Credits

The name

The name comes from the “octopus knight”: Kasparov's knight on d3 in game 16 of his 1985 world title match with Karpov. Raymond Keene, reporting on the game in The Spectator, 26 October 1985: “Not a knight, but a monstrous centralised octopus, tentacles grasping out in all directions.”

The puzzle

Based on the knight test in “What Is Your Chess IQ?”, Miro Radojcic's Observation Point column, Chess Life & Review, vol. XXVI no. 12, December 1971, p. 709. The test came from Czechoslovakia by way of Leonard Barden.

Piece sets

• Classic by Colin M.L. Burnett (BSD)
• Chessnut by Alexis Luengas (Apache 2.0)
• Fantasy by Maurizio Monge (MIT)
• Spatial by Maurizio Monge (MIT)
• Celtic by Maurizio Monge (MIT)
• Pixel by RhosGFX (CC0)
• Kiwen-suwi by neverRare (CC BY 4.0)
• Firi by James Faure (CC BY 4.0)
• Totoy by Kosal Sen (CC BY 4.0)
• Papercut by Nikolay Anzarov (CC BY 4.0)
• Shapes by flugsio (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Lettering

Patrick Hand by Patrick Wagesreiter (OFL 1.1)