Merry christmas!

In memory of the heroes that laid down their arms 100 years ago! Shall at the end of our century no longer fight brother against brother, sister against sister, father against son, mother against daughter, but shall we stand united!

God bless you all!

Another master is returning

http://www.selivanov.ru/newss/?act=show_news&id=411

On the request of Yours Truly, Andrey Selivanov and Lev Grolman found out what happened to Leonid Yarosh, and they brought good news: Leonid Vladimirovich will return to chess composing again soon, he just was busy with his work...

ARTICULO SOBRE IURI AKOBIA - ADIOS A UN ARTISTA DEL FINAL

Amigos:

     Estaba terminando un artículo sobre un prestigioso escultor miniaturista, que talló unos cuentos juegos de ajedrez, cuando el amigo Carlos Grassano me dio a conocer la triste noticia del fallecimiento del ilustre compositor georgiano de estudios artísticos y Juez Internacional, Iuri Akobia.

     A partir de aquel momento me puse a recopilar algunos comentarios que había mantenido con él y realizar un pequeño artículo, con el único objeto de recordar su memoria.

     Así, pues, en el siguiente enlace encontraréis dicha información…

 http://www.ajedrez365.com/2014/11/iuri-akobia-1937-2014.html#more

     Mientras tanto, seguimos montando el artículo que indico en el primer párrafo, que contendrá una cantidad importante de imágenes y, con toda seguridad, podrá ver la luz en los próximos días.

     Saludos cordiales

Joaquim Travesset i Barba

(The text above is a fullcopy of an e-mail received from torneo@problemistasajedrez.com.ar on 23 November 2014. SH)

Iuri Akobia (20.v.1937 - 5.xi.2014)

(Reprinted from http://chessproblem.net/viewtopic.php?f=17&p=1997)


The International Master of Chess Composition Iuri Akobia has passed away yesterday, according to his close friend David Gurgenidze.

Iuri was a well-regarded friend for many of us, an endgame study composer of a very high level, author of several big anthologies.
I am very much at a loss for words.

http://www.facebook.com/david.gurgenidze.1
http://picload.org/image/calcigc/iuri.jpg


A few facts:
Over 500 studies in HHdbIV
International Master 2013
On his website http://akobiachess.gol.ge/ he published many awards, his studies that were awarded, and some personal details, of which I quote below:

BRIEFLY ABOUT ME . . .

I was born in 20.05.1937 (ANAKLIA, ZUGDIDI- GEORGIA). My speciality is Radio-Physicist. I worked in National Center of Radio and TV of Georgia (from 1975 to 1996 as a Chief Engineer). From 1996 to 2001 worked in CHINA, GUANGZHOU province as General Manager of Best Made Plastic co..,
The first publication of chess study 1975. The published works nearby 500 (incl. 50 problems).
MY FAMILY : The wife, two daughters, the grand daughter and the grandson.

PUBLISHED BOOKS:

01. Mat v Etiudakh (1990) with G. Nadareishvili This book holds about 3660 studies with mate (In Russian).
02. World Anthology of Chess Studies ( in English):
Vol. I - 4232 Studies with Stalemate (1994)
Vol.II -4492 Studies with Mate (1994)
Vol.III - 4323 Studies with Positional Draw (1995)
These volumes available for ordering (in complete set).
From October, 2013 is available the 3rd editions Vol. I. II. III in complete set.
The payment is possible by PayPal too.
03. Study Mosaic -Booklets- with David Gurgenidze No1-13 (1995-2002).
04. Best Endgame Studies - I of David Gurgenidze (1993) with M.Gogberashvili
05. Best Endgame Studies -I I of David Gurgenidze (1994) with M.Gogberashvili
06. Problems of Shamil Dasni (1996) with M.Gogberashvili

Five!

The five knight promotions in a pawn endgame are finally done!

First to have a published study was Darius Knight (!) of the United Kingdom. He may or may not be related to the table tennis professional of the same name, our inquiry was replied to with "Good guess! I play table tennis."

 Darius Knight

chessstar.com, 3 November 2014

White wins

A few hours later, Steffen Slumstrup Nielsen followed with his own knight promotion task study.

Steffen Slumstrup Nielsen

chessstar.com, 3 November 2014

White wins

A wonderful achievement by both composers, many thanks for this expression of beauty, of spirit!

