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 It seems legal, but I haven't worked out all of the details yet.

Edit:  This might be illegal because white cannot get some of the promoted rooks outside of black's pawn chain.

Maybe take away the two queens and the rook on h8 and see if its legal then =P

I will analyse the first board.

White must have promoted the pawn from c2 and must have promoted on d8, capturing c6*d7 at some point to take black's bishop. Black's queen must have escaped to somewhere like e6 for this and the king moved to somewhere like b8.

Meanwhile white has got the queen and then the king out via c2 to let the rook across, whilst one of black's knights has captured the white-squared bishop.

I will try to compose the game to reach the position. Has anyone else done it yet?

Reached the first position in 26 moves each. Not sure if it's the fastest but it proves it's legal.

Answer to #68

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 Strictly speaking, that one is illegal because the FEN string indicates that Black can still castle on both sides...

... then again, if we get too strict about the FEN strings, then almost any position (with 17 exceptions) whose FEN terminates with "0 1" is illegal  =P

That being said, I'll just disregard the FEN altogether and call this "close enough" :

yep nice =P using the pawn promoted or not, rook and queen was correct and the only way I think :P

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 Yes, it was done over a year ago by MRO314. Have a look at post #3 waaaay back on the very first page. 

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I'm interested by the text in the annotations box: "600MB, Fritz10.ctg, NEILSHOMEPC". Does that hold any significance?

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 If you take a look at post #81, you may notice the solution was already given...  17 pages (and over 300 comments) ago. The proof game referred to (as well as the original position) is from February 9th of this year, making it more than 2 months old.

If you want to actively participate in this thread, I would suggest looking at the [far] more recent puzzles and posting solutions to those.

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Wow, you're a genious.... You solve every single one! I tried this one for 30 min and couldnt come close to do it..... wow

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 I noticed that white's a-, b-, g- and h-pawns needed to make a total of six captures so they can promote.  That is exactly how many pieces black has lost which means that white's middle four pawns cannot capture anything and go straight for promotion.  Black's center pawns can capture four times to allow this to happen.  And the trick is to get white's promoted rooks out before black completes his pawn structure.

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 I'm running out of ways to congratulate you, but nicely done  :)  I do wish you'd use some of that brilliance to compose some problems, too, though - it's beginning to seem like I'm the only one coming up with new puzzles, with you making short work of them all... that's not much fun   Speaking of which, could you find post #388 and let me know whether or not I was right about your last position being legal?

Oh, and you were right about your solution not being the fastest possible; my semi-optimized proof game for the position was 85.5 moves long. If you're tired of all my easy puzzles and want a real retro-challenge, you could try shortening this:

Don't feel too badly about not getting it; my last couple of puzzles were designed to be especially difficult, and in fact I considered it likely that nobody would get them. But I agree with you - there's a reason why his username is einstein  ;)   Still, it's great that you stuck with it for as long as you did; just keep it up and you'll be figuring these out in no time!

Here's one that doesn't involve a diagram: construct a game that ends with the move 5...Rh1#. Good luck...

I'll probably compose another one within the next 2-3 days.  :)

You can't compose one with 5...Rh1#? Yes my random guesses work again xD

By 5... Rh1#, can Rh1# be a capture?  Or does it have to just be... not a capture?

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 Indeed, the game from the post above yours fails because 5...Rxh1# is different from 5...Rh1#

So was I right? Its impossible?

oh wait I worked it out, amusing as usual -.- give you a hint, it involves a castle ;D

cmon its easy when you know how its done. you cant stop now when its already begun...

lol nvm. cmon its easy when you know its a castle :P THINK!

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 i think it illegal for two reasons 1 the two blackbishops and 2 the kingside rookcant escape yet thepawns havent moved i mean