when it moved, always moves to the next Sudoku digit greater than where it stood when it started the move. So the task for you, the solver, is to examine the board and prove to yourself exactly which moves had to have been made to get into this position. This lets you fill in the numbers and voila! Finished puzzle. Puzzle #6 ("Amateur Hour") contains some starter hints for you if you click on the info button (the circled letter "i"), and that might help too? Perhaps when I make a video it could be me walking through those particular starter steps. Please keep the comments and feedback coming! Thanks!
nice concept - your diagrams don't come up on my (Firefox) browser
Hi Anselan -- I have fixed this (and tested it with Firefox) -- can you try again now? You may need to clear your browsing history (cache) to get the fixed version. If it's still not working, let me know and I'll work on it further -- email me or post here and I'll find some other way to get you the puzzles in the meantime?
Hi all -- I don't know if anyone here has been actively looking at the puzzles, but I've added a new one -- #22 at http://www.manushand.com/steinitz/puzzles/22.html -- which features five queens on the board. I'd love to have any of you take a look. Thanks!
With apologies for the delay, I have put up a video with an introduction to these puzzles and how to solve them. It can be found at https://youtu.be/DkuHC47bYtI where you can see me and my COVID-hermit beard in all my...glory? I hope to hear from any of you chess-puzzle enthusiasts who go check the Steinitz Sudoku puzzles out, at http://www.manushand.com/steinitz
Hello again -- just a quick reminder that these Steinitz Sudoku puzzles (in which you solve a chess problem to help solve a Sudoku grid...and vice-versa) are available for you all to try. The latest one (#39, entitled "Conclave") is, I believe, quite easy. Others of the bunch (#35 and #37, for example) require some deep chess analysis, so I am thinking they'd be a good challenge for many of you here. I hope to hear some feedback from any of you who find them interesting! Find the puzzles at http://www.manushand.com/steinitz
Hi guys -- I've created five or six more of these puzzles since my last post. I hope some you have an interest in them and want to try them and provide feedback to me. Again, they are at http://www.manushand.com/steinitz
Hi Luke - I'm happy to help you understand them; I think I'm not the greatest explainer. I think the best job I've done so far in explaining them is these couple of sentences: does this help? "These puzzles are regular Sudoku except instead of / in addition to having some digits given to you at the beginning, you get a chessboard laid on the sudoku grid, with pieces on the board, showing the state of a legal, valid chess game. You need to determine what numbers the pieces stand on, and from that, the rest of the numbers in the sudoku grid. The gimmick is that the chess pieces could only have gotten where they are by moving UP in number from the squares they started from. For example, if the queen started on a 3, it first needed to move to a 4, then (if it made another move during the game) to a 5, then to a 6, etc. The game that was played is a legal chess game, white moving first, etc."
Good news! I have created a true beginner puzzle, WITH HELPFUL HINTS TO GUIDE YOU ALONG THE WAY, that should be very useful (I hope) to alleviate the confusion about how these puzzles work. Just start working the puzzle like a normal Sudoku, but when you're stuck, click the HINT button to be told what chess-related analysis you can do to help you get more digits! Check it out at http://www.manushand.com/steinitz -- the BEGINNER PUZZLE (entitled "A Simple Plan") is up at the top of the puzzles list, impossible to miss! I look forward to hearing from those of you who try your hand at these!
Hey all -- just another mention of these puzzles in hopes it sparks some of you to take a look and give them a try. The online-solving Website has been a bit remodeled and now there are over 40 puzzles to challenge you. Would love to hear from any of you, with any comments or suggestions, etc. http://www.manushand.com/steinitz
Hi -- I've created a number of puzzles of a type I call "Steinitz Sudoku". To solve them, you need to use skills in retrograde chess analysis, as well as those you use to solve standard Sudoku puzzles. I'm really hoping that a good many of you are interested in the concept and try them out. Please take a look at http://www.manushand.com/steinitz -- I'll be happy to answer any questions, help out, etc., and hopefully some of you are interested enough to join the small but growing group of Steinitz Sudoku Setters and Solvers! Thanks!