Joke chess problems

Some chess problems are just for fun:

White to move, mate in 6.
V. Röpke, 1942

Sometimes they appear in a different form:

What is the missing piece on a5?
Raymond Smullyan, 1980

Do you know anything similar? Share them!

White to play and draw. Be creative. Solution: 1. exd8=bK! stalemate.

Helpmate in 1 (black plays a move that allows white to checkmate him).

Hint: Go back to a time when certain special rules were not worded very carefully.(mouse-over to see it)

Going with the flow, white to play and mate in 2. You only need loopholes in one of the rules here.

#2: I never knew you may promote to a king; as far as I know about the history of chess, you may promote to anything but a pawn or a king.

#4: Heh, standard trick. 1. e8=R! any 2. 0-0-0-0-0-0!#

I can't see a solution to #3. 0... h1=wQ 1. Qf1# is what I'm thinking, but I'm not sure Black may move to make himself in check... Or otherwise you can always do something stupid: declare an "armed rook" to be a piece combining the power of rook and a king, and do 0... h1=wA 1. Af1#.

Answer to #3: 0...h1=wR!! 1. 0-0#!

Oh, nice, right. I forgot White king is on its original position, heh.

One of the funniest made up games ever (by Kmoch, I think), a parody of My System:

#3:

Move 86. K-e6

Game drawn by repetition or 50 move rule.

Cheeky, but you said "be creative".

Indeed. Although it can't be proven. [OFF TOPIC] However this reminds me of one heck of a retro puzzle I saw while searching online. Black to play and draw. And prove it. (Note: This is way out of my league too.)

Hilarious!

I would have liked to read a Nimzo parody of "Pawn Power in Chess", but it was probably a bit late for him.

I am sure this is going to be a 50-move problem. :)

OK, so let's get to it.

White has 14 units; his missing 2 (N and Bf1) were capped on d6 and g6. The rest of the pawns have travelled straight. This means we need a lot of wP captures: something like gxh3, axb3, bxc3, cxb4, hxgxf-f8=B. There go all 6 of black's missing units (Bc8, NNRRQ).

So, now to unlock the position: (my comments are in reverse order, so it will make more sense if you start from the end position and take moves back.)

Part 2 - solution

I figured it out (good God, that was difficult). The Rooks must be shuffled to the Kingside, then let out the g-file. Because the bK is trapped on the first rank with only one square (g2) to come up for air, this requires delicate handling. An elaborate double-screen mechanism is required: the wN screens Rh1 on g1, then the white K takes its place so it can leave and the Rh1 can come out. This is repeated for the other Rook. By the time all those moves are retracted, there is barely time left to retract a pawn move before the 50-move rule kicks in.

As before, my comments only make sense if you start from the end position and take back moves.

p=n??

Part 3 - the Substantiation

Oh my good gravy how did you do that. Wow. Bravo. (I posted it to be ignored as it's severely difficult... actually solving it is something else altogether.)

Back on topic, here's another semi-joke. White to play and mate in 4. (Hugh Courtney, Chess 1976.)

Thats funny. I've often wanted to do a parody of Alekhines notes also (though I love his notes), take a long game, after 1.d4 "The purpose of this move will soon become apparent", then no more notes at all until 58. Rh8 ++ and say "The point. This was what white had envisioned with the combination beginning with 1. d4"

Nice

Shockingly, that's not the hardest retro I have tried to solve. :P I have seen some of N. Plaksin's retros with the 50-move rule trick. (Oh, BTW, I guess I forgot to mention that the forward play in Sunyer's was 1...Ke1, the only move that doesn't capture something or move a pawn.) :)

#16: I'm trying to figure out whether there's another solution. :P