[Retros] Errata in "Chess Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes"?

[Richard Sabey]

Larry pointed out an error in The Chess Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes:

>In "Thoughts of a Logician" (p. 103)


http://janko.at/Schach/Smullyan-SH/26.a.htm
r3k3/P5P1/1P1P1P2/3PpK2/16/6B1/8
White can play and mate in two, but the mate cannot be exhibited.

Smullyan says "*either* Black can't castle *or* White can capture e.p.,
and there is no way of knowing which.  In either case there is a mate
in two, but a different one in each case."

But it looks like 1 Ke6 works in either case.<

Indeed. Apparently, the Times Books edition has a WB at a7.

Other errors:
p.34 line 5:
"nor could any White piece--even if the unknown were White--"
Replace White with Black both times.

p.37 line 5:
"Therefore the pawn on g3 did *not* come from g2."
For g2 read f2. (Corrected in the Times Books edition)

p.52 line 6:
"The only way White can even *check* Black is with the knight on g4
either moving to h6 or capturing the knight on f6."
Or Rh8+.

p.127 problem III
The correct diagram is
4k3/1p1pp1pp/2p2p2/8/4P3/3P4/PPP2PP1/4K3
but at least one edition wrongly has WPg3 instead of g2.

According to p.126, the coded stipulation for problem II is:
AK 63--3,4,5
   14--12,18,2,21;
   16--12,4,17,5,22?

According to p.130, AK 14--12 decodes to "what".

According to p. 138, the coded stipulation is:
68--12,2,14,22,
14--3,15,8,12,9.

The code book is the same as before, and 14--12 decodes to "in".

Thanks to Wei-Hwa Huang for information about the Times Books edition.

This is not an error, but I'm asking it in case anyone on the list
has encountered this notation: Smullyan's chess notation is strange:
it's basically descriptive with S for knight, but with algebraic
notation for square names. Some other English-language publications
use S for knight, even when the only pieces used are orthodox chess
pieces (so there is no need to distinguish knight from nightrider).
But I have not seen Smullyan's mixture of descriptive and
algebraic elsewhere. Is this peculiar to Smullyan or is/was it
used elsewhere?

Richard Sabey




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