I don't like to be picky, but that isn't quite the same position. You'll have to make a minor adjustment for it to count.

Queens and kings not in their right place but he only needs 3 moves more to do it.

Whoops, I missed that. Okay, 38 moves.

^ Nice. And you never know, that could be a winner...

Time has expired for round 8, which means joseph_ward wins (see post #103). Round 9 begins when the next position is posted - hopefully it will be more... "eventful" than the last one was.

Here is the position for round 9.

I believe that this position is impossible.

White has 8 pieces, and black has 7.for the bottom four blacks to get there (and the top two), 8 pieces must be used. This includes white's a2, a3, and a4 pawns. To get them into position, black's a7 pawn must be used.

Think about it.

I think its possible, will try it later/tomorrow

I'm not sure exactly what you are describing.  If it turns out that the position is impossible, I can post another one.  I think it's legal, though.

We are trying these for days and suddenly you are telling us that you don't even know if it is legal and you will just post another?

You haven't test it before posting it?You just made a position from your mind?

What's the rule on editing other peoples work?

Amazing solution!!!Well done!!!

p.s.Although the opening had some inaccuracies

I was mistaken; I counted the pieces wrong and it turns out that the a7 pawn can be used to move white's a2 pawn to the b file.

Yeah, I'm pretty new to this and I mainly wanted to show that it is possible so there can definitely be a shorter solution.

In case I win, do I have to set up a diagram or can I use a textual problem. What I mean is can I give a few conditions that have to be met in the final position instead of giving a diagram (of course I would check if the positions can be met). I think I have a, IMO, cool problem  (I'll check if it is possible, but I'm 99% sure it is)

This is amazingly hard. The past 2 challenges have gone by and I haven't found a solution for any of them.

Is there a specific way you guys look at these problems? Do you look at the pawn structure first? Do you make a plan which pieces end up where and in which order? Please help me! I feel like such an idiot :/

@MaartenSmit

This won't help with getting the shortest solution, but this is how I come up with solutions.

In post #97, I looked at the pawn structure first and saw that White had to get his four pawns behind black's pawns.  I decided to do this one file at a time.  I decided to put a white pawn on c5, let black play bxc4, move a white pawn to d5, let black play exd4, move a white pawn to e5 (now that the e-file is clear), let black play fxe4, move a pawn up to f5, and play fxe4.

After deciding on this plan, I needed to decide which pieces to let black capture.  I figured out that the piece on c4 could be a pawn, but pawns would need to be promoted to replace the other pieces.  This would take care of white's remaining 3 pawns.  This helped me come up with a game that worked, even though it was definately not the shortest possible.

If you mean "borrowing" moves from someone else's answer, making small improvements, and posting the "augmented" version as your own, then there are no restrictions - as long as the latter sequence is shorter (even by just one move), it doesn't matter how similar it is to the former.

This question first arose during round 2, so if you're curious as to why such tactics are allowed, you might want to read post #37 for my reasoning behind it. Of course, if I completely misinterpretted your question, and you meant something different, just say so.

Btw, pretty efficient proof game for someone "new to this", so good job on that.

Although it was never directly stated, the assumed rule up until now has been that the previous winner must diagram a specific position. However, your idea of simply giving a set of conditions to be met is a terrific suggestion that could certainly make things a lot more interesting. Could everyone else let me know what their opinion is on this? It's a rule change I wouldn't hesitate to make, but don't want to do so without some sort of consensus.

Sounds interesting.