How can it be a draw? December 30, 2001

This is a nice little problem I received from John Nunn. It is one of those typical Nunn things that require no diagram to formulate. It is not as hard as the other ones from passed years, which drove many people to the verge of a nervous breakdown (I still receive emails begging me to send a solution to the 1999 problem). This one should simply amuse you. Here goes:

White has a king, a queen and two pawns
against Black's bare king. It is White to move.
White is not stalemated. And still White cannot win.

Can you reconstruct the position? Note that if the problem did not have the stipulation "White is not stalemated" the position on the right would be a possible solution.

Out of curiosity (and not as part of today's task) you may want to think about how much material White can have against the bare black king, be on the move and still not be able to win. Once again White is not stalemated and can acutally make moves.

Frederic Friedel

Solution