[1255] Yuna’s Immortal Stalemate Game I
└ posted on Monday, 22 March 2021, by Novil
- Logan Hunter: A fair sportswoman would resign instead of wandering aimlessly across the board with her king.
- Yuna: I love to go a-wandering,
From here to there and back.
And as I go, I love to sing,
May time run out for black!
- Logan Hunter: Well, here’s my second queen! What do you say now?! Hmm? Hmm?
- Yuna: And it was in this position that Yuna could fully concentrate on catching Dreepy again.
- Logan Hunter: ?!!
- Referee: You set Yuna stalemate.
- Logan Hunter: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
S&W in German/auf Deutsch
![[1255] Yuna’s Immortal Stalemate Game I](/comics/2021-03-22-1255-yunas-immortal-stalemate-game-i.png "[1255] Yuna’s Immortal Stalemate Game I")
Just out of interest, the real Chess masters are getting silly too…
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/mar/18/bongcloud-meme-opening-carlsen-nakamura
Hey Captain Grossmeister! Could you explain that please?
“And it was in this position that …”
So, do you watch Agadmator on YouTube?
Oops, nevermind.
Apparently, stalemate is a drawing position in chess in which a player is not in checkmate but has no legal move to play.
So, Yuna provoked Logan to acquire a second queen, and came to a position where it’s her turn, but her King cannot go anywhere at all. And it’s legally a DRAW.
Well, now I really wonder if someone could actually derive the exact sequence of moves that led to this.
I wonder if Yuna has ever tried 5D Chess with Multiverse Time Travel? (Look it up on Steam if you are interested). Seems like that might actually provide her with a challenge…
Stalemates are funny.
“You’re surrounded! We’ve got all exits covered, if you step outside, you’re ours!”
“So I’ll just stay inside, call it a draw?”
Mind you, worked for a while with Julian Assange.
@ Nonsens:
Unlikely, far too many moves to leave the rest of her pieces taken/unable to move, and to promote the pawn.
He got *Seriously* tilted, he should have easily been able to win this. Going to even an under-10s schools tournament without knowing how to win a rook vs king would be an interesting choice, bc it’s pretty hard to win if you can’t. Being a queen up at this poing in the game should naturally lead to being able to mate with king and queen.
LupisLight wrote:
5D chess with time travel’s AI is pretty poor and you can beat it by playing slightly careful normal chess at a below club-level player due to the time travel splitting rules. If you’re talking playing her as a human, playing a more complex gives her a greater advantage, especially one without extensive study to take advantage of to even the odds.
As an aside, I’ve never heard the phrasing “You’ve set X stalemate”. I’ve heard “You’ve put X in stalemate” or “You’ve stalemated X”
I know it makes for a rather poor comic to have the players in silence for the whole game, but they’re both being really rude here. I have to wonder if something’s going to come back to bite one of the players in part II.
He must really be mad, to make that kind of a mistake. Given that he has at least a rook, forcing Yuna to move her king to the side of the board should be relatively trivial for a tournament player, with just the rook and his own king.
Clever use of “The Happy Wanderer!” After looking at the German lyrics in the comic, I have to wonder: can those lyrics be fitted to the same tune? Does the song exist in a German version? (Given the subject matter, the original version might well have been in German.)
Can hear the Charlie Brown scream from here.
“Der fröhliche Wanderer” by Friedrich-Wilhelm Möller
Written shortly after World War II. It is often mistaken for a German folk song, but it is actually an original composition. In 1953, a BBC radio broadcast of the Obernkirchen Children’s Choir’s performance turned the song into an instant hit. In January, 1954, the song entered the UK Top 12 chart, and stayed on the chart for half of 1954. The amateur choir, many of whose original members were war orphans, turned into an unlikely international phenomenon in the following years. They made two appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show (1964 and 1966).
The text is different in German.
“Mein Vater war ein Wandersmann,
Und mir steckt’s auch im Blut;
Drum wandr’ ich flott, so lang ich kann,
Und schwenke meinen Hut.”
My father was a wanderer,
and it’s in my blood too;
So I wander briskly as long as I can,
and wave my hat.
Looks like the answer to my question last page was “frustrations in Galar”. Dreepy are rare as frick, which would naturally aggravate anyone trying to find one; so Yuna puts the game down to calm herself, and Logan inadvertently lifts her spirits.
@ Artie O’Dactyl:
The German original of the song is rather well-known indeed – “Das Wandern ist des Müller’s Lust” by Franz Schubert, a famous componist (1797-1828) of the early Romantic period.
@ Hegel Marx:
Looking at the German comic of this episode, I’d say the song is derived from “Das Wandern ist des Müllers Lust” by Franz Schubert.
Lyrics:
“Das Wandern ist des Müllers Lust,
das Wandern.
