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Decimate

On a recent visit to the Puzzlania Chess Club I had the good fortune of spotting Blanc and Schwarz engaged in yet another of their titanic battles. Blanc and Schwarz are widely acknowledged as the two worst players in the club, and possibly the world, but they seem to have a knack for blundering in the most interesting and bizarre ways.

As I glanced over Blanc's shoulder, he seemed to be doing well. He had one of each type of piece on the board--King, Queen, Rook, Bishop, Knight, and Pawn. Against this considerable army Schwarz (as usual, playing the black pieces) had nothing but a lone King.

Ordinarily, under these circumstances you would expect checkmate in short order, and in fact Blanc had no less than ten possible ways to mate in one move. Of course he overlooked all ten and instead managed to toss away his victory, as after his actual move Schwarz was in stalemate. But in true Blanc & Schwarz style, it was a perfect stalemate. Every piece on the board participated, and no square around the black King was guarded more than once.

Unfortunately I had no means of writing down the position at the time and simply took note of the squares the two Kings occupied. Nevertheless, you should have enough information now to reconstruct the position after Blanc made his colossal blunder.



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