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I am going to write an autobiographical story. The motive is therapeutic. I suffered abuse from my father, and at the age of 20, I developed delusional disorder; the psychosis lasted for 20 years, and I am starting to emerge from it after three years of psychotherapy. A series of coincidences occurred: I was born in 1984 like the novel, appeared in the newspaper at the age of 9 after scoring 3 points in an International Open, well, there are more coincidences, but I won't delve into them.... I will only add that I knew a girl in my town whose name, translated from Spanish to English, is something like Cristine Youkill.

I believed I was selected by Intelligence Services, and that girl was my destiny. Recently, I had lunch with that girl and her family, and not only did I discover that she wanted nothing to do with me, but she also said that my psychosis was due to cannabis, when I had been abused by my father and had experienced the Al-Qaeda attacks as something close; they attacked me for being the character: Winston Smith. I couldn't bear it and, as a recovered addict, I took amphetamines and had a kind of dream. It wasn't exactly a dream; I was awake because I wrote it to a friend via WhatsApp, telling her that it was really happening. It was a kind of trance.

I was Bobby Fisher playing with white pieces. I was both the white king, and Cristine Youkill was the white queen. At a certain moment, I became the black king, and 17 white queens were checking me. 16 of the queens were Princess Leonor, the future Queen of Spain, and the 17th was Cristine herself. I threw the king out the window. The king caught a piece of curtain that served as a parachute. I fell into the street unharmed, holding Jeff Hwang's three volumes of Omaha Pot Limit. A new life awaited me as a survivor and poker player in Malta.

Well, now I want to write a book telling my whole story, including the trance. I want to show at the beginning of each chapter the 16th game that appears in Bobby Fischer's "My 60 Memorable Games" titled 'Four Queens between Fischer and Petrosian.' I want the game to transform at the end, and I am playing as black, attacked by those queens.

Well, I think it's not possible 17 queens, I mean, the puzzle is only a black king and only queens in white. The whites are only queens, no other pieces on the board.

What is the maximum number of white queens giving check to a king without it being checkmate, with no other pieces on the board?

If I receive a response, the position will be published, and the winner will be quoted in my book as they wish to be cited.

  • Do all the queens individually have to be giving a check? Or is it sufficient for the king to be in check by at least one attacker? – AAM111 Jan 29 '24 at 15:52
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    @AAM111 All queens should be checking the king –  Jan 29 '24 at 17:37
  • Sorry to seem pedantic and are you really asking 'How many queens can…' or 'How many queens are needed to…'? – Robbie Goodwin Jan 29 '24 at 22:54
  • @Robbie Goodwin "How many queens can..." Record is 7. Clarify the position could be impossible (more than 9 queens, in my "dream" they were 17). –  Jan 30 '24 at 16:38
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    Does it have to be a legal chess board? You yould always twist the fields such that instead of 8 neighbors, one field has 16. Would look more like a trance, too. – DonQuiKong Jan 30 '24 at 19:23
  • Thanks and despite the 17 in your dream, are you really asking 'How many queens can…' or 'How many queens are needed to…' or is this some kind of trick Question? – Robbie Goodwin Jan 30 '24 at 21:58
  • I should have not explained well this. Most upvoted answer is what I was searching for. Feel free to edit the technical things! I have no time as I am hospitalized currently and have limited internet access –  Jan 31 '24 at 10:32
  • I would call the latest edits vandalism, nothing less. In fact, it makes most of the answers no longer consistent with the question. Are the users who edited the question planning to also delete these answers? – Stef Feb 05 '24 at 00:03
  • Rolled back as I told in previous messages. I will rolle back any esit deleting the story. My question my rules if moderators tell I don't violate site policy –  Feb 05 '24 at 16:34
  • @DonQuinKong Sorry my fault I didn't speciphied the position shouldn't be legal. Sorry the others who answered for legal positions. –  Feb 20 '24 at 15:04

6 Answers6

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The question asks for "no other pieces on the board" apart from white queens and a black king. So the other answers looking for legal positions seem to be missing the point.

If we're looking for placements of pieces satisfying all queens are checking the king and it is not checkmate, the maximum is seven. There are only eight directions the queens can be giving check from, and only one white queen can actually be checking the king from each direction (since white queens can't jump). However, since it is not checkmate, the king must be able to move in one direction, which means no queen can be checking from the opposite direction. The queen in the direction the king moves can be captured, which means seven is possible. An example is as follows.

