Chickens in El Maizal

When observing the challenges of playful dogs, kittens and other domestic animals, we often feel impressed by their ability to penetrate the spirit of the game, as happens to human beings. But as far as a hilarious display of mischief, or "malicious stubbornness" is. They do not run or fly, but just dodge, staying close to their persecutors but out of reach. Actually, when potential capturors move away, chickens transform into persecutors and continue to step on their heels, cackling challenging and derogatory.

In a New Jersey farm, where some city people had gone to spend summer, chicken hunting became a daily sport.

There were two chickens that always got into the garden, ready to challenge anyone who tried to catch them. The fact suggested a curious riddle that, I believe, will give me the satisfaction of worrying some of our experts.

The purpose is to verify in how many movements the good farmer and his wife can capture the two birds.

The field is divided into sixty -four squares, delimited by corn plants. Suppose the game develops by moving between the ranks of plants from one square to another, from top to bottom or from right to left.

The game starts. First the man and the woman each move a square and then each of the birds also makes a movement according to the rules described above. The game continues by tumos until it is discovered in how many movements it is possible to corner and capture the chickens.

The capture occurs when the farmer or his wife can break into a square occupied by one of the birds.

The game can be played on any chess board, using two pieces of the same color to represent the farmer and his wife, and two other to represent the rooster and the chicken.

The funny point of this riddle is that, it is played as played, the "man" cannot catch the "rooster" nor the "woman" to the "chicken", then, as they say in chess or in the ladies, the Gallo "wins by hand" to the man, and for the same reason the woman can never "oppose" the chicken.

But if things are invested, and it is the man who goes after the chicken and the woman after the rooster ... Corral birds can be easily captured! One of them can catch in the eighth movement, and the other in the ninth.

This answer can be better understood on a chess board. First move the farmer to the woman and the woman made the farmer. Both birds will move towards their captors. Now the man moves a box down and the woman to the box above him. Once this transposition is made, the continuation is simple since the chickens, in each movement they are closer to their persecutors until they are trapped.