Impossible chess puzzle to solve for chess engines?

I got hold of the following chess puzzle on the net. It is white to move and mate in 27.

8/6pp/1b6/7p/6pr/2N1Pprp/3K1ppn/R4bqk w - - 0 1

For some reason Houdini 3 goes Haywire in Arena, when trying to solve it and the rest of the top 10 chess engines does not even get close to solve it. Even after many hours with 4 cores (i-5).

Hint. The first move is Nc3e4.

This puzzle is solid (correct) and does work out in 27 moves, believe it or not.

If someone can solve it with a chess engine, I would love to hear it. Please supply your results. Will give the answer after a week from now, in the mean time you can try to figure it out until then.

I have two other similar chess puzzles that chess engines does not seem to be able to figure out, but that for the future.

Enjoy.

Another tip. The king must move to the center of the board and then the rook must perform n dance at the bottom of the board...

Still no one that could solve this puzzle in 27?

I have to admit that this puzzle did puzzle me for some time, before I figured out why the rook had to perform a "dance" at the bottom of the board.

Just for clarification purposes for those that are not 100% familiar with chess moves. One chess move, indicates a move from both black and white.

This puzzle with mate in 27 then means 26 X 2 + 1 last mate move from white = 53 moves in total. In chess moves we then talk about mate in 27, for example.

Another tip to help out is whites second move that must be Rd1.

Hope someone's engine might get it now?

Keep us informed.

I am very curious, because this type of chess puzzle might mean that chess engines still have to go a long way to solve certain chess puzzle scenarios... thus still room for lots of improvement.

I have decided to post the answer to the puzzle.

Here it is:
1.Ne4 Bc7 2.Rdl Ba5+ 3.Kcl Bc7 4.Kb2 Be5+ 5.Ka3 Bc7 6.Kb4 Bb8 7.Kc5 Be5 8.Rcl Bb8 9.Ral Bc7 10.Rbl Be5 11.Rdl h6 12.Rcl Bb8 13.Ra1 Bc7 14.Rbl Be5 15.Rdl g6 16.Rcl Bb8 17.Ral Bc7 18.Rbl Be5 19.Rdl g5 20.Rcl Bb8 21.Ral Bc7 22.Rbl Be5 23.Rdl Bb8 24.Rd6 Ba7+ 25.Rb6 Bb8 26.Rxb8 Bd3 27.Nxg3#

Hope some of you enjoyed looking for the answer. Check out the dance of the rook at the bottom.

Will post other equally tough puzzles in the future.

What engine are you using?

Thomas, I used Houdini 3, Stockfish 3, Rybka 4, Critter 1.6a, Strelka 5.5, Komodo 5 and other engines but none could solve this puzzle.

The internet site a got the puzzle from also gave the answer.

NIce puzzle. Very difficult. I'll stick to my sudoku!