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Playing as black against the chess.com computer, the following position was reached and chess.com declared checkmate in its favor. However, I don't see that the black king is in check. So is this a bug?

[FEN "2r2r2/p6k/2b1p1R1/2pp2Qp/P2P4/1PN5/1K6/8 b - - 0 1"]

There was no time limit in effect and this is the final position. There was a message that said "Checkmate" and I couldn't make any more moves. (White's last move was Qg5; it had been on h4.)

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  • 1
    Can you link the game ? Without the game link it feels unconclusive
    – Isac
    Nov 22, 2018 at 14:57
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    Or maybe a screenshot of the actual chess.com interface could help as well.
    – itub
    Nov 22, 2018 at 15:08
  • Does it matter? It was game over.
    – SmallChess
    Nov 22, 2018 at 15:11
  • @Isac: It seems chess.com doesn't provide a link; it certainly didn't save the game so I could refer back to it. I believe that's the case whenever you play a game against the computer.
    – GreenMatt
    Nov 22, 2018 at 17:46
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    @SmallChess: I get that and did at the time. As Evargalo's answer said, the computer could have checkmated on that move. However, if the system is so buggy that it says there is checkmate when there isn't one, I don't want to use it, and wouldn't think others would either.
    – GreenMatt
    Nov 22, 2018 at 17:53

1 Answer 1

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Obviously, this is not a checkmate. Something else must have happened. Here is what I could imagine:

  • Maybe you have lost on time, and not by checkmate
  • Maybe this is the position before White's last move (Qh6# or Qxh5#), which was played a mili-second before the computer claimed victory - so that the mating position wouldn't have been visible on your screen for long enough for you to notice.
  • Maybe (but unlikely) there is some bug in the software. Possibly the software 'played' Qh4xh5# but somehow sent Qh4-g5 to the virtual board for unknown reason.
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  • Neither of the first two suggestions apply; I've updated the question.
    – GreenMatt
    Nov 22, 2018 at 15:00
  • @GreenMatt the third one looks to me like what actually happened
    – David
    Mar 8, 2021 at 11:42

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