8/8/8/Q3Q3/8/Q1k1Q2/2Q5/Q3Q3 b - - 0 1
Especially Lime
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    You can fill the irrelavent fields with queens, if you want 17. Looks about 37 queens can be on the board. Sounds like a more difficult puzzle, 37 queens on the board and it's not checkmate. – OrigamiEye Jan 29 '24 at 14:16
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    @OrigamiEye well, you'd have to say "check, but not checkmate", since you can place a king and 42 queens without it even being check. – Especially Lime Jan 29 '24 at 14:31
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    This looks nice. It will take me some months to write the book but if there is not a better solution I will contact you for the quote. ty very much –  Jan 29 '24 at 17:50
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    @OrigamilEye all queens should be checking, I think I specified that in the question –  Jan 29 '24 at 17:51
  • How is this not checkmate? There's nothing to block, and nowhere to move. Either I'm missing something as a noob, or the number is 6. – Cristobol Polychronopolis Jan 30 '24 at 17:21
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    @CristobolPolychronopolis Kxf7 gets you out of check (the queen is not protected). – Especially Lime Jan 30 '24 at 17:24
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    @Universal_learner no worries, and feel free to use without crediting me. – Especially Lime Jan 30 '24 at 17:26
  • @EspeciallyLime Thanks, didn't think of that at first glance. – Cristobol Polychronopolis Jan 30 '24 at 17:32
  • While this board state satisfies the question in isolation, I think it is impossible for the king to find himself in this position in the first place, as one cannot move into check, nor ignore an existing check. A question for OP: does this matter for your purposes? – JakeRobb Jan 30 '24 at 18:22
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    @JakeRobb the question explicitly asks for an impossible position (one with no white king), so I doubt the number of impossible things about it matters. – Especially Lime Jan 30 '24 at 18:34
  • Tried 8, but looks impossible :) and if people as Rewan hasn't solved for +7 yet....Finally not in android. Directly to editorial. Let me know if your wish is not to be quoted. If no we will put a link to your profile in the footer. I am going to cowrite it with my writing teacher, maybe fict mode and not so autobiographical. A year at least it will take. If you are still active in the site I will contact you if published, something it is not sure but probable. –  Feb 05 '24 at 18:06
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The only way black can be in check from more than one queen is if a pawn moves forward one move, queens and discovers a check from another queen behind it like this:

[fen "8/3kPQ2/8/8/8/8/8/4K3 w - - 0 1"]

    

  1. e8=Q+
    2.
Brian Towers
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I'm pretty sure the maximum number is two (under current rules). I can think of two different ways to achieve it. One is a discovered check by a promoting pawn, as in Brian Towers's answer. The other is a double discovered check by an en passant capture:

8/3p4/4k3/4P3/2Q1Q3/8/8/4K3 b - - 0 1

1...d5 2.exd6
Alexander Hanysz
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@Brian Towers answer is correct under current chess conventions.

However, you if want to be cheeky, you could abuse the 1980 FIDE rules to achieve 'eight', like so.

[FEN "8/3kPQ2/QQ2r3/2QK4/7Q/7Q/7Q/8 w - - 0 1"]

    

  1. e8=Q Rd6+ 2. Qhxd6 Ke7 3. Qhe6 Kd8 4. Qac8 Ke7 5. Qbc7 Kd8 6. Q5c6 Kd7 7. Qhd8
    2.
Rewan Demontay
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    But the loophole invalidates the answer just as well. Since it's not a check, it doesn't qualify for the question which asks for the queens to check the king :) – justhalf Jan 29 '24 at 03:38
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    @justhalf Yet it shall not dimish the spirit of it. :p – Rewan Demontay Jan 29 '24 at 04:33
  • Do we care that RD6+ is an illegal move, as the king is already in check? – JakeRobb Jan 30 '24 at 18:23
  • @JakeRobb Rd6+ is 'legal' because the bK is then attacked three times, thus the move takes out of check. – Rewan Demontay Jan 31 '24 at 04:50
  • @RewanDemontay forgive me, maybe I'm missing something -- but in the initial state shown in the replayer, bK is already checked by two queens (e8 and f7). Rd6+ doesn't address those checks, and is thus illegal. In fact, the initial state is already checkmate, and the bK remains in checkmate throughout all of the moves shown, so none of this is legal (nor what OP asked for). – JakeRobb Feb 01 '24 at 14:21
  • @RewanDemontay I was indeed missing something. I neglected to follow your link about the 1980 FIDE rule change, and thus was completely unaware of the complexity introduced by the triple check. Incredible! But now I'm wondering how the game proceeds past Ke7, after which point wK is not checked, and any of the white queens, regardless of check, could take the black king. – JakeRobb Feb 01 '24 at 14:34
  • @JakeRobb There are still legal moved for Black. The base resumption is that king capture is still illegal. If you follow the link further you'll find example problems that will help. – Rewan Demontay Feb 01 '24 at 18:55
  • Sorry I should have speciphied the position shouldn't be legal –  Feb 20 '24 at 15:05
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I believe, if we are talking legal moves to get to that position, the answer would be 6, assuming a Queen captures some black piece at C6 to put the black player in check.

enter image description here

With that said, if you are asking the maximum number that you could put down on a board to have the black player in check, but not mate, the best answer I can come up with is 18:

enter image description here

user36666
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    In your first diagram, only one queen is checking the king, according to the rules. – Federico Poloni Jan 29 '24 at 18:10
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    In the second diagram, 5 of the queens along the left side are not putting the black king in check even if you allow "x-ray" checks to count. – D M Jan 31 '24 at 02:51
  • Why not add 25 more queens in c1-c2-c3-c4-c5-d1-d2-d3-d4-e1-e2-e3-f1-f2-g1, e6-f5-f6-g4-g5-g6-h3-h4-h5-h6? – Stef Jan 31 '24 at 07:47
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There could be 7 queens all lined up checking the king if one captured a black chess piece which was blocking the rest.

More would be impossible during play.

It’s much more likely that you would get checkmate much earlier or a stalemate.

Joe Fisher
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    Now, here is a better question: how long and how many moves would it take two people with the common goal of creating the above scenario to do this intentionally playing Speed Stupid Chess? – Joe Fisher Jan 30 '24 at 23:37