Do you play chess? If you don’t, I highly recommend it. Chess is analogous to many aspects of life. I like chess, but I love chess puzzles. These bypass the boring slog of vying for position in the form of controlling the center of the board, developing your pieces, castling, etc. Chess puzzles cut to the heart of what makes chess truly fun, a complex sequence of unexpected moves that win the game. If a chess puzzle is too easy, it’s not a good puzzle. Likewise, if a puzzle is predictable, again, it’s not fun. A good puzzle is a tough one, one that makes you think, one that truly challenges you.
These treasure hunts are not games, they are puzzles. If we are to assume these are good puzzles, they must be difficult and unexpected. Therefore, when interpreting them we must avoid the simple, the commonplace, the mundane. Instead, we must look for the queen sacrifice, the fork, the skewer, the pin, discovered check, double check, threatened checkmate, overloading, interference, and suffocation. Anything short of an interesting explanation of a clue will fail this test and must be dismissed as incorrect.
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