Is This Chess Position Illegal? #3

An extremely simple puzzle, yet slightly offsetting. It will be a bit of a challenge for some to figure out how this position is either legal or illegal, but I bet someone will solve this conundrum. Just gotta figure out the correct sequence, because in chess, white goes first always, not black! So why has black taken the first move and not white? Figure it out!

"I find it quite fun to search a chess board to see if a certain position is legal or not. And by legal, I mean it is a something you can find in a normal game. Is this position able to happen in an actual game? In other words, is this position legal or illegal? Post your answer, and tell me what you think the answer is. Any and all chess variations accepted. If illegal, also tell me what is wrong with the position. I'll post the solution when someone answers correctly."

1. Nc3, e5 2.Nb1

Hmmm Lets try something like this

I know this posotion.

It doesn't have to, though. Nh3 e6 Ng1 e5 works, as well as the longer version shown in post #3-no triangulation neccesary, just move the e pawn twice.

Is there some point / usefulness to this silliness ?  

This position comes up in a children's book, The Mysterious Benedict Society.  A great read for 6-12 year olds.

1Nf3 e6 2Ng1 e5 white to move.  But that means that white took the first move which is not what you wrote in your preamble. But it does meet the criteria in your paragraph in italics.

What about this position? Is it possible ?

No, it is illegal.

Is there any point/usefulness to chess?

It's actually in 4 moves.

Nah, it can be done in 3. There's no reason for black to move anything but pawns.

cool

Seems phoenix214 was the first one that solved this puzzle! Congrats! :)

and for everyone else, nice lil puzzles urselfs ^^

LOL too funny

Hooray for debating

The difficulty is trying to solve that problem without black playing e6.