Lermontov 200 MT (announcement)

International Competition "M.Lermontov-200"
section #3.  Judge V.Vinokurov (Russia)
section H#2-6. Judge V.Gurov (Russia)
Theme free

Send entries until December 25, 2014 to:

Vadim Vinokurov, vkv-1953@mail.ru 

Classification of chess problems

 Per Olin makes a great proposal on the MatPlus forums on how to change the current classification for chess problems. I support this!

http://matplus.net/start.php?px=1414162980&app=forum&act=posts&fid=gen&tid=1548&pid=12926#n12926

How German chess profited from a nation divided

The special status of Germany as a country divided during the Cold War era was an important step towards the publication of informations from Soviet Russia in the western civilization after the fall of the German Democratic Republic.

The Soviet books were available to East German citizens, who in turn learnt Russian at school. So after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the addition of the East German territories to the Federal Republic of Germany it was easily possible for former citizens of the German Democratic Republic to provide informations from those books - including the Russian chess composition books - in the west. The frugal cooperation of the Soviet and East German presses made it also available for books to be translated, for example many chess books from the Soviet Union appeared in the Sportverlag Berlin.

Those, of course, found their way to the west.

Is it possible to change the past as long as it is unknown?

Recommended reading:
Yakir Aharonov, Eliahu Cohen, Doron Grossman, Avshalom C. Elitzur:
Can a Future Choice Affect a Past Measurement's Outcome? 5th version, 18 September 2012
http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.6224

Pins, batteries and their antiforms

In a heated discussion on MatPlus, Nikola Predrag writes:

 An occupied square (or a set of squares) might be emptied by some move.
If that would result with a legal check, we call it battery (of some kind).
If that would result with an illegal selfcheck, we call it pin.

The opposite case is when an empty square might get occupied by some move.
If that would result with a legal check, we call it antibattery.
If that would result with an illegal selfcheck, we call it antipin.

Antibattery/antipin are NOT the kinds of battery/pin, they rely on the opposite effects on some square.
Battery/pin are related to the legal/illegal effect of emptying a particular set of squares.

There's a lot of features which could be related and these relations perhaps could make a well described system.

We would love to have opinions on that. Feel free to comment here, if you're not a MatPlus user.

Bernd Gräfrath is new Schwalbe president

At the Schwalbe meeting this month, Bernd Gräfrath was elected the new Schwalbe president. As was announced before by Hans Gruber, he did step back from this office.

Thank you, Hans, for your great work as a president! Thank you for making me a member!

Bernd Gräfrath is a German philospher, born 20 October 1958. According to Wikipedia (DE) he has the core work in ethics and philosophy of Technik, which could be translated to engineering or technology. He invented the word Zukunftsphilosophie (most likely philosophy about the future). According to the same article, he also is a chess historian, although not one I worked together with yet for several reasons, including different research fields and simply having no contact to each other.

I know him only from being an avid chess composer, and I will be curious into which direction the Schwalbe will be lead by him. I hope the social approach of Hans Gruber (who is a professor for pedagogy) will be continued unter Gräfrath.

Impressions from Bern 2014

Mikalai Sihnevich shares his valuable memories of the WCCC in Bern 2014:

http://matplus.net/start.php?px=1412365681&app=forum&act=posts&fid=gen&tid=1513&pid=12772#n12772

SEPA Problemas 10/2014 (no.8)

The new issue of SEPA Problemas contains an article by Yours Truly about the year 1914. I'm not sure how controversial it is, but you might want to read it.

http://sepa64.blogspot.com.es/p/revista-problemas-nueva-epoca.html

Tourney announcement: José Mugnos MT110 2014

MT110 JOSE MUGNOS - 2014

The Union Problemistas’s Argentina of Chess announces the tournament of composition of studies MT110 José Mugnos.
Studies – Theme free – Judge: Richard Becker (USA)
Entries – not more than three per composer – send to the tourney director: Mario G. García (Argentina). Email: marioggarcia@gmail.com
Prize , honourable mentions and commendations and special nominations will be awarded. The preliminary award of the tourney will be sent to participants by e-mail and will be published on the websites-a) Unión Argentina de Problemistas de Ajedrez (UAPA) http://www.problemistasajedrez.com.ar/  b)  Iuri Akobia’s  http://akobiachess.gol.ge
Closing date: 31.12.2014

[SH: This is a repost of an e-mail sent by Mario Guido Garcia. An article about José Mugnos by Joaquim Travesset can be found here, in portuguese: http://www.ajedrez365.com/2011/09/jose-mugnos-compositor-finales-ajedrez.html. Unfortunately the books about Mugnos are very expensive, so I can't add more information about the composer.]

