[Retros] François Labelle’s 62 points

[Elkies, Noam]

<eric.angelini at skynet.be> writes:

> F. Labelle has found a SPG ending in a mate
> that leaves 62 points on the chessboard
> (with pawn=1 point, Knight=3,
> Bishop=3, Rook=5, Queen=9, King=0).
> I couldn’t find it :-(

I don't understand.  If I calculate right, we start with
39 points on a side, for a total of 78.  So, assuming no promotions,
we need to get exactly 16 points captured en route to mate.
This looks too easy if we don't impose any additional condition
(and require no artistic content); for instance (C+ Popeye, <50 msec.)
1 d3 c6 2 Qd2 Qb6 3 Qf4 Qxb2 4 Qxb8 Qxb1 5 Qxa8 Qxc2 6 Qxc8#,
or the same with 5 . . . Qxa2.  There must also be many published
SPG's ending in mate that happen to have 62 points in the final position.

NDE