post your chess puzzles here

look carefully, the pieces are flipped

fine

NOTE: there are actually pieces on the board: they are just in blindfold mode.

EDIT: Mate in 3 by the way

Proof game - This is the position after white’s 7th move. How did the game go? (There’s only one solution)

That was tough. I was able to get this position in 8 moves, not 7. Or with black pawn at e6 instead e5. Wasted around several hours to crack this.

But, eventually, I've got this:

Cool puzzle. By the way, how do you know that there is only one solution?

Congrats!

I’m not 100% sure there’s only one solution as I don’t have any programs for this kind of stuff, (though I am pretty darn sure), but I can share how I know this solution only has one move order.

1. h4 must occur before h5, h5 before h6, etc
2. e6 must occur before any black dark-squared bishop moves and before e5
3. the black dark-squared bishop has must move in it’s exact pattern to capture everything and then be captured
4. e5 cannot occur elsewhere in the puzzle, as the white dark-squared bishop could not traverse the a1-h8 diagonal
5. e5 cannot occur in one move, because… let me show you.

Suppose we tried to create this puzzle with 1… e5 instead of 1… e6 and 6… e5. To fill in black’s now missing move, let’s add in an extra dark-squared bishop move, to waste time. If we try, it simply does not work.

And here lies the problem. Normally, white would play 6… Bxb2, but the bishop is still on c1. Thus, white has no move to complete the problem in 6.5 moves.

Another proof game challenge.

Yeah, the most non-trivial thing is e5 thing. I thought so but, formally, this needs a proof or exhausting brute force because, theoretically, e3-e5 move could be the last black move.

I checked using the latter method that there is no solution in a classical way, moving only:

1. b/h pawns and the dark-squared bishop
2. e/g pawns, the dark-squared bishop and the queen

without advancing pawns more than 2 squares from the beginning.

@KieferSmith, any requirements to the number of moves/who's to play in the final position? Otherwise it is quite simple.

It is white to move

Whoever finds the fastest proof game wins

There’s also a program called Natch that automatically checks proof games using computer wizardry I don’t understand, but my computer is kind of full and I’m not deleting programs just for this one, let’s be honest pointless mission.

First try, probably suboptimal:

Second try:

What about that one (another solution with e7-e5):

god. damnit.

alright, alright, fine. there are now two solutions.

Next one! I got 30.

Definitely suboptimal, but I managed 26.

Not suboptimal at all! I got 30, but only because I forgot rooks existed.

Still suboptimal, I believe. 18 is a theoretical lower bound (4 moves per each bishop, 3 moves per each knight, 4 pawn moves) but I don't know whether it is attained.