A lifetime achievement

Your not-so-humble blogger has received his first official title!
http://www.wfcc.ch/57wccc-38wcsc-news/

Congratulations also to everyone else who received a new title, be it solvers, composers or judges!

EDIT, 1 September 2014:
A complete list is online now. Since under German law this list should have no copyright, it is fully reproduced here:

New GM in solving: Anatoly Mukoseev (RUS) Martynas Limontas (LTU) New IM in solving: Aleksandr Feoktistov (RUS) Hans Uitenbroek (NED) Michael McDowell (GBR) Dmitry Pletnev (RUS) Vidmantas Satkus (LTU) Klemen Sivic (SLO) Alain Villeneuve (FRA) Evgeny Fomichev (RUS) Ramil Javadov (AZE) Araz Almammadov (AZE)

New FM in solving: Vasyl Dyachuk(UKR) Mikhael Gabeskiria (GEO) Misratdin Iskandarov (AZE) Nikos Mendrinos (GRE) Dinu-Ioan Nicula (ROU) New IM in composing: Evgeni Bourd (ISR) Arieh Grinblat (ISR) Valery Kopyl (UKR) Christian Poisson (FRA) Aleksandr Sygurov (RUS) Viktor Volchek (BLR)

New FM in composing: Nikolaï Belukhov(BUL) Uwe Karbowiak (GER) Ferhat Karmil (TUR) Rupert Munz (GER) Felix Rossomakho (RUS) New titles International Judge of the FIDE for Chess Compositions: Viktor Volchek (BLR) Thierry le Gleuher (FRA) Valery Gurov (RUS) Siegfried Hornecker (GER)

The Diemer mystery

In my childhood I was easily influenced by fanatic chess players: the U.S. American Bobby Fischer as an idol for his superiority, for beating the east (and later the west), and the German Emil Joseph Diemer who propagated "Vom ersten Zug auf Matt", playing for checkmate from the very beginning.
Let's be honest: What is better than checkmating? It ends the game, often is beautiful, what more do you want?
Well, nowadays I could have many answers to what is better, but back then I didn't know the wonderland of composition much.

Diemer was a controversial figure of chess, in a list of the most controversial chess players he would rank far at the top, a bit behind Fischer. Diemer was much more of a fanatic even than Fischer. He apparently called himself the "Messias des Schachs" at one occasion even. I read his books about his gambit, a radical way of playing - win or lose, with few in-between. Checkmate or gain a lost position with a missing pawn or two. And of course it was the plethora of beautiful combinations as well as the perceivable ease of winning that hooked me up to the Blackmar Diemer gambit. Nowadays I would only play the Blackmar gambit 1.d2-d4 f7-f5 2.e2-e4 d5:e4 3.f2-f3, or 3.Sb1-c3 Sg8-f6 4.f2-f3, but not the more known Blackmar gambit 1.d2-d4 d7-d5 2.e2-e4 d5:e4 3.f2-f3? (3.-e7-e5! and Black is better) or the Blackmar Diemer gambit 1.d2-d4 d7-d5 2.e2-e4 d5:e4 3.Sb1-c3 Sg8-f6 4.f2-f3. The reason is easy and sad: The Blackmar Diemer gambit most probably is incorrect. There is one very much forced variation that Georg Studier showed me and that refutes a critical line of the gambit.

Diemer had - apart from his important although controversial theoretical work - another side to him, he wanted to be a prophet. He used a lot of things that he believed to help but in reality are just scam, such as some mathematical stuff, biorhythms, etc.
There is however one episode that is worth being told: At the very end of Diemer's life, he predicted the assassination of Wolfgang Schäuble. Diemer tried to visit Schäuble, but Schäuble was not at home. The event took place indeed after Diemer had died. I don't know what exactly Diemer said, but Schäuble survived, although since then unable to walk.
 What happened there? Had Diemer - after over half a century of nonsensical pseudoresearch - finally found a connection to the universe that enabled him to make an accurate prediction? Did he have only the lucky hit that inevitably comes at some time for someone? Did he become a prophet, or did he completely descend into madness?
 Unfortunately, we will never know. The greatest chess propagandist of our country took this last secret with him.
One thing is sure, and Studier admitted it: When he wrote the biography of Diemer, he made a crucial mistake: Diemer died on 10 October 1990, but the assassination took place two days later. Diemer saw it indeed in advance...

