You come across an endgame, but a careless player has knocked the white king off the board. Can you determine where he must be?

Because of the limitations of the diagrams, there are two things I need to say for this puzzle to make sense.

1. Ignore the white king. The objective is to determine what square he is really on.

2. Ignore the "Black to move". The diagram insists upon adding this.

...no?

If it's white's turn to move is it Ka8 or Ka2?

e1, d2, f3 on one of those

hmmm. i am not sure, but i think he would be on c3. my reasoning is this:

how is black's king in check? the bishop could not have moved to check him. so a piece had to have discovered the check. there are no other white pieces on the board, and the king could not have done it . so it had to have been EN PASSANT. the pawn had to have come from c2, and the white king was on b3, and a black pawn on b4.

benws wrote:

hmmm. i am not sure, but i think he would be on c3. my reasoning is this:

how is black's king in check? the bishop could not have moved to check him. so a piece had to have discovered the check. there are no other white pieces on the board, and the king could not have done it . so it had to have been EN PASSANT. the pawn had to have come from c2, and the white king was on b3, and a black pawn on b4.

 

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Excellent reasoning! I didn't solve it. I just looked at it for a short time and then I scrolled down to see if anyone else solved it and to me it seems like you did! And dethwing, thanks for posting! I love it when puzzles are different from all the others. Now I just feel bad I didn't put in a real effort to solve it!

That's perfect reasoning. Good job.

Nice puzzle! Thank you for posting it.

Actually, you missed one bit of the argument. You assume it's blacks move from the position. It is, but this must be reasoned correctly. How can you be sure it's black to move?

Because he is in check :P

And what stops the king from blocking it on b3?

The king can't block it on b3, because it would have been impossible for black to cause the double check on his last move.

Ok. That completes the puzzle.