Did you solve it? Pawn pandemonium

Pawn with shadow of the king , strength and power concept , 3d render Photograph: Altayb/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Today’s puzzles are about pawns on a chessboard. They require no expertise at chess. All you need to know is that the queen can move in any direction, for any number of squares. (Usually the Monday puzzle is published on a Monday but these puzzles went live yesterday by mistake.)

Here they are again with the solutions.

All the puzzles have the same premise: can you find a path in which the queen captures all the pawns in exactly the same number of moves as there are pawns.

Puzzle 1: find a path where the queen captures 11 pawns in 11 moves. (The pawns do not move or protect each other.)

This puzzle was devised by Maurice Ashley, the US chess grandmaster, and taken from his app Maurice Ashley Teaches Chess. He describes it as a visualisation exercise to complete in less than two minutes. Photograph: Maurice Ashley

(If you want to print out all the puzzles here is a link to a printable pdf, but it is probably easier to use a tool like Markup.)

Puzzle 2: find a path where the queen captures 14 pawns in 14 moves. (The pawns do not move or protect each other.)

Puzzle 3: find a path where the queen captures 16 pawns in 16 moves. (The pawns do not move or protect each other.)

Puzzle 4: find a path where the queen captures 19 pawns in 19 moves. (The pawns do not move or protect each other.)

Solutions: Puzzle 1

Puzzle 2

Puzzle 3

Puzzle 4

I hope you enjoyed these puzzles – I’ll be back in two weeks.

I set a puzzle here every two weeks on a Monday. I’m always on the look-out for great puzzles. If you would like to suggest one, email me.

I give school talks about maths and puzzles (online and in person). If your school is interested please get in touch.