Das muß ein schlechter Müller sein,
dem niemals fiel das Wandern ein,
das Wandern.”
I assume there are different song bases in german and english version.
“Der fröhliche Wanderer” by Friedrich-Wilhelm Möller seems to be a well-known melody in the english world (who doesn’t remember the classic Simpsons episode with the camping van?).
Daniel Holm wrote:
Well, she sacrificed a piece to get him into stalemating herself, and she has a pawn on another side. So he needed to also pay attention to avoid losing the checkmate-capable piece (presumably, the first queen). Oh well, there was even more to pay attention to.
Clevershitter wrote:
I’m actually more interested in what the difference between ‘Dreepy’ and ‘Grolldra’ is. And why they are different in German and English.
Maybe it’s just the sound of the words. I sometimes do that if I translate my own stories from German to English.
As a chessplayer myself, I must admit that I don´t like this story.
I know it´s just supposed to be funny, but they´re both making so ridiculous mistakes und they´re both rude tournament players.
And the punchline is, that she wins by draw, because he set her stalemate? Because he took a second queen??? That´s just fu…ng basic shit you´re learning in chess and he wasn´t able to see that? How the hell did he managed to get into the final of that tournament?
Maybe this arc would have been funnier, if her opponent wouldn´t have been such a pathetic nervewreck.
Sashael wrote:
In the german version, it’s stated in her song that there are only 5 seconds left for black. You can see in the first picture at the clock that his flag is heavily lifted indeed, but it’s easy to miss.
Bruh.
Arent wrote:
It’s actually the very same Pokemon, but its name in German is different than in English. (there are YT-videos of English speaking persons playing Pokemon in German language settings for fun, so they don’t know the stats of the Pokemon when picking)
»Groll« means “grudge” or “ill will” and »-dra« is short for »Drache« “dragon”.
So you can translate »Grolldra« to “grumpy dragon”, in a way. 😉
Moatl wrote:
Ah, ok, so they have different names in different languages. & it’s not Novil’s invention but that of the original creators.
Well, sometimes another word does sound cooler in a certain language.
@ Arent:
My favorite reason for renaming characters are the employees of a certain construction company in Hateno from Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild. In English, the name of the boss of this company is Bolson and all names of the employees are ending with -son. In Japanese his name is Sakurada, in German it’s (Josap) Landa, in Italian Cerada – and all names of the employees end with -da.
The reason? Spoiler-Alarm. You have to finish two specific quests in the game – and you will know the reason. 🙂
@ Clevershitter:
Clevershitter wrote:
Yes, it makes it much clearer how Logan could make such a mistake. He probably spent a lot of time earlier trying to find a way out in a lost position. Yuna annoyed him by playing in a hopeless position and singing (which is against tournament rules!). He only had a few seconds to think and overlooked the stalemate. It happens all the time in rapid, blitz and bullet games.
I like that my countryman Agadmator is tagged! (Y)
Regarding the trivial king-queen, king-rook, or even queen-rook checkmate that he clearly had the pieces for:
A. He’s stressed beyond belief. Easy to miss something obvious, even if you do take the time to look.
B. He’s playing on the clock, and as someone pointed out has only five seconds left at this point. He doesn’t have time to look.
C. The easy queen-rook checkmate isn’t so easy when there’s pawns to dance around. When you have to navigate around them, it takes quite a few moves. Moves take time. Time he doesn’t have.
He probably figured that if he could sprint to a second queen, he’d have a better position to corner her with Q-Q-R in far fewer moves (and get one of his offending pawns out of the way). Just so happens she’s been toying with him ever since she made her ‘mistake’ with the queen. If she has taunted him down to this short of a clock whilst also having set herself up perfectly to be in stalemate right when he snags his queen, that’s some significant focus right there.
@ DTIBA:
Graveyard in Crown Tundra spawns Dragapult constantly in Sword. Catch two, breed them, hatch the egg, there’s your Dreepy.
… Why is this considered a draw? That doesn’t make sense. The king has no legal move to make because the opponent has successfully encircled the king; simple logic dictates that this should count as a victory for the encircler, not a “stalemate”. A real stalemate – if we are to respect the actual word’s meaning – would be if the player were locked in a constant chase with no seeming end for a “sufficiently long” number of turns.
@ Nonsens:
I thought not being able to make any move where you will always loose your king means a loss?
I’m guessing that the next strip will be about which rule is used by this tournament for handling stalemate. Bonus funny if it turns out to adopt the Chaturanga (Ancient chess) rule, where stalemate means the one getting cornered (Yuna) wins.
erm, the title should be with “IV”, shouldn’t it?
MIB4u wrote:
No, the name has switched from Immortal Zugzwang to Immortal Stalemate.
