What is the missing piece (marked
"?") in this configuration of a normal chess game?
BLACK
WHITE
Notice that the Black King is in check by the White Rook.
(In reply to
I'm stuck (spoiler) by Steve Herman)
Now I'm starting to see more things. See previous posts.
6) The location of the black pawns is interesting.
The pawn on a6 started on b7, and traveled strictly on white squares to a6 via a capture.
Similarly, the pawn on c4 started on f7 and traveled strictly on white squares to c4 via three captures.
There are 10 white pieces on the board, so 6 white pieces have been captured. The black pawn that queened started on h7, and could not have queened on h1, so it must have captured once and then queened on g1, after which the white pawn on f2 captured to move to g3.
7) And where is white's black bishop? It wasn't captured by the pawns presently on a6 or c4 (because they have never been on black), so either it was captured by the pawn which started on h7, or it is the puzzle solution (the question marked piece). All we have to do to prove that the question-marked piece is white's black bishop is to prove that it was not captured by the pawn that started on h7. I haven't figured out how to do that, however. It seems to me that the pawn that started on h7 could have advanced to h6 (a black square) and then capture white's black bishop.
I'm so close I can taste it, but I'm still missing something.
re: I'm almost there (spoiler)
