The diagram shows a restricted chess board with three black knights and three white knights. Your goal is to move the pieces so that the same squares are occupied but the colors are reversed. Your first move must use a black piece.

Pieces may move only as a normal chess knight, from one corner of a 2×3 rectangle to the opposite corner. No more than one piece may occupy a single square at a time. No piece may move onto a darkened square. No other rules of chess apply.

One turn is a sequence of moves made by a single piece. Find a solution with the minimum number of turns.

I think it may be useful to revisualize this as a graph (at least for me):

                D2
                 |
                B1 
                 |
B2---A4---C3---E3---D4
                 |
                D5
                 |
                B4

Filling in the initial positions, and this feels like those move-around-the-cars train games:

               [O] 
                 | 
               [X]  
                 |
[ ]---[X]---[ ]---[O]---[ ]
                 |
               [O]
                 |
               [X]

Posted by owl on 2004-12-10 21:38:58