British Chess Championship 2015 Video preview and Games of the Day

[Greg Breed]

How many queens can you have illegal and still only stalemate?

I'd say 59!!!!

[John McKenna]

Thanks, Greg.

I could only get up to 37 on my board, but they were all White.

Have you discovered a way of using Black ones to increase the count?

[Edit: I know this is off topic and do not intend to pursue it much further here.]

[Greg Breed]

So obviously it's not possible to get more than 9 Queens of one colour in a real game, but that aside, try this. Kh8 pawns on h7 & g7 and a knight or Bishop on g8. Put a White king somewhere far away and Queens on all the other squares. Black to move. It's totally impossible but technically stalemate.

[John McKenna]

Thanks for your revealing the method and the correct answer (subject to confirmation by Jack), Greg.

Now, picture this -

[Event "?"] [Site "?"] [Date ""] [Round "?"] [White "How many Queens -, 59 White"] [Black "3 Black!"] [Result "*"] [SetUp "1"] [FEN "6qk/6qq/8/8/8/8/8/K7 w - - 0 0"] [PlyCount "0"] *

With 59 White queens occupying all the empty squares - making a grand total of 62 queens.

It's not stalemate and what might happen if we could start playing from the imagined position with W/B to move?

[NB: It does not seem possible to post illegal positions using PGN/FEN on the forum!?]

[Brian Towers]

With 59 White queens occupying all the empty squares - making a grand total of 62 queens.

It's not stalemate and what might happen if we could start playing from the imagined position with W/B to move?

Is this some kind of trick question?
It's an almost forced mate in 1 for white.
If it's white's move then QxQ(any legal such move) is mate.
If it's black's move then he must play QxQ taking in a direction which forms a straight line from the king. Then again Q(any)xQ(any) is mate. Only if white Q moves to the freshly vacated square (check) does the game continue with QxQ backwards. Then again any QxQ is mate only Q moves to vacant square continues the game.

[Carl Hibbard]

[NB: It does not seem possible to post illegal positions using PGN/FEN on the forum!?]

Yes, it might even be causing a display or performance issue but I am checking.

[Andrew Martin]

Game of the Day Rd 1:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YEwiGP ... e=youtu.be

[Paul Dargan]

With the diagrams as shown (or as I understnd them as they dont really show) - there is no last legal move if all of the squares are covered, so subtract one queen.

Paul

[John McKenna]

Thanks for pointing that out Paul, but what I want to know is - has Brian found a forced help-stalemate, with B to move, yet?

[John McKenna]

Game of the Day Rd 1:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YEwiGP ... e=youtu.be

Thanks Andrew - I enjoyed the commentary, yesterday, so I will have a look and stop posting illegally in your space.

[Steve Rooney]

Andrew, many thanks for the great videos as usual.

For some light relief here is a very different approach to chess instruction videos from a wacky Dane previewing the Politiken Cup.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JDJ1mB0OO8

[Andrew Martin]

GAME OF THE DAY Rd 2 :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG9IURn ... e=youtu.be

Storey-Howell

[John McKenna]

The move 13.Qb5 came in for quite a bit of stick where I was watching.

[Andrew Martin]

Game of the Day Rd 3

Golding-Arkell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W23J3cg ... e=youtu.be

[John McKenna]

Yesterday, I thought Keith might go gung-ho with 23... f4!?!
I think if he'd done that the game wouldn't have been a draw, but what do I know.