I want to believe! I want to believe that for him - just as it did for me - the universe answered when he asked, even if it takes a lifetime...

WCCC 2014 booklet

A booklet of the 57th WCCC 2014 has been compiled by organisator Thomas Maeder. It contains the results of tourneys and an article from a newspaper. Congress matters itself are not included in the booklet, but it is worth a look for the wealth of problems and - in the Jenever tourney - studies, some of them contributing to endgame theory.
Download on the WCCC 2014 website: http://www.kunstschach.ch/wccc2014/docs/WCCC2014_Berne_Booklet.pdf

(Thanks to Eric Huber for showing the booklet in the MatPlus forum!)

The joys and sorrows of being a chess historian: An intimate insight

Being a chess historian is a wonderful profession, an interesting non-religious spiritual experience. But of course there are sorrows, darknesses one has to wade through.

What do I mean by spiritual experience? It is not a religious kind of experience, but since one is always confronted with the past, as well as the present - yes, this is also the duty of a historian, much like a chronist - one gains an incredible awareness of the omnipresence of death, a huge respect (for lack of a better word) for the people of the past and present, as well as thankfulness, humility for the fact that it was never easier - but still by no means easy - to be a historian, and for the gifts of the modern era.

Klaus Junge fell in the second world war, a fate shared thirty years ago by some aspiring composers in the previous world war, a fate shared at Junge's time by the opponents of despotism both in the "whole burn" and "great purge".
The preciousness of life, the lability of peace can only - even or maybe especially while there are still great terrors in the world - lead only to thankfulness at one's ability to live in relative peace, in an apartment with water supply and electricity, something that very few people have, a very small percentage of humanity.

But there are also other joys, surges of a rising dopamin level, that are to be achieved: When a rare information is found, a lucky event happens that leads to a new bit of knowledge, when the pieces of the past are uncovered like archaeological sites are unburied by science, the small moment of joy makes all the invested work worth the while.

The sorrows are obvious: First of all nobody cares about the past enough to pay for results. All the research is financed on one's own, and if it weren't for helpful people who agree to either upload or send historical documents and magazines the financial investment would not justify the results. The internet made research easier, as said above. I fondly remember a school project that uncovered secrets about Friedrich Amelung and the Katharina glass manufacturing, unfortunately now their website is offline.

The major sorrow is the one that most likely everyone has to go through: Death. The death of contemporary people is not only often a hit against the work as a historian, but often enough a hit against one's own heart - or in some cases rather getting the heart ripped out, squeezed together, and then put in again in the most painful ways. It can be a life-changing event in rare cases, especially when a good friend dies.
I got very depressive when this happened the last time, but I decided against suicide solely on the reason that by that point I was convinced of two things:
Something would not allow me to die even if I chose to
We will meet again when my time has come to enter Heaven

I am a Christian, and I always was it. There were times in my life when I doubted everything, when I turned away from Christianity. There were times when I saw no future, when I gave up. There were times when I blamed God for the bad things in my life, asking how He could allow that.
I received all answers I was searching for five years ago. I learnt a lot about myself, about God, about the purpose and the destination of humans. It is however not of any use to share this knowledge, since it would need nothing less than a personal experience to believe in it.

I wondered for a long time if I should publish my experiences, but I decide against it for several reasons. The one above is the most convincing, and also the one why an anonymous publication would also be useless.
But maybe there is one thing that should be published: The bad things that happen are at the will of Satan. Without Satan, there would not be this evil.

My personal spiritual battles however shall only be interesting for this article as a background, an explanation of my mindset, but also to show that even with everything I experienced there is not much protection from the hard blows of life, and to make clear that neither spiritual awareness, religion nor knowledge can overcome emotions, and yet they can make the difference in how we handle our emoitions.

There are typical days, where I will check the news - especially Wikipedia and MatPlus - for important news. An important part is to check sources, being aware that Wikipedia, as wonderful as it is without a doubt, only is a tertiary source, one whose own sources should be examined. Secondary sources are those that can be used.
If something especially important has happened - such as an uncommon event or unfortunately more often a death - I will call a friend who is a journalist and chess historian. He will see what he can use for preservation and what for columns. I might also send a note to several people, including weblinks and important information. A distanced view of course is impossible more often than not. In the cases of a personal tragedy I will talk to my friend or lay on the bed and try to get rest. At some points that rest is important for my own survival, something I experienced only once, at the death of a close friend and mentor. To emphasise this, the death of my grandfather had me saddened for days, but the death of my friend and mentor still saddens me. The critical phase lasted for a week that I think I mostly spent in bed. I have not much recollection of those days, I only remember going to the internet every now and then. I don't remember if I tried to distract myself, but it was very important to be undisturbed for my own health. At that point I had strong depressions that I overcame, as told above.

