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Walkabout
The Babson Task – Part 2
4 Feb. 2026
In orthodox helpmates, the Babson task occurs when Black and White promote to matching pieces of each type – queens, rooks, bishops, and knights – across four distinct solutions. The demanding scheme means relatively few realisations, and the design constraints are such that examples often share some basic elements. At least three moves are needed to show the theme in a standard helpmate, because for the black queen promotion part, the piece must make two further moves (one orthogonal and one diagonal) to be irreplaceable by a promoted rook or bishop. The motivations for the promotions are usually the same: White employs the new pieces to deliver mate, Black uses them to block the king’s flights. Incorporating extra thematic contents, besides the echoed promotions, is exceedingly rare. Such exceptional helpmates do exist though there may be constructional costs involved, as we shall see.
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