Mark's useful info: On Monday we looked at a famous chess puzzle, a mate-in-2 problem designed by the American prodigy Paul Morphy (I believe that it’s the only puzzle attributed to him so it’s easy to look up online).
The puzzle illustrated the concept of zugzwang, or ‘the compulsion to move’. Chess is about turn taking, and you cannot forfeit your turn to move. This means that you can find yourself in the position where it’s your move, but any move that you make will weaken your position, perhaps even fatally, nevertheless you must move: that’s zugzwang.
It’s a common feature of king and pawn endgames, where one player’s king is defending a pawn, or trying to block their opponent’s pawn from being promoted to a queen but the king has to move, and its only option is to move away, losing the position. (Note that this isn’t the same as stalemate where you have no legal move available and so the game ends in a draw; in zugzwang, the game continues). There are plenty of examples and explanations of zugzwang positions online if you are moved (!) to find out more.
