Illegal Position Contest!

Imagine not smelling trolling and saying bruh

lol

True, and White's a-pawn is the real troublemaker. It can't promote, and started in the wrong place to be usefully captured, regardless of whether White's capture on c3 was of the black c-pawn or a promoted piece. The other rook pawns can plead not guilty of troublemaking since they can all promote or stay on the board.

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/more-puzzles/shortest-proof-game-challenge

some of you were asking. it was created in 2011!

This was someone else's position, made for a different purpose.

Clearly illegal. All white pawns are still on the board, so White has not promoted, and the bishop at a4 had no way to leave f1.

This position, Evgeny Markov 896 Shakhmatnaya Kompozitsiya 04/06/1997, was submitted as a selfmate in 4 problem and was disqualified for being an illegal position. What makes it illegal?

Uhhh maybe the fact that the black king had no way of reaching d6

idk just guessed

Before the white bishop moves from h7 to g8, the black king can easily get to d6.

For Black, the e-Pawn needs a capture, the h-Pawn needs a capture, and the a-Pawn needs two captures. White is only missing three men, so the position is illegal.

That's the right idea, but since the black e and h pawns are missing, you should explain why they need captures. And the black pawn at a2 could have made one capture from the b-file, but then then another black pawn would need a capture onto the b-file.

White needs four captures to have two a-Pawns, a b-Pawn, a c-Pawn, and two f-Pawns. Black is only missing four Pawns, so they were all captured by certain white Pawns toward the a-file. Some of them needed to promote to do that. The e-Pawn and h-Pawn each need a capture to get out of the way of White's e-Pawn and h-Pawn (neither of which can capture anything themselves), and the a and b-Pawns have two captures between them, whether it's 2 and 0 or 1 and 1. That's four captures by Black, but White is only missing three men. Therefore, the position is illegal.

That's correct. The key insight is that the black e and h pawns have to be captured as promoted pieces, not as pawns. (Actually, Black's original a-pawn need not have made any captures, but then the b-pawn and c-pawn would each need a capture.)

but it white's move

HA

In what position?

that one where black was in check, but they claimed white to move

black can't be in check with white to move