There is no such thing as getting used to lose friends. Every time it hurts, and with a close friend it hurts a lot.


Another topic of being a historian is to visit historical sites, if possible. It is one of my wishes to visit one of the venues where Bobby Fischer player Boris Spassky in 1992.
I visited several historical sites when I was in England in 2012, including the Park Lane Hotel - there is nothing to say against the staff there, they are among the most helpful people I ever met, and their incredible honest work that extends far beyond their occupation showed when the manager himself showed a young man who could not be further away from the high society that meets there through dark, almost secret, rooms to the historical plaque of that match, the proof that Kasparov and Karpov played at that venue.
In modern terms, this was a crowning moment of awesome, an unforgettable event, a great honor and no less a sign that the memory to an incredible event two and a half decades ago still is fresh in the mind of these people, and their own awe at having witnessed this event still influenced them in a way to show the greatest hospitality to a "casual" stranger.

No less hospitality was shown a few days later in a small place in Bletchley, the town that was place of the biggest secret government operation of World War II. The young to middle-aged owner and his wife treated us with all the respect and hospitality we had missed in the horrible place in London that we had chosen as a "hotel". I make no joke by saying that a German prisoner nowadays has more space than someone at that "hotel" across the road from the London train station. In Bletchley we had a wonderful bed, a separate room as a wardrobe, TV and DVD on the room, a water cooker together with chocolate drinks, coffee, tea - all without having to pay extra. In the end, we even left a book there - yes, there were books that one could take to his room from a stand outside.
But it would be wrong to believe that the owner stopped there: He offered more or less a free taxi service for us, sat outside at the evening for interesting talks, and showed us places around the town.

The reason why I went there was another one, deeply rooted in the history of the world. There is a famous t-shirt supposedly by the Israeli secret service, stating "My job is so secret, I don't even know what I'm doing." What is intended as a joke, was reality in Bletchley.
During World War II a secret government operation was held of that only very few people knew. There were over 8000 people working in Bletchley Park, doing jobs that seemed like boring office jobs. In reality, they saved the world.
All of the bits of information were processed together for a greater purpose. The war in Europe raged on since 1 September 1939, almost exactly 75 years ago. Adolf Hitler, the German dictator from Austria, wanted to murder. Studying him brought me the one revelation: All of the talk of Hitler was a lie, one that was only meant to let him murder people. The "German master race" was the one that Hitler wanted to kill when he lost the war, they should have gone down with him as his last will. To me there is no doubt that Hitler only used excuses to murder as many people as he could, without really caring about what he promoted. Maybe at some point he believed in it, but in the end he didn't anymore. He only wanted to see Germany go down with him.
But how could Hitler be defeated? Well, there were several issues with the communication, the biggest one was that communication had to be held in a way that could be spied upon. Germany had constructed the ENIGMA, an encryption code with a fundamental flaw. It was this one flaw that lost the war for the nazis.

In September 1939, the Chess Olympiad was held. Germany's biggest triumph of winning the olympiad, and England's biggest loss at having to leave it early would reverse in war. The English team was ordered to work in Bletchley Park, maybe forty minutes away from London by train. A small village in the heart of England, an absolutely irrelevant place would turn into the most important place of the history of the 20th century Europe.
The secrecy was high, and plans were manifold - a young Ian Fleming worked there and developed a plan consisting of having a plane crash into the ocean to overtake a German war ship and decrypting ENIGMA this way, but it was discarded. Later, of course, he would create a series of books based on his work in Bletchley Park, his main protagonist named after an ornithologist he exchanged letters with, the Carribean birds expert and author of Birds of the West Indies, James Bond.
Back in 1939 however, some of the major chessplayers joined the operation, namely C. H. O'D. Alexander, Philip Stuart Milner-Barry and Harry Golombek. Alexander worked in the now legendary Hut Six at some point.
Crossword solving was used to determine candidates for the work in Bletchley Park, and amidst a war that raged between men but also between birds (!), the great secret, the riddle (such is the literal translation of "Enigma") had to be solved as well. It took the efforts of thousands of people who knew nothing about the importance of their work, to not endanger the operation, to finally figure out a minor but decisive flaw in ENIGMA: The machine coded letters onto other letters but it was unable to code a letter onto itself. Without that flaw, history would have taken another turn.
The Bombe was built, a great machine that would check all possible combinations of encryptions to find useful results for decyphering the code. It was an early computer, much unlike modern computers. In the modern sense of the word it might not even be a computer, but it worked like one - it got input and gave output, saving people a lot of time, although manual reviews were of course necessary.
Breaking the ENIGMA code was enough to read German messages for the day, then the code had to be broken again. The Bombe provided results, finally leading to the invasion of U.S. forces at the Normandy. Hitler lost the war by the ingenuity of no less than a whole country's most intelligent people, an impossible project that had to be made possible.

