Some info about Yuna’s game of chess
└ posted on Saturday, 27 March 2021, by Novil
Yuna’s game against Logan Hunter is based on a game between the chess engines Deep Mind Alpha Zero against Stockfish. It was also called an “Immortal Zugzwang Game” by popular chess commentator agadmator. You can watch the game on agadmator’s YouTube channel.
The position on the board before Yuna blundered her queen in strip [1254] Yuna’s Immortal Zugzwang Game III happened in that game and is as follows:
I then played a couple of dubious, but not completely outlandish, moves to arrive at the following stalemate position in strip [1255] Yuna’s Immortal Stalemate Game I:
How’d that pawn get to e6, though? Yuna must really have been out of it; she would have won if she’d called her opponent out for cheating!
@ alercah:
Rook to E6, pawn captures would do it.
The moves from the first board to the second is called »Schachkomposition« 🙂
Yuna’s in a stalemate position since her last move. Poor Logan never hat any chance at that point…
Moatl wrote:
No, it wasn’t Stalemate until he got his 2nd Queen, and could have easily been checkmate if he didn’t get greedy.
Queen to C6 – Would have checked Luna, but still allow for 2 legal moves. Then Rook to E5 to safeguard that spot. After that, Luna could only make 2 moves without checking her King.
Not really a chess aficionado myself, but I’m pretty sure that if the only legal moves you can make is a repeat of each other that’s a loss (Compared to a Stalemate in which you can’t make any legal moves).
Instead, he got greedy.
@ Frogspoison:
Repeating moves results in stalemate, not a loss.
@ Daniel Holm:
A draw, not a stalemate, stalemate is one very particular draw. The draw from repeating moves would be threefold repetition (or if it’s not strictly repeating the same position it’d be 50 move rule).
The moves are incredibly outlandish for anywhere near this standard of play. This is entertainment not realistic, and that’s fine, but let’s not kid outselves this is a semi-reasonable thing to happen. Even when enraged, this would never happen. Either the king went to e8 and then the queen moved nearly stalemating, and then white pushed their pawns clearly trying for stalemete, or the queen checked on c7 and the king moved such that it hand no squares not setting off any warning bells.
As an aside, assuming the last move was …d8=Q per the comic, black missed the beatiful …Ka8, Kc8 Qe8#.
Off-topic, but I want to know, what are your thoughts on the current situation in Myanmar?
Arbiter 101 wrote:
I think you have the final board flipped in your mind’s eye. It is presented in the standard “view from White’s perspective”. The last move most assuredly would have been … d1=Q. You have the ranks righted in your proposed alternate continuation, but now the files are reversed: … Kh8; Kf8, Qd8+ would not be checkmate, as the f7 pawn is no longer protected.
Playing … Qb7 would have been my preference – I don’t see a quicker route to mate with … Kh8, though … Kh8 doesn’t seem any slower, either. The choice of two squares for Yuna’s King to hop between is slightly different is all:
1 … Qb7
2 Kd8 d1=Q+ (2 … Rd5+ also works)
3 Ke8 Qd7# (either Queen)
vs.
1 … Kh8
2 Kf8 d1=Q (or 2 … Rd5; 3 Ke8 Rd8#)
3 Ke8 Qdd8# (3 … Qcd8+ leaves the f7 Pawn hanging again)
Under severe time pressure, I could forgive a club level player for missing either of these continuations, but to miss the stalemate trap altogether – it should have been an obvious danger several moves in advance – Logan deserved to lose the match.
This game got even less believable with the board described. A player sitting at 6-1-0 decided to go for the little kid line of promoting an extra queen when they had a queen and a rook against a king and pawns?