Another easy one

White to Play and Win



Cheers

Mike

:))) gxh6

Sorry, but the en passant is not possible, since you cannot prove that the last black move was h7-h5.

This is different from castling, which is allowed, unless you can prove that it is not.

I am afraid that there's no solution....

"4i4mitko )) gxh6"

Yes, I said it was easy

Next one will be harder!

Mike

Although I agree with you mrmip, that does not seem to be the case. I have seen a few chess puzzle books that have en passant puzzles, but do not tell you this was the last move.

Although I personally find them annoying, they seem to be quite valid in the world of chess puzzles.

Technically a puzzle with castling is bad too, since you can't prove the rook and king haven't moved.

So I do think this puzzle is quite valid, one example of the castling and en passant puzzles appear in Polgar's book of 5000something puzzles, combinations, etc.

The rules for chess problems are given in the *Codex* here:
Codex of Chess Compositions

Look up the Article 16 for castlings and en passant.

Certainly there are problems with en passant key. But in these cases it can be proven that the last move was a double step of a pawn.

I'm sure you are 100% right about the official rules for puzzles involving castling and en passant. That said, I do find this whole discussion quite laughable given that I've seen puzzles with 4 kings, 25 queens, 5 white-squared bishops, etc. etc... all equally impossible, but that's not stopped me enjoying solving them.

Sure. And not to mention the fairy pieces and fairy rules....
Of course it is possible to enjoy all of them. Nothing wrong in it.
BTW the 5 white-squared bishop is perfectly legal, some of them promoted.

Heck, this could be a ZH puzzle if that's the case, and I would play Q@e5+ for the win!

On the question of En Passant Puzzles, the following comment is from
The British Chess Problem Society
What are Chess Problems?
I personally have seen en passant puzzles in newspapers, and some puzzle books. Usually the en passant allowance appear in more and most complicated positions.
En passant
An en passant capture can occur during the course of a solution following the normal rules of chess; that is, it has to be preceded by the appropriate double-step pawn move by the other side. In the diagram position an en passant capture is considered illegal unless it can be proved, by retrograde analysis, that the last move leading up to the diagram position was the appropriate double-step pawn move.