The visit to the historical heritage site was another crowning moment of awesome. Of course, the more interesting people like Turing and Fleming got most coverage, but also Alexander got some. Asking the staff about certain people led them to show important places or point to them. It was a great moment to stand in the very room where the world was saved from Hitler, where history was created.

It is a shame that this venue is not a top priority of the British government to be saved. It is a piece of history that is of utmost importance, and the story behind it of the greatest interest.


With this experience, I think, I have shown the downsides and upsides of being a chess historian. It is an intimate insight, but no less an important one.

Recent news, 13 August 2014

Hermann Weißauer dead at 93

On the weekend of 2nd and 3rd August, the German composer Hermann Weißauer has died. The sad news was confirmed by Franz Pachl. Dr. Weißauer was Honorary Master for Chess Composition. Born on 4 October 1920, he invented the Weißauer-Bahnung in 1978, which is described as follows in Milan's encyclopedia:

Black clears a line for White after a capture on this very line

The thematic problem can be seen at the de-Wikipedia link given above.

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov re-elected as FIDE president

The disputed ex-politician Kirsan Ilyumzhinov was re-elected as president of the World Chess Federation (FIDE). His opponent, World Chess Champion 1985-2000 (undisputed until 1993) Garry Kasparov, received 61 of 174 votes, Ilyumzhinov received 110 of 174 votes. I have no information regarding the three missing votes.

One interesting fact: Ilyumzhinov was a politician first, friend of the Russian government... and then became FIDE president. Kasparov became a politician only after retiring from chess and - after being a political activist, opponent of the Russian government... also wants to become FIDE president.

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov was president of the Republic of Kalmykia, a Russian republic, from 1993 to 2010. Garry Kasparov dominated the chess world from the late 1980s to 2004 when he retired. Kasparov held the biggest chess rating of all time, an Elo of 2851, in 1999 and 2000. The record was only recently surpassed by the current World Champion, Norwegian prodigy Magnus Carlsen, who set a record Elo 2882 in May 2014. With the Elo inflation, however, a match between Kasparov in his best times against Carlsen today would hold a great suspense...

First Israel Open Solving Championship

The Israel Open Solving Championship was held on 20 July 2014 in the Leyada. The winner was Piotr Murdzia (Poland) while the Israel Championship was won by Ofer Friedland. More information can be found on the official website.

Judit Polgar to retire from competitive chess

While preparing this news article, the message has reached us that Judit Polgár, the possibly strongest chessplaying woman in the world (she never played a woman world championship since she doesn't want to participate in pure woman tourneys), has announced to retire from competitive chess. An article on Chessbase brings further details. Polgár's sister Susan is also a rare chess composer.

Current Woman World Chess Champion is Chinese prodigy Hou Yifan who first gained the title at 16 years old.

The 7th ARVES Jenever tourney

Yochanan Afek, the famous IM and studies expert from the Netherlands, invites to the 7th ARVES Jenever Tourney in the memory of the Swiss composer Samuel "Sam" Isenegger (2.xi.1899 - 15.xi.1964), about whom can be learnt a bit on the German language Wikipedia page. The announcement of the tourney as well as several others can be found at the website of the Swiss chess problem federation who hosts the WCCC 2014. Yours Truly likes to present two more studies of his own, one of which surely fits the theme and the other debatably also fulfills it.



