A defensive brilliancy

If you're White in the position diagrammed below, it helps to have nerves (and a brain) of silicon. Although White's queen and rook are potentially a lethal combination, they have no checks available that don't hang. White's bishop also isn't helping the attack. Meanwhile, Black threatens Qd1#, and if White stops that with 46.Re1, Black grabs the bishop with 46...Qc2+ 47.Ka1 Qxc4 wins with 46...Nbc2 or 46...Ndc2. Alternatively, 46.Qg1 seems a clever way to get the queen into the attack, but Black takes the bishop, 46...Qc2+ 47.Ka1 Qxc4, then hides his king from the checks on b5: 48.Qh2+ Ka8! 49.Re8+ Kb7 50.Qb8+ Ka6 51.Qc8+ Kb5 52.Qd7+ Ndc6.

Nonetheless, White has an amazing drawing line! Can you see it?

Stalemate seems impossible: after 45...Kb8 White has six pieces, including two pawns and his king, and all of them have moves! Yet it all clicks in problem-like fashion: after 46.Bb3!! Nxb3, White's bishop is gone, his king is stalemated, and his b-pawn is blocked. Then 47.Qf4+! gxf4 hangs the queen and blocks the f-pawn, leaving only the "crazy" rook at large. "Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?" Note that the knights stalemate White's king all by themselves, so White needn't worry about 50...Qxd7. Black has other moves available besides 46...Nxb3, but in all lines White has at least a forced draw. Glorious!

This is probably the greatest stalemating combination of all time, surpassing the likes of Boyd-Glimbrant, Alicante 1992, where Black had a mobile queen, rook, knight, and pawn before embarking on the stalemating combination. See my game collection for more fine stalemates. But this one is hard to beat.

How to cheat at chess (freeware version)

• Load the open source program Stockfish on your quad core at home; you now have a beast that will beat any human.
• Install GlaurungServer on the same machine.
• Download the Stockfish for iPhone app.
• Configure your app to talk to your home computer with Stockfish's "remote engine" interface.
• At your next tournament, use the toilet strategically.

And even if the connection with your home computer were to go down, there are several native iPhone apps (tChess and Shredder are both excellent alternatives to Stockfish) that offer master-level tactical advice.

Human nature being what it is, I would wager that a handful of unethical players are already doing this.  (Something similar may have been committed by a member of the 2010 French Olympiad team and two accomplices: bravo to the French Chess Federation for commencing a painful investigation.)  This is one reason for FIDE's cell phone ban.  If you know a tournament director who has worked major national events (we are fortunate to have more than our share of these good folk in Illinois), he or she may share some horror stories with you.  And these are the bad guys who were caught, bad guys using yesterday's technology.

So could someone please explain to me the wisdom of continuing to have big entry fee, big money class events for amateur players?  Amateurs include masters, too; most of us with ratings below USCF 2450 or so play for the love of the game.  I don't think this is as big an issue at higher levels, as strong players have an idea of what other strong players are (and aren't) capable of.

I should add that Stockfish is an amazing engine and that GlaurungServer (which I haven't bothered to test-drive) looks like it could be incredibly useful for serious (and ethical!) players (amateur and pro) who want to consult it during kibitzing sessions..