In June 2009 I played a deeply implausible game of chess. Here is the checkmate position!
First thing to note, the position is kind of upside down, with the distraught black king on the white king's rank.
This baffling checkmate looks like it's faked, but it's absolutely genuine! It happened largely because my opponent was desparately trying for stalemate, and stubbornly refused to resign, and I desired to make him suffer a little for his temerity :-)
Chess comedy and tragedy ahoy! Feel free to skip to the end of this article for more on the amazing mate! The game kicks off like this.
I push my outside pawn to thwart black from defending his pawn that is next to my knight.
Black's bishop move possibly designed to break up my centre.
Knight sacrifice! Idea is for my fiery queen to give check to the black king, and cause chaos.
Chaos achieved
Black aggressively decides to attack my king before developing his pieces
Disaster for black, his queen will be eaten by white's albino rook. Why did black fall for such a simple trap? Well we were playing "blitz" chess (or speed chess) each player gets 1 minute + an extra 3 seconds per move made. Black has noticed that I am in time trouble. He was moving hastily to put me under more time pressure, in the hope that I would screw up. Such a plan proved to be a double-edged sword, however
You can see white has 14 seconds on his clock (below right in the figure)
Black is still hoping to flag me, (whereby I run out of time). 10 seconds on my clock...
Winning is a formality, a case of pushing pawns to promote them into queens.
Let's lose the rooks
A queen sacrifice, white's queen bee perishes and another shall replace her. How like the social insects!
Now there are no queens on the board!
And the first new queen is born. The Queen is dead. Long live the Queen!
This move by black may seem nihilistic, but his strategy now is to draw - draw by stalemate. But first he has to be rid of mobile pawns.
Rather than slaughtering black for having the temerity to try for stalemate, I decide to toy with him a little.
Twins.
I decide not to give black the cold comfort of a consolation prize tasty pawn
Three queens
How many?
With all those queens lighting up the board and a nearby white king, stalemate be the redemption of the black king if white puts his foot in it.
HOW many????
The coup de grace. An outrageous chess position, that looks improbable even for a theoretical chess puzzle, arose in a genuinely competitive game! Black was NOT pleased as you can see below...
In the "console" on the left, in yellow lettering, "vortex" (my opponent) - has thoughtfully sent me a private message, expressing displeasure in defeat. And, perhaps seething, he's demanding a rematch. However I'd like to extend my thanks to black for stubbornly refusing to resign, and thereby inadvertantly letting this almost supernatural, comical position smash its way into chess history.
You can pay this game on the Internet Chess Club, it's saved in the library of my account, "eadon-2nd" - it is the first game (number 1).
To finish, here's another stylish chess position I played.
A one-sided defeat in a genuine, competitive game of chess is hard to imagine as happened.
Notice that the black king has ended up on White's base row, behind even white's own king. The position looks upside down. Also note that neither of the two original queens survived in the six queens game!
Does anyone know of a more unlikely checkmate than this, with 6 queens all lined up across the top of the board? Let me know! Preferably leave a comment on this page (below).
The chess tragi-comedy continues... I played another startling game where I executed the most bizarre smothered mate you've ever seen. See the greatest chess move Eadon ever made, see Eadon's extraordinary smothered mate game!
The author of this article, and the player of the six queens game, James Eadon, is the inventor of the Culica - see www.culica.com
