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This is often stated as being the shortest stalemate ever, however, is it actually the shortest?

I am looking for any brute-force attempts that show that 10 moves is the absolute minimum for a stalemate in the game of chess.

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impossible to answer, as you don't qualify the answer as "shortest published stalemate". There could always be something that wasn't published. – jwenting Jun 5 '11 at 4:11
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@jwenting, it may be possible that someone somewhere has brute-forced it. – picakhu Jun 5 '11 at 4:15
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Brute-forcing this will be difficult. It would be necessary to brute-force everything up to nine full moves long, which is eighteen plays (nine White and nine Black). Assume a rough average of 20 choices per move (which is true of the start of the game, and usually increases some during play) that's 20^18 possible games, which looks to be roughly 10^23 or 2^78. I don't know if that's actually feasible. – David Thornley Jun 5 '11 at 4:42
@David, perhaps there is a non-brute force but still mathematical way of solving it. – picakhu Jun 5 '11 at 4:47
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How is this on-topic? This belongs on boardgames.SE. – MrHen Jun 6 '11 at 17:24
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1 Answer

up vote 11 down vote accepted

Yes, it is the shortest stalemate ever found.

It was discovered by Sam Lloyd. [Ref]

Frederick Rhine discovered a similar stalemate, also in 10 moves: 1.d4 c5 2.dxc5 f6 3.Qxd7+ Kf7 4.Qxd8 Bf5 5.Qxb8 h5 6.Qxa8 Rh6 7.Qxb7 a6 8.Qxa6 Bh7 9.h4 Kg6 10.Qe6. [Ref]

Lloyd's contribution continues to be quoted on many sites maintained by experts as the shortest stalemate ever found, despite there being strong competition to beat it.

Note: Some juniors in Sweden actually played out this (pre-arranged) match in 1995. [Ref]

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My question was about it being absoluely the shortest. Not if it was the shortest known/found. I.e. have any brute force attacks been made at this puzzle. – picakhu Jun 5 '11 at 2:22
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it's the shortest ever published. Noone can know if something shorter was ever found or is theoretically possible as such would never have been published :) – jwenting Jun 5 '11 at 4:10
@jwenting, "such would never have been published", why is that? – picakhu Jun 5 '11 at 4:27
@picakhu, I think @jwenting is being tongue-in-cheek. If someone did a brute-force effort, and found a smaller solution, it is very likely it would have been picked up by the chess-puzzle community. It hasn't been. So, either it has never been performed or it didn't find anything shorter. Either way, I have nothing further I can tell you. – Oddthinking♦ Jun 5 '11 at 10:01
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Link to Geocities, I am skeptical. – Marco Ceppi Jun 5 '11 at 16:30
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