- All right, so this ace is going to act as our pawn.
We'll leave it right here,
and place the pawn right here on top of that.
Now the idea is I have to promote this pawn,
but I've let it go so I can no longer touch it.
So imagine this is the final square.
No one said anything about not touching the card.
So what if I just push that forward
without touching the pawn?
I mean, that works.
Which means now we've promoted our pawn to a queen.
And that is pawn promotion.
Oh, right.
Also, the ace has been promoted to a queen.
And that's a little bit about pawn promotion.
Let me know if that's something you want to learn
on Monday's video, but for now, let's get into the puzzle.
(swish) For those of you new to the channel,
I am a big fan of chess.
I love chess so much.
I played as a kid a lot in tournaments.
I still play today, but I also have, obviously,
a big love for magic
and I've put magic and chess together in a few videos
where I guess what hand the chess piece is in
and that type of thing.
And I've always been fascinated with
sort of melding the two worlds together
because I think there are a lot of overlaps.
But recently, I've been inspired by something new.
I've been inspired by puzzles.
I love puzzles because it sort of takes
all of the logic from chess in applying that,
but it also takes the outside-of-the-box thinking
from magic in order to solve the puzzle.
So using those to things to solve a puzzle
is kind of really cool.
But today, I found something really cool
that sort of melds all this together,
and these are chess piece puzzles.
(melodic dubstep music)
So these are Hanayama Japanese chess piece puzzles
and the aim of these basically
is to figure out a way to open these puzzles,
and inside lies a little secret coin.
So the idea is you gotta open it,
you gotta retrieve the coin,
and then you gotta close it up again.
When I saw these, I immediately needed to have them.
I ordered them and they've arrived today.
(swish) (boom)
(swish) I've not taken a look of them yet,
so I have no idea what to expect with these puzzles.
I don't know if they're going to be hard.
I don't know if they're going to be simple.
But I'm going to try to open each
and every one of them today for you,
and hopefully I'll get there,
but results to be determined.
So without further ado, let's start opening these puzzles.
So I'm gonna try to open them
in order of smallest piece to biggest.
So starting with a pawn, the bishop or knight,
the castle/the rook, and then eventually
the queen and king.
By the way, if you're looking for puzzles yourself,
I've left some links below where you can find
these particular puzzles,
as well as a link to another site
where there're a whole bunch of other Hanayama-style puzzles
that you guys can purchase for yourself.
So let's get into it. (swish)
So the pawn here,
so this turns, the base does not.
You got a ring here that turns and you got this that turns.
Let's...
Okay. So that unscrews.
Let me think about this.
Does this unscrew as well?
This also unscrews.
Okay. Is that meant to unscrew?
I don't know.
There's no coin in there.
Okay, so these two parts just unscrew themselves.
Maybe this goes into here?
No. Not gonna forcefully pull it.
Oh! Oh, my God.
That is dope!
First coin.
That's what we were looking for,
this little nugget of treasure here.
Coins are kind of cool.
What's that say on there?
Oh, pawn. Here you go.
So this one's really fascinating.
I really like this one a lot
I surprised myself by solving it so quickly,
but you have two threads here
and one of them is longer than the other,
and I guess when you screw the longer one in,
it unlocks this button here,
which allows it then to open.
So, let's just go ahead and put that back together
the way it was.
That. And goes on top.
And coin. Obviously.
Back in you go.
Push that button.
And we're locked in. So that was the pawn.
Pretty easy.
I expect these to get harder and harder. (laughing)
Let's see if we can knock out another one.
Pawn, done.
Next is the knight.
It feels like there's a piece in here that isn't a coin.
I can go like this and hear the coin,
but then when I (gentle clinking)
I also feel like there's a bit of a physics thing happening.
Oh, so I've turned it now
and I've locked it somehow.
(metal clinking)
Okay, now it's locked in there.
Oh! And there you have it ladies and gentlemen.
Okay. I see. Okay. Cool.
So here's the knight.
That's what the knight coin looks like.
Got a little horseshoe there.
And on this side, obviously it says, "Knight,"
with a picture of the knight right there.
So this one here relies a little bit on gravity.
As you can see, the pin.
There's a small pin right here
that sort of pops out.
You see that? And I'm guessing...
Oh you got the notch on this side.
I see. Okay.
Oh, I see.
Oh, wow.
Okay, hold on.
The way this one works is really interesting.
There is a physics aspect to it, like a gravity aspect.
You have to sort of move into position,
and that allows the pin to disconnect,
but once the pin is disconnected,
you gotta turn it and find the other pin
to where the hole is so you can extract it.
So a bit of a physics thing.
Force won't open it.
You really kinda have to maneuver it.
It's kinda like one of those little mazes
that you can play with
where the ball rolls around and then falls in the holes.
Very cool. I'm pretty stoked right now
that I got two out of two.
Let's go for another one.
This is the bishop.
See, there's a pin here that you can pull up?
All right, so I'm guessing this pin
has something to do with it.
So I kinda figured out that they're all
a little bit the same,
they all have a small notch down here,
that when you turn it, you can release it.
But you also have a second notch,
and I'm guessing it's on the other side.
And that notch is released with this.
So far, that's been the case.
So I think if I pull this and I turn it,
I'll be able to figure out where that notch is.
I just kinda have to use gravity,
but once I'm in that hole,
I gotta make sure I'm in that notch.
So there's the notch. There's the fixed notch.
But now I gotta figure out how to get the other notch open.
There we go. So there it is.
Just as I suspected.
You have one notch here
and this notch is released by the lever.
