Series helpstalemate in 36

George Sphicas
StrateGems 2001

Series helpstalemate in 36
(Series helpstalemate: Black plays n moves in a row, then White gives stalemate with a single move.)

bump

Dump. 😛

Yep, looks like this one is too hard for even the puzzle specialists of RHP.

Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
George Sphicas
StrateGems 2001
[fen]1N6/p4Bp1/P5p1/8/3K2p1/6p1/1p3pp1/kb1B2N1 b - - 0 1[/fen]
Series helpstalemate in 36
(Series helpstalemate: Black plays n moves in a row, then White gives stalemate with a single move.)

Solution:

1.fxg1=R 2.Re1 3.g1=R 4.Rg2 5.Rc2 6.g2 7.g1=R 8.Rg3 9.Ra3 10.g3 11.g2 12.g1=R 13.Rg5 14.Rga5 15.g5 16.g4 17.g3 18.g2 19.g1=R 20.Bg8 Rg6 21.Rgxa6 22.g5 23.g4 24.g3 25.g2 26.g1=R 27.Rgg6 28.Rgc6 29.Ree6 30.Ka2 31.Kb3 32.Ra1 33.R5a2 34.R6a3 35.a5 36.a4



And now White plays
1.Nxc6, Stalemate

Freaky! I was only looking for ways to block all black pawns, never thought that you gotta promote all of them to rooks. One question though: Isn't 20. Bg8 a white move? Didn't know that was allowed (not that it would have helped me to find the solution).

Originally posted by crazyblue
Freaky! I was only looking for ways to block all black pawns, never thought that you gotta promote all of them to rooks. One question though: Isn't 20. Bg8 a white move? Didn't know that was allowed (not that it would have helped me to find the solution).

I generated the notation by playing through the solution with WinBoard. I shuffled the white Bishop from f7 to g8 to 'pass' for white. I tried to delete every occurrence of 'Bg8' and 'Bf7' in the notation, but for some reason, one of them survived.