00m wrote:
I think using a famous chess game for the intermediate position makes it very unlikely that anything but the chess rule of «stalemate = draw» is used. Of course the tournament behaviour rules are ignored for laughs, but the board rules seem to be honoured.
@ Sashael:
I am guessing you did not play competitive chess in middle/high school or where you come from your angry teenage nerdlings are more polite but we definitely had players who tried to make the most bizarre plays. Tricking another player into stalemating you with a second queen would have fit right into that nonsense.
@ …:
Which is all well and good if you’re post-Champion and are just going for Pokédex completion, but if you’re trying to catch a Dreepy for your main-game party, you’re left to the whims of the mainland Wild Area. Levels in the Crown Tundra aren’t variant like they are in the Isle of Armour, so if you can’t beat Peony, you’re not gonna have much luck against anything wild.
.MarqFJA87 wrote:
Stalemate in chess refers to a situation in which the king of the player who has the current turn has no moves but is not in check. The opponent can’t claim victory unless they get the opponent in check AND prohibit them from escaping it within one move – checkmate. If you take issue with that, you’re complaining about a set of rules that have been in play for several hundred years, you’re in a minority and you’re not going to convince anyone to change them
@ MarqFJA87:
The player has not ‘successfully’ encircled the king, because encircling the king is not the goal of chess. The player has in fact failed to achieve checkmate; permanently so.
As neither play can achieve checkmate a draw is the only logical outcome.
@ MarqFJA87:
“If we are to respect the word’s meaning”? As far as I can tell the word CAME from chess; any other meanings are derivative.
@ DTIBA:
That’s the thing, though. The pokemon you catch in Dynamax Adventures will always obey you, regardless of your badge count. You just need to be far enough in the game to be able to catch lv 70-80 pokemon. Dynamax Adventures don’t let you use your own team, either. I could have had a full party of lv 70s ridiculously early if I’d wanted to. I actually even got as far as just before the final Calyrex encounter (said encounter requires you to beat the champion) before beating the champion once I had trained my main game team enough.
@ …:
If you can beat Peony before the Darkest Day, using a team that obeys you, and was NOT level-ground to such an extent that the main game is so easy it’s not fun, you must have the best damn tactics in Galar.
@ …:
Dammit, mobile browser, I wasn’t done with tha fomment yet.
…best damn tactics in Galar, if not the world. And by the time you can catch 70-80 Pokémon, most Trainers have a full team to their satisfaction already. Catching the Dreepy in the Wild Area adds it to your party much sooner.
@ DTIBA:
Oh, no. He kicked my rear eight ways to Sunday. But you don’t have to beat him to access Dynamax Adventures. The pokemon you use in Dynamax Adventures are leveled for the area, and you get to keep one pokemon that you catch, so that’s your team. Fun fact: you can catch a Dragapult in Dynamax Adventures.
I just don’t get the ending. Did he win? Lose? Where does a draw mean here? Where does a draw fall in the rankings? What does a draw mean in the player standings? Is he able to play against Yuna again? Do they have to play another game of chess?
@ Vicious Sand:
The game is a draw, he thinks he has missed a win after Yuna’s mistake, and he is now still half a point below Yuna in the tournament ranking. The game has been announced as the deciding game of the tournament, so presumably Yuna has just won the tournament, unless there is some disciplinary action.
@ Nonsens:
Well, since she is playing white, that draw either means she lost, if it’s not a best of … series, or she will have to play an additional match, doesn’t it? I’m not that deeply into chess tournament rules.
So either she lost, or she will have to sacrifice even more video game time on another match.
@ Fela:
Depends on which rule is used by this story’s tournament, but the most commonly accepted/used rule is “Stalemate = Draw”. At the beginning strip of this arc it’s been established that Yuna only needed a Draw to become the tournament’s champion, so either she won the overall tournament or Novil would come up with some sort of joke stuff to negate that.
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room:
At all chess games I attended, a second queen was improvised with a rook and a pawn when needed.
Talking animals, a 14 year old succubus who can do a 80 cm mouth and changes her tongue between human and snake shape, playing hide and seek with a black hole in a plastic cover, genius infant – that’s all okay and doesn’t disturb my willing suspension of disbelief.
But having spare chess pieces at a tournament seems really odd.
@ …:
Oh, you mean Peony’s like Lusamine – the fight is mandatory, but the win is optional. That’s good to know.
@ Clevershitter:
No, pawns when they reach the other side of the board can be turned into any named peice. This is a normal part of chess.
@ Arent:
Well, it seems Novil got more committed to translation, again, after he got some response in the German comments, not translating Pokeman Sword (Pokemon Schwert) and Pokemon Ruby (Pokemon Rubin) in the official German names in No. 1252. Maybe… 😉
@ Gilly:
…except for an other King. 😉
I see, in the English comments is y.a.o. chess course, too. 😀