So it's a gravity notch as well,
but it's released by the lever,
so when you're turned this way and you pull,
it brings it down.
So naturally, if you were to turn it this way and pull,
give it a little bit of a jiggle, it'll push right back in.
And then on this side, you have the fixed notch,
and this fixed notch here, right there,
fits into that here.
Let's check out the coin.
You get to see a little picture of an owl
and obviously on the other side, we have the word bishop
with a picture of the bishop.
Very cool. And back in and locked in place.
That's the bishop!
Three down. Three to go.
All right, so this is the rook
and as you can see, the rook has a gear on top that spins.
Let's see if we can figure this out.
(mellow hip hop music)
Okay, so that first part's off.
And then this opens up.
Oh, look at that!
So the coin's in here sideways.
There is the rook coin.
Very cool.
This one fits in sideways, so it goes here.
Then you have this screw, which comes in here.
And here's the really interesting part,
so you have this little pin, this little brass pin,
which falls into this hole here,
and that little brass pin
locks down this thing so it doesn't turn.
So to open it, that has to fit on top.
So you got a little notch here,
and that notch has to fit on top of that brass pin.
And so it falls into place.
Bam! When it's in place, you turn it upside down,
it unlocks it, and then just using a bit of force,
you can go ahead and open it.
So right now it's closed.
So that is the rook.
Four for four.
Let's go for the next one.
So far I would say these were pretty level three, four.
Not too difficult.
Pretty beginner. Pretty basic.
They are tactile and I think once you get sort of
the way one works, you kind of can figure them all out,
but they're a little bit different.
Let's go for the queen.
So right here, again,
we have something just like the bishop with the queen,
where the head lifts off.
So I'm guessing it's another one of those
where you lock it into the certain place.
So there, I'm locked on the bottom now, in there.
Nope. There it is.
Oh, maybe not.
Sometimes it just takes a little bit of wiggling,
so if I pull this,
You can lock this into place somewhere.
There it is. So here.
Now it just feels like I'm forcing it.
Okay. There.
Now we're locked.
(metal clinking)
I feel it clicking into there,
and I'm guessing that's the fixed pin,
but I think the adjustable pin
has to do with this, obviously.
So I've gotta, I think, turn it around
to let that pin fall out once it's locked into place.
Right now, might be good to go.
(metal clinking)
(sighing frustratedly) Okay.
This one's giving me a hard time.
I think I'm even breaking out of sweat here.
Unless, hold on. There's the notch.
(blowing air exasperatedly) All right. Here.
All right, this one's giving me a bit of a hard time.
I'm gonna set it aside and go for the king.
We'll see if the king's a bit easier.
Okay. Oh, interesting.
So the king as a button.
This cross up here is a button,
which I'm guessing acts as the moveable pin,
and then you have the fixed pin.
You just gotta find the right angle of where that pin is
so you can kind of shuck it down.
Put the king back for now and we'll try the queen again.
What I found with the queen
is that there is an orientation.
And then, I've locked this head.
So I've pulled it and locked it into position.
Oh. There we go.
Boom. So the idea with the queen is,
let me see if I got this right.
Ah. Man that's smart!
So the idea with the queen is this pin here,
which is the moveable pin.
It has to be upwards,
and then when you play with this little trigger here,
and you give it a few turns, boom.
As it locks in, as it jumps back in,
this stays elevated.
Here's the coin by the way.
And here's the coin.
You got a nice little heart
and on the other side, it says,
obviously it says, "Queen."
This locks back in here.
I gotta turn it upside down
so that I can wiggle it and fidget it out of place,
because the lock pin is just slightly smaller
than the hole it jumps through,
so you do have to sort of,
there we go.
You do have to sort of wiggle it around a little bit
before you can get it out.
So queen!
Alright. Last but not least.
The king. And I noticed the king has this button here
and as I do that, I saw that it stayed down for a second.
So my guess is same thing as the queen,
but instead of pulling, it's going to be pushing.
So find out where the bottom fixed lock is.
Okay, so I think it's here.
So we're going to turn that upside down and
allow this pin to fall through.
(clicking)
That should do it. No?
Oh! Yep. There it is.
So same principle with the queen,
except with the king, it's a push mechanism.
If this pin is upwards,
no matter how much I push, it's not gonna fall back up.
You gotta turn it upside down.
Let's take a look at the final coin here.
The king coin.
There you have it, the king and a star on the other side.
Woo! All right!
(mimicking gun shots)
So stoked that I actually got every single one of these!
I was a bit afraid that I wouldn't.
The fear of being a youtuber and having no content.
Obviously I would've uploaded it anyways
and shown you guys that I didn't get it, which is fine.
But I did!
(sighing deeply) And it took me, what time is it now?
It was noon.
Now one o'clock. Exactly one hour
to open every single one of these pieces.
So I would say level three or four pieces.
Kinda cool. Once you understand
the principle of one of them, you kinda get all of them,
which is sweet.
But I do enjoy these and I will leave these lying around
for friends of mine to have a look at.
So thanks for sticking around and outro. (swish)
All right guys, that was it for this video.
Hope you enjoyed it.
Hope you weren't too frustrated watching me open these.
If you do enjoy them and want your friends to try 'em out,
just order a few, leave 'em on the coffee table.
It's a great discussion piece.
It's great for people who're just waiting around
or just chilling at your house.
Anyways guys, hope you enjoyed this video.
If you did, make sure to it the like button and subscribe.
It definitely helps out this channel a lot.
And we'll see you on the next video.
(mock gasping) Peace. (mock yelling)
(melodic hip hop music)