Okay I thought this up 3-4 years ago - it is kind of silly, but here goes.

(for a more serious puzzle on the symmetry idea, see:

 http://www.chess.com/forum/view/more-puzzles/mate-in-4-from-the-starting-position-if-black-play-strictly-simetrically)

 

your also using lots of queens ? you changed all the pieces then point out that the blacks moves are forced? what the.....

Funny!

Black can just take the queens...

I don't understand what you mean by "black's moves are forced". Black has other legal moves, do you mean they get mated faster? What happens after 1. ... Qgxf7. I can't find a way for white to force a quick mate, am I just missing it?

That's fascinating. But what if a unicorn materialized on d8?

Loomis, 1...Qgxf7! 2.Qh8+! Qxh8 3.Qxh8+! 4.Qff8 Qhxf8#. Just looking at that position gives me headaches, but Rybka confirms it's a mate-in-four no matter what Black does.

Unless a unicorn materializes on f8 or g8.

Loomis, White still have Mate in 4 if 1..Qgxf7 

 

Have Kings already castled in this position?

doesnt matter. There are no rooks.

orejano wrote: doesnt matter. There are no rooks.

---

Really?

there are lots of checkmates on the 4th move, like 4 Qee8#

1. benws, I "said" only the *first* move was unique.

2. Loomis, I stand corrected - Black's moves are *not* forced, of course. I've shown only one variation. [orejano showed another above].

 

P.S. Also I *haven't* run retroanalysis to come up with a proof game to show that this position is legally reachable from the starting position of chess [I have a feeling it is *not* :(   ] - nor have i tried to prove [with or without Retractor's help] that this position is *unreachable* from the starting position.

Actually I just thought this up a few years back - inspired by some similarly crazy stuff on Albillo's site I think it was [not updated for years] - then forgot about it - i wanted to see how to make diagrams here - in doing so I found to my horror that  I had happened to finally perpetrate this on the world.

So, gentle reader, exercise if you are interested: prove that this position is not reachable from the standard starting  position of chess; or else give a "proof game" - i.e. move-list of a game of chess where this position *is* reached [presumably the game ends 4 moves later with checkmate ;/ ]

 

so you need 7 passed pawns to promote... you might be able to do it... there are 2 of each rook, bishop, knight, and one pawn to spare... and with each pawn capture you open the line for the other sides pawn so maybe only need less captures...? hmm analysis board. ideas?

It should be trivial to do, but it would take a long time to line up the pieces to be captured and avoid checks once there are that many queens on board. There are 14 capturable pieces, and you only need 7 captures to clear lines for 7 pawns from each side to promote so you would even have to spend some tempi 'cleaning up' the extra pieces.

Ok, white wins no matter what... there is no way black can stop him

 

but this is pointless 

[addressed to all, but 1st paragraph specially to RudyVolmar in particular:]

Hey, the *caption* is not serious! I wouldn't have put this in the "other puzzles" category if there was some deep point to this puzzle. The puzzle's only point is itself ; /

 As for whether the pos. is reachable-or-not - I think some serious retro-thinking is needed --- well Ive tried all the retro-problems in the two Raymond Smullyan retrochess books - the sherlock holmes one and "arabian knights" - [that was before 2000] - solved most of them too - and also a few not-easy ones from the "retroanalysis corner" - [can't give the url offhand - i am on a backup hard disk - my hard disk crashed with all the bookmarks - though i have backed them up somewhere]. And my experience says - *if* this is unreachable-from-beginning then that fact *might* be provable in an hour's-or-less with some serious retroanalysis. [i haven't done retro-probs since 2003] But *if* the position is reachable, then getting a proof-game will require or at least be greatly aided by retrochess software like retractor [ i had it on my crashed HD - again it is backed-up *somewhere* im sure ] or something better.

 

normajeanyates>  But *if* the position is reachable, then getting a proof-game will require or at least be greatly aided by retrochess software

No serious "retro-thinking" is required. I already explained how to setup this position above, "It should be trivial to do, but it would take a long time to line up the pieces to be captured and avoid checks once there are that many queens on board. There are 14 capturable pieces, and you only need 7 captures to clear lines for 7 pawns from each side to promote so you would even have to spend some tempi 'cleaning up' the extra pieces."

I sacrificed 14 minutes of my life to demonstrate (I would probably have otherwise wasted it watching the news anyway!) It could be done in many fewer moves:

 

lol thanks for that!