• NegativeNull
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      12 hours ago

      I don’t think stockfish knows how to calculate it since it’s an illegal position. There’s no way white loses this

      • @Maalus@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        After looking at it for a short while, they can. Ignore the first pawn / don’t take it if in the center. If on the sides, they just played to your plan. Attack right or left side near the end of the board and trade till you reach the bottom. If they don’t react to you doing that, they lose material while you keep it. Can’t decide which is better - the king side or queen side. Attacking kingside means you have one pawn less to take, queen side means the queen gets into the game faster and gives you a bit more flexibility. But ya - one rook at the last rank and it’s just a matter of time - each pawn can only move one, while your pieces have an easier time. Bonus points for getting a knight to do a smothered check mate, otherwise two rooks, rook queen on the backrank is GG. Watch out for the “scholars mate” with a pawn - that’s possibly the best move by white since you cannot avoid it by ignoring it. Then again, it’s on the side of the board and you can get rid of your pawns in an equal trade. Similar situation on the queens side, with them getting the queen, but then it might not be as important? There seems to be a few tricks to take too.

        There is a variant of chess with 36 pawns. The front side squares are empty, and two in the front, where king and queen are for Black. Black has all of their pawns and white has no king. The game is harder since you cannot just beeline for the king as I have mentioned above. Also, in horde chess the pawns that are on the 1st and 2nd rank can advance twice, unlike normal chess rules. So ya, possibly a black victory exists