27th July 2015

Selected by Michael McDowell

Cedric Lytton

Sydney Sunday Mirror, 1968

7R/PppR3p/4PQ2/1K5p/5B1S/3PS2P/1PP2PP1/8

The black king has just been mated.
Where is he?

For a change, a problem involving light retroanalysis. A basic chess problem convention is that the diagram position should be legal, in other words one that could be arrived at in the course of a hypothetical game. The solver’s task here is to prove that there is only one square on which the black king can legally stand mated.