Samuel Loyd

This article is about game inventor and puzzle specialist Samuel (Sam) Loyd; on the actor and musician see Sam Lloyd .

Sam Loyd (* 30th January 1841 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , USA ; † 10. April 1911 in New York ) was America berühmtester Games - inventor and puzzles specialist .

Samuel Loyd

Loyd was a good chess player and took part in the international tournament on the occasion of the World Exhibition in Paris in 1867. His best historical rating was 2445 in July 1870, which puts him in 16th place in the world rankings.

However, he made a lasting name for himself above all as a composer of chess problems , which he published in specialist journals. According to his own statements, interest in it arose at the age of ten. He also composed several studies , including an endgame on the subject of pawns versus bishops . Occasionally he used the pseudonyms W. K. Bishop , Samuel Chapman , W. Christy , GRL of Keyport , HFV of Jersey City , HFV of NY , Master Louis Keocker , W (illiam) King , A. Knight of Castleton Vt , MR of Cincinnati , Miss Clara S-r , TPC of NY , WH of Philadelphia, or WW of Richmond Va.

After 1870 he gradually lost interest in the game of chess and from now on devoted himself to inventing mathematical thinking games and original promotional gifts.

The Excelsior

Loyd placed great emphasis on surprising key moves in his chess compositions. The following task, which was first printed in the London Era newspaper on January 13, 1861, he said he composed at the age of 17 in 1858 in the Morphy Chess Rooms in New York. It was a bet over a meal. A certain Dennis Julien did back then always bet on the matt-setting at every chess problem from the outset stone to determine. Loyd then offered to build a problem in which Julien only had to indicate which stone would not checkmate. "He immediately pointed to the b2 pawn as the most unlikely piece."

The subject in which a farmer from the basic position converts are called in the chess problem Excelsior by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem of the same, whose title Loyd had attached as motto. The poem is about a young man ("youth") who, carrying a banner with the inscription Excelsior ("Higher!"), Inexorably penetrates into the snow-covered Alps and dies in the process. Loyd transferred this apotheosis of the aspiring youth to the inexorable peasant.

Samuel Loyd
London Era , January 13, 1861

	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H
8th									8th
7th									7th
6th									6th
5									5
4th									4th
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H

Checkmate in five moves

Solution :

White would like to checkmate with Rd5 or Rf5 in addition to Rd1 or Rf1. However, this immediately fails because of the black parade Rc5, since the white rook would be tied up. So White plays 1. b2 – b4 to take control of the c5-square. Black is forced to sacrifice his rook: 1.… Rc8 – c5 2. b4xc5 . Now mate threatens with Rb1, so Black prevents this with 2.… a3 – a2 . After 3. c5 – c6 there is again a threat of 4. Rd5 or Rf5 with a basic mate. The only way to delay this checkmate is 3.… Bd8 – c7 , in order to place the bishop in between on f4 (or after Rd5 Bxg3 Rd1 + on e1). This, however, takes the last field from the black corner jumper. This is followed by 4. c6xb7 , and on any black move 5. b7xa8D or b7xa8L mates .

The Loyd Turton

Inspired by the idea of ​​the Turton , Loyd tried out whether one could also depict Turton's maneuvers in reverse. It is then a matter of pushing back the stronger piece (here: the queen) on a line over an intersection so that the weaker one (here: the bishop) can be placed in front of it. The Loyd-Turton, named after Loyd, is structurally considerably more difficult to represent than the "classic" Turton, because the weaker figure usually cannot threaten mate. The first presentation:

Samuel Loyd
New York Clipper, October 11, 1856

	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H
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7th									7th
6th									6th
5									5
4th									4th
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1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H

Checkmate in four moves

Solution:

1. Qg1! the stronger figure critically crosses the point of intersection f2. The threat is now 2. Bf2! 3. Bxb6 4. Qc5 mate.
1.… Kd5 2. Nb4 mate .
1.… any 2. Bf2 Kd5 3. Bxb6 Kxe5 4. Qd4 mate .

Bet with Steinitz

Samuel Loyd
1885

	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H
8th									8th
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6th									6th
5									5
4th									4th
3									3
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1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H

Checkmate in four moves

In 1885 Loyd bet with world chess champion Wilhelm Steinitz that he could compose a chess problem faster than Steinitz could find the solution. The latter accepted and won by solving a three-piece, composed by Loyd within ten minutes, in five minutes. Loyd thought about revenge and claimed that he could construct a chess problem, the solution of which Steinitz would not find. Steinitz also accepted this challenge, but this time he failed.

After half an hour of thought, Steinitz gave White moves 1. f4, 2. Bf8, 3. Bg7, 4. Bxf6 as the solution and was of the opinion that Black's counter-moves would be arbitrary. However, this was wrong, because after the first f4 Lh1 second Bf8 g2 3. Lxg7 would Black stalemate . This defensive maneuver, self-imprisonment of a runner for the purpose of stalemate, is called the Kling combination, according to Josef Kling . The first move is correct, but on move 2 White must move either b3 or Bb8 in order to achieve mate in the required number of moves.

