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I'm hosting a chess night and would like to post a few wallchart puzzles but would like to discourage folks from secretly whipping out their phone's chess app/engine and scoring points unfairly.

For example, something like this every-Russian-schoolboy-knows endgame breakthrough position here with white to move where removing the Kings renders the position invalid/illegal by most engines, yet still has enough context to give a person a visualization/calculation challenge if they've not seen it before.

enter image description here

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    How about give them problems that engines can't solve, like this: reddit.com/r/chess/comments/b3pa4f/…
    – Akavall
    Commented Oct 13, 2021 at 22:50
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    here's some retrograde analysis examples in regular chess puzzles: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/… it's like regular chess puzzles BUT you don't know the last move YET you need to know the last moves to answer
    – BCLC
    Commented Oct 14, 2021 at 1:43
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    What kind of idiot would do that? If someone wants a calculation challenge, they have it in front of their eyes. If someone doesn't want the challenge... well, who cares?
    – David
    Commented Oct 14, 2021 at 7:50
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    @David idiots who want to appear smart?
    – John Coleman
    Commented Oct 14, 2021 at 11:51
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    If you use positions with no kings, you must have alternative winning conditions/goals so it's no longer a standard chess puzzle.
    – Lucenaposition
    Commented Jul 18 at 0:09

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You're not going to be able to do this if your attendees actually want to cheat. If you give me a position without kings, I can simply edit the chessvision analysis board by putting a king somewhere I think is reasonable and get around your system.

However, if instead of preventing them from cheating, you encourage everyone to work together in teams on positions (and make sure the puzzles aren't too hard so that frustrated players will seek to quit the charade and bust out an engine), you're likely to make a better environment for everyone. Hopefully you don't have a big prize to the winner (or winning team) as well. For instance, I would suggest something non-monetary. If the only thing someone is likely to get out of the puzzle night is the satisfaction of a job well done, then nobody is likely to cheat.

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    "If the only thing someone is likely to get out of the puzzle night is the satisfaction of a job well done, then nobody is likely to cheat." - There's a lot of cheaters even in games where there's nothing to win. It's blaffling but online video games are crippled by cheaters.
    – Jemox
    Commented Oct 14, 2021 at 8:23
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    @Echox I know it was just a typo, but blaffling might be my new favorite word
    – TCooper
    Commented Oct 14, 2021 at 15:01
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    @Echox: IMHO the online cheating problem is largely a function of anonymity. I doubt those people would cheat if they had to do it live, in person, under their real names.
    – Kevin
    Commented Oct 14, 2021 at 17:15
  • @kevin so not for halloween then
    – Michael West
    Commented Oct 15, 2021 at 14:32

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