We’ve seen chess problems in which White must mate in half a move and even in -1 moves.
In this one White must mate in 0 — he must deliver checkmate without touching any of his pieces:
How can he do this? Imagine that the position arose in an actual game.
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What piece did Black move last? It wasn’t the pawn on h4, which must have walked over from e7. The only other possibility is the pawn on c5, which must have moved from c7.
Then where did the white pawn on c6 come from? There’s only one possibility: White is midway through an en passant capture. That’s the only way this position could have arisen even momentarily in a legal chess game.
So now White just completes the capture, removing the black pawn on c5, and that’s mate:
From Thomas B. Rowland, Chess Fruits, 1884.
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