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simonreifftoday at 6:28 PM1 replyview on HN

Interestingly, many people will refer to zugzwang when one player only has losing moves and would love to skip their turn altogether, but that's not zugzwang. As a non-example of zugzwang, consider the position with White having a Kb6 and Rc6, and Black just has Kb8. When White moves 1. Rc5, killing a move, Black has no choice but to move 1...Ka8 followed by 2. Rc8#. However, Black is not in zugzwang, because the position is not mutually bad for either player. As a true example of zugzwang, consider the example where White has a Kf5, pawn on e4, Black has a Kd4 and pawn on e5. Now this position is zugzwang because whichever player has to make the next move loses defense of their pawn and with it, the game. For instance, if it's White to move, the game could continue 1. Kf6 Ke4 2. Kg5 Kf3 3. Kf5 e4 and Black will simply march his e-pawn to the 1st rank, promote to a Queen, and checkmate shortly after.


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T0Bitoday at 6:36 PM

Wikipedia disagrees:

"There are three types of chess positions: either none, one, or both of the players would be at a disadvantage if it were their turn to move. The great majority of positions are of the first type. In chess literature, most writers call positions of the second type zugzwang, and the third type reciprocal zugzwang or mutual zugzwang. "

You're talking about mutual zugzwang

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