Siegfried Hornecker
Europa Rochade, 03/2007, 4th honorable mention
Draw

1.b6! Sc5+ 2.Kb5 Kd4 3.b4, and:
- 3.-Sd7 4.Kc6 Se5+ 5.Kc7 Tf8 6.b7 Tf7+ 7.Kc8! Sc6 8.b5 Sa7+ 9.Kb8 S:b5 10.Ka8 Sc7+ 11.Ka7! Se6 12.Ka8 Sc7+ 13.Ka7 Sd5 14.Ka8! with positional draw; or:
- 3.-Sa4!! 4.K:a4 Kc4 5.a6! R:b6 6.b5! Rb8! 7.a7 Ra8 8.b6 Kc5 9.Ka5 Kc6 10.Ka6 Rh8 11.b7 Rh4! 12.b8S+! with positional draw
The interesting battle between the pawns and pieces received the fourth honorable mention in the tourney that I think was only open to German composers.



Siegfried Hornecker
Problem Paradise, April-June 2007
White wins

1.h8Q B:h8 2.b8Q Bd4 3.Q:b6 B:b6 4.d8S Bd4 5.S:c6 Bg7 6.e8S wins
Promotion to queen on b8 and h8, promotion to knight on d8 and e8. It is however arguable if this fits the Jenever theme.

Three games where I need the full score

Troitzki - Focht, 1896

FEN: 2kr4/1ppb1pp1/1b4r1/pP2p3/P3P3/5qN1/2Q2P1P/2R1B1KR

1.Rd1!! Bh3? 2.R:d8+ K:d8 3.Qd1+! Q:d1 stalemate

 The game looks fake but I have seen the full game score at some point in my life, unfortunately I have no idea where. It might be in a book of the East Berlin "Sportverlag", possibly translated by Bodo Starck.

Source: Jugendschach 4/1994, "Teste dein Rechenvermögen" column by Bodo Starck

Simagin - Bronstein, Moscow 1947

 

FEN: 8/6k1/3b1p2/7p/5P2/2P5/PPKQ4/2B4q

1.-h4? 2.Q:d6 Qg2+ 3.Kb3 h3 4.Qd7+ Kg8 5.f5 h2 6.Bg5!! h1Q 7.Qe8+ Kg7 8.Qg6+ Kf8 9.Q:f6+ Kg8 10.Qd8+ Kg7 11.Qe7+ Kg8 12.Qe8+ 1-0

Simagin noted that his opponent could have probably drawn by 1.-Qe4+!. When and where was this game analysed by Simagin?

Source: Jugendschach 10/94, "Teste dein Rechenvermögen", column by Bodo Starck 

Volpert - Zatulovskaya 1960 (?)

FEN: 8/3k1p2/5p1p/2K1p2P/4P1P1/5P2/8/8

41.-Ke7 42.Kd5 Kf8 43.Kc6!! Kg7 44.Kc7 Kh7 45.Kd7 Kh8 46.g5! h:g5 47.Ke7 f5! 48.e:f5 e4? 49.f:e4 g4 50.K:f7! g3 51.f6 g2 52.Ke8 g1Q 53.f7 "and White won"

Black could have drawn with the phantastic 48.-Kg8!!

Source: Shakhmaty v SSSR 2/1961, "Etjudnoe okonchanie". Article by Igor Bondarevsky.

In all cases, the full game score is sought!

War never changes(?)

100 years ago, Kaiser Franz-Joseph I. of Austria-Hungaria declared war against Serbia. World War I had started...

War, such the impression if we watch movies, writes stories of heroes. Stories of people who do the impossible.

There is only one story of heroes in World War I, but it is the most moving story a war might ever have brought. In a bloody war where young men were sent into a senseless death in artillery fire, the other soldiers hoping and praying to survive the very next day, it might have been the logical outcome to end this war as soon as possible. H.G. Wells called it the War That Ends All Wars, but for the wrong reasons. If war would have ended soon, maybe peace could have been in Europe. But as history showed us, no cruelty is big enough to prevent war, so maybe it would only have postponed the inevitable...

It was christmas. We have the year 1914, a day in a war that waged on without any visible results other than not only shattering the dreams of a generation but shattering the generation itself. The civilized Europe has fallen into barbarism, bloody menace waged on the battlefields of an endless slaughter.

For the first time the air became the place of battles, Manfred von Richthofen, the "Red Baron", is a name well-known as a synonym for the pilots of that era. Soon enough, tanks would roll, although very few, and artillery was the main enemy of about everyone. It might have been the last war that was not aimed against the civilians, a war that as clean as it is on this side, was dirty against the foot soldiers who never stood any chance to survive. A single mistake - or just bad luck - would mean their death.

