Enough to win

When I was kid, young enough that I wasn't allowed to leave the street unsupervised, I was playing chess against another kid who lived on the same street as me. He was older, sufficiently older that looking back I'm surprised we hung out at all. This wasn't the first time we had played chess, but it was the first time I found myself in a winning position, every other time we'd ever played he won. I was methodical with his pieces. I killed every single one of them, leaving him with only his king. Then, I started moving my pawns up to the end of the board, to convert them to Queens.

One Queen. This and the King is enough to win. Two Queens. This is child's play to win with. Three Queens. The whole time his King is just bouncing around the board, but of course he can't take any of my pieces, he can't actually win. Four Queens. Five Queens.

"Stalemate," he says. And looking at the board, there it is, my five Queens surrounding him as they are, have made it so his King can't move. Stalemate. No one wins.