Loyd as a chess player

Golmayo - Loyd
Paris 1867

	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H
8th									8th
7th									7th
6th									6th
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4th									4th
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	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H

Black to move

In his game against Celso Golmayo in the Paris tournament in 1867, Loyd proved that he was also looking for aesthetically pleasing combinatorial solutions in party chess . In the position in the diagram he played the surprising rook sacrifice 29.… Ra2 – a1 +. This was followed by 30.Ra3xa1 Qd8 – g5 + 31. Kc1 – b1 (forced, because Kd1 is followed by immediate mate by Qd2) Nf3 – d2 + 32. Kb1 – c1 Nd2 – b3 + ( double check) 33. Kc1 – b1 Qg5 – c1 + (queen sacrifice) 34. Rh1xc1 (White loses sight of his opponent's orgy of sacrifices and makes a decisive mistake. After 34. Kb1 – a2 he was still able to fight, but now checkmate follows in three moves) Nb3 – d2 + 35. Kb1 – a2 Rf8 – a8 + 36 Qb5 – a4 Ra8xa4 mate.

Brain teasers

Back from the Klondike

One of his most famous puzzles is Back from the Klondike , which first appeared in the New York Journal and Advertiser on April 24, 1898 .

Starting from the field marked with a heart in the middle, you draw as many fields as indicated on the starting field. You can pull in eight directions: horizontally, vertically and diagonally. The aim is to cross the border of the playing field by exactly one square at the end of a turn . The solution is possible in nine moves.

From Holetite Pencil or buttonhole puzzles the history has survived: The head of the New York Life Insurance Company , John McCall , asked Loyd if he could design a mystery to the insurance agent for advertising purposes. This puzzle should be remembered with an advertising message. The next day Loyd came back to McCall and brought a small pen with a string tied through a hole at one end. This formed a loop that was a little shorter than the pen. McCall asked what this was for, and Loyd took the collar off McCall's coat and pulled the pin through a buttonhole and put the pin through the loop on the pin. "I'll bet you a dollar that you can't get the pen out in half an hour without cutting the cord," Loyd said. McCall tried in vain for half an hour to remove the pin from the buttonhole, and Loyd took the dollar with the words, "I'll take it off you for $ 10,000 life insurance ." McCall was very impressed, and the buttonhole puzzle became one of Loyd's most famous puzzles.

Another well-known puzzle called Trick Donkeys was similar to a puzzle with dogs published in 1857. A drawing must be cut into three parts along dashed lines. Two parts each show a donkey mirrored. The third part shows two riders sitting on part of the donkey body. The parts have to be put together so that the two riders sit on the donkeys. It reportedly sold more than a billion copies.

Other well-known puzzles were Parchesi , Get Off the Earth and Pigs in Clover . Even before he was 20, Loyd had published some very popular puzzles.

Loyd claimed from 1891 to have also developed the 15 puzzle , which was later refuted. Loyod also claimed that he introduced the so-called chessboard paradox at the World Chess Congress in 1858.

Private

Loyd was the youngest of eight children, his brothers Thomas and especially Isaac also composed chess problems. His mother was a cousin of the portrait painter John Sargent . One of Loyd's ancestors was the governor of Pennsylvania .

After training as a civil engineer , Loyd received a license as a steam and mechanical engineer from the City of New York City . He traded on Wall Street , but he did not take any risk deals.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Anders Thulin: CHESS PSEUDONYMS AND SIGNATURES. An Electronic Edition, Malmö, preliminary 2011-01-02 ( Memento from January 9, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 307 kB)
2. ↑ The anecdote comes from Alain C. White's book Sam Loyd and his Chess Problems (1913), reproduced here in Wilhelm Maßmann's translation after Yochanan Afek : Exzelsior! Higher up! In: Schach , 68th year (2014) No. 6, pp. 48–51.
3. ^ Slocum, Botermans: New Book of Puzzles , Freeman, New York, 1992, pp. 78-79.
4. ↑ http://chess-problemist.com/chess/SamLoydObit.pdf ( PDF )

Works

• Chess strategy, a treatise upon the art of problem composition (1878)
• Sam Loyd's Puzzles (1912)
• The Sam Loyd Cyclopedia of Puzzles (1914) online version

literature

• Alain Campbell White: Sam Loyd and his chess puzzles . Translated by Wilhelm Maßmann. Schachverlag Hans Hedewig's Nachf. Curt Ronniger, Leipzig 1926.
• Sam Loyd - His Story and Best Problems . Edited by Andrew Soltis . Chess Digest, Dallas 1995. ISBN 0875682677 .
• Sam Loyd - Mathematical Puzzles and Games; Brain teasers for bright minds , edited by Martin Gardner , DuMont, Cologne 1978, ISBN 3-7701-1049-8 .
• Sam Loyd - Even more mathematical puzzles and games , edited by Martin Gardner, DuMont, Cologne 1979, ISBN 3-7701-1145-1 .
• The Puzzle King: Sam Loyd's Chess Problems and Selected Mathematical Puzzles . Edited by Sid Pickard. Everyman Chess, London 1996. ISBN 1886846057 .

Web links

Commons : Samuel Loyd  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Samuel Loyd in the catalog of the German National Library
• Website of Sam Loyd Company (English)
• Compositions by Sam Loyd on the PDB server
• Further tasks from Loyd (solutions appear when clicking on a diagram)