Do you need a challenge ? Try to solve these unusual chess compositions / puzzles !

*grumbles* -1.Ke6N
Rigour is important, I agree; I was completely lazy and blind there

@Illion
Ok, now I am confused.
1.Ke6N is a notation which I don't understand. But I am sure that you mean the following.

Solution to puzzle 7 is the following.
The last moves which were played before the position shown in diagram 1 were the following.
1.....Nf7-e5+ 2. Ke6xNe5 (blunder)
Instead of taking the black knight on e5, white simply could have checkmated with Rxg8#.

I saw this kind of motif a few times in these Retro puzzles. Most people never consider that the white king could have come from e6 because here he is in check. People never see that there could have been a discovered check on the move before given by a knight which has now left the board.

There was a similar puzzle in the forum.
lichess.org/forum/general-chess-discussion/the-devilish-problem

Regarding your PG 4.0 puzzle shown in #49. I am really not good in solving this stuff. So far I only found the solution which needs 3 moves. But this is the same as it was in my puzzle 4. Finding the solution with fewer moves is easier.

1.Ke6N means exactly what you thought, retract the king to e6 uncapturing a knight. In retros there can be very long sequences of retractions (have you seen problems like "Unlock the position" or "Last 22 single moves?"), so we use this sort of notation sometimes, kind of like short algebraic for regular chess. (1.Ke6 also implicitly means "no capture", so yes I was far too lazy in looking at the position.)

And for my PG, indeed the point was to give the same frustration as Orban's without people going "I've seen that before."

Credits and study links

1. All puzzles which were shown in this topic came from this site. There are numerous links to find more of these puzzles.
www.janko.at/Retros/

2. For all people who like more normal chess puzzles / studies, I can recommend the following Lichess studies.
Most of the content are endgame studies. A lot of the puzzles were composed by the creator of the Lichess study himself.





3. If you search in the Lichess study section carefully, then you can also find these 2 studies, which contain chess compositions from famous composers.




4. For all people who want to learn chess or to improve their chess, I can recommend the following Lichess study.



This study is the most unbelievable study which I have ever seen here on Lichess.
This study is only the door which leads to a whole universe of studies (more than 100 and still growing in number).
- Beginner course studies
- Intermediate course studies
- Advanced course studies

If you want to know how strong you are already, go to chapter 6 "Elometer studies". There is a link which leads to a website were you have to play 76 puzzles. You have to make only one move per puzzle. Later to have to answer a few questions and then you get an estimation of your current ELO. Very entertaining.

Now this is the last puzzle which I want to show in this topic and then I will disappear like the white king in the following diagram.

Puzzle 8.
Question : The white king is invisible. Where is he ?


Edit : I almost forgot to mention this study. This is pure fun.

The longest king maze challenge study.


Clone this study and try to solve the puzzles. If you need help, contact the creator of the study.

Puzzle 8:
Suppose it is White's turn to move. Then the black king can't be in check, so the white king blocks the check by Ba4. The only possible position is Kb3 - double check! But double check is only possible if one of the pieces moved away, checking itself and opening the check for the other. Obviously, that cannot have happend here with black bishop and rook.
So it must be Black's turn to move. He was not in check before; and the bishop can't have moved on that diagonal where he checks now. So the white king must have opened that diagonal. Obviously he came from b3. But how did he ever get there without encountering the contradiction of the first part?

Ok I surrender. Where is my mistake?

@Bishop1964 he is on c3
lichess.org/analysis/8/1b6/8/1r6/Bp6/1K6/2P5/3k4_b_-_-_0_1#5

Oh I see ... Thanks @LeopardCheetah .