But it was christmas. Somewhere in Europe soldiers were tired of being murdered for their Vaterland. Somewhere on the battlefields of this inhuman place, humanity broke its way. It isn't clear how it started, or how big its impact really was in the end. Maybe it was some soldier starting to sing a christmas song and the enemy tuning in. On that evening, the men who minutes ago were the fiercest enemies now were as close as brothers. Something big had happened. Something beautiful. It was christmas.

The truce lasted for days, in some places for weeks, but then the commanders, most likely people who were not directly involved in the war, forced it to go on. For a last time, humanity had spoken up, for a last time humans were brothers.

Then war took over again. The coming years saw 10 million dead soldiers, and almost as many civil victims of diseases. Eventually the peace treaty of Versailles would lead to a nail in the heart of the German people's soul, and - by Hitler, but it could have been everyone else since essentially the will for genocide was already planted even before World War I - would lead to World War II only two decades later, a war that knew heroes because it was even more inhuman. A war lead against civilians, enabling everyone to be a hero at the risk of his own life. A war that eventually would become the second biggest catastrophe and the biggest crime of the twentieth century.

But that is another cruel story...


If there is anyone who is a winner of World War I, it is the generation of today. Only in the late 1990s has Europe truly united. But as can be seen by the many conflicts that go on, war still is not far away. With the technology of today, another world war could indeed end all wars by our total destruction, or at the least it could be a calamity much bigger than anything seen before.

Humanity faces challenges that can only be overcome if we all work together - and maybe not even then. Will we learn from our history or will we be doomed?


Let it not happen again!

FIDE - 90 years old

The FIDE becomes 90 years old today!

Congratulations to the founders, but let us not discuss about their politics of today... ;-)

My connection to Karl May

It is said that each person knows each other over at most six corners. The same applies even to me and Karl May:

In 2008(?) I met Lothar Schmid without knowing it, as he - much in his usual humor - promised to come to a problemist meeting. He did, but only ate lunch there, without showing up at the actual meeting.

Lothar Schmid was the grandson of the Karl-May-Verlag founder E.A. Schmid, who in turn founded it together with Karl May's widow Klara May.

So here is the connection:
Me -> Lothar Schmid -> E.A. Schmid -> Klara May -> Karl May

If this short not-meeting doesn't count, you can add a lot of people between me and Lothar Schmid, for example Manfred Mädler with whom I conversed some years ago. Six corners, indeed.

The Zweikönigstreffen

The Zweikönigstreffen is a meeting of chess composers in Stuttgart that is organised by Uwe Karbowiak. It is held twice a year, and I was luckily participating each time so far. There are usually three or four lessons held by the participants, between the lessons there is a lunch break.

This time I held a lesson about perpetual stalemate with an added bonus that will both most probably be published in an article in EG 2015. Hans-Peter Rehm referred about the quality of FIDE album fourmovers, similarly Rupert Munz after the lunch break. Between Rehm and Munz, Michael Schlosser presented symmetry and ASymmetry problems, partially based on his book with Martin Minski.

At the afternoon, I ventured home earlier than usual. Looking forward to the next meeting.


An example from my lecture:

 

Mark S. Liburkin

Shakhmaty v SSSR 1928, second semester, 5th prize

Draw

In this famous Liburkin study or rather scheme, White draws after 1.Rh8+ Kg7 2.Rg8+ Kh7 3.B:a2 R:a2+ 4.Kb1 Sc3+ 5.Kc1 Ra1+ 6.Kb2 Rb1+ 7.Ka3 Ra1+ 8.Kb2 Ra2+ 9.Kc1 K:g8 stalemate

Why I created a new blog

On the "Zweikönigstreffen" in Stuttgart-Heslach Ralf Krätschmer asked me about continuing my blog. Well, I think with the lack of spam protection it unfortunately is impossible, but of course it is possible to start a new one. I tried WordPress and tumblr, but on both sites I had issues, so I hope to finally be able to create the new blog here on Blogger.

Blogger belongs to Google, so there is a certain risk involved in this - maybe Blogger will be closed and merged with Google+, who knows.

Until then, this blog will be the successor to both my old blog and my website, those will most probably both be closed in 2014.

I will put the warning upfront: The contents of this blog may be offensive to people, this includes especially those that are not about chess. If you are easily offended, please refrain from killing me (especially if you're a certain ex-politician) and post some comments here or via my e-mail address.

New blog means new luck? This time in English! :-)