Illegal Position Analysis/Puzzles

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Avatar of EndgameEnthusiast2357

What are some of the best chess problems that are based on illegal positions? I have seen a couple that involve dozens of bishops and other "grotesque" chess problems where the piece count is insane but the forced mate is still interesting to analyze. In the illegal position contest thread, the goal is to create positions that are very challenging to determine why they are illegal, but what are some positions/puzzles that are obviously illegal but still extremely interesting to analyze? Note by illegal I only mean the starting position is impossible, standard chess rules still apply.

Avatar of EndgameEnthusiast2357

Here's an example with dozens of dark squared bishops.

Avatar of EndgameEnthusiast2357

Another bishops puzzle. Anyone else have puzzles based on illegal starting positions that are interesting to analyze?

Avatar of AbyssalSludge

M4, white to move. Black has 4 queens, 4 bishops, 4 rooks, 4 knights, and 10 pawns.
Any other moves will result in M1 for black.

Avatar of EndgameEnthusiast2357

Here's what might be the maximum amount of material that a single pawn can beat, with a puzzle element to it:

The puzzle aspect is that white has to play 1.h3 to time the knight arrival at b3 when the queen is on a1, since a knight cannot triangulate or lose a move.

Avatar of AbyssalSludge

Nope - Just constructed this.

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As for a single pawn:

Avatar of EndgameEnthusiast2357

That's two pawns though! The puzzle I posted starts with only 1 pawn! I can improve yours anyway:

There isn't any interesting puzzle aspect to it, just a checkmate position. Like my underpromotion thread, I prefer problems with a unique solution with a sequence of moves that has a puzzle element to it and is the only way to get a draw instead of a loss, or a win instead of a draw or loss.

Avatar of AbyssalSludge
EndgameEnthusiast2357 wrote:

That's two pawns though! The puzzle I posted starts with only 1 pawn! I can improve yours anyway:

There isn't any interesting puzzle aspect to it, just a checkmate position. Like my underpromotion thread, I prefer problems with a unique solution with a sequence of moves that has a puzzle element to it and is the only way to get a draw instead of a loss, or a win instead of a draw or loss.

That's why #7 exists. That's a rook though, it has to be a promotion to a rook. But yes, that's more material. I chose what I did because it was one of the only illegal positions i could think of.

Avatar of EndgameEnthusiast2357

In this position black can delay checkmate for 205 moves with the rook, by continuously sacrificing itself with check, until white gets to a position where he can avoid checks or capture the rook without stalemate. Now the piece count is far from being illegal here, but I wonder if an illegal amount of white pieces could be added in such a way that it extends the puzzle to 300, 500, or even 1,000+ moves! This is the type of "illegal position puzzles" I am interested in here. How complex could puzzles and studies get allowing more pieces?

Avatar of Illbtu
EndgameEnthusiast2357 wrote:

Another bishops puzzle. Anyone else have puzzles based on illegal starting positions that are interesting to analyze?

Thank you my friend for displaying my illegal puzzle, however only the starting position is illegal not the solution. Please conceal the solution with a puzzle-form. happy

Avatar of EndgameEnthusiast2357

Yes I specified in the OP that by illegal I only mean the piece count in the starting position.

Avatar of Thepasswordis1234
Avatar of EndgameEnthusiast2357

It's not illegal stuff based on chess rules, it's just the starting position is impossible due to the mere number of pieces. 50-60 piece positions are still interesting to analyze and potentially discover hundreds of move force mates due to the extra pieces!

Avatar of bald55
Who do you think is winning
Avatar of EndgameEnthusiast2357

Black is winning by -10 to -12 according to analysis.

An interesting challenge is to make illegal positions like that as equal as possible? How many more white pieces would make it more equal, which pieces and where?

Avatar of bald55

My analysis won't show anything :/

Avatar of bald55
15 knights vs 11 bishops and a random pawn to balance things out
My analysis shows 0.0
Avatar of EndgameEnthusiast2357

You have to wait a little for the analysis to work, there's a huge lag when it comes to positions with 30+ Pieces, but it does work.

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