Development of a Sabra Tourney helpmate

The 20th Sabra Tourney called for the opening and closing of a line by a black piece. I have come up with a simple idea, and after sending it to Paz Einat, I found that I can have two variations with a small change, so I also sent him the new position.

Siegfried Hornecker

Original for 20th Sabra Tourney

(Original publication)

Helpmate in 2, 2 solutions

1.Bd5 Qh7 2.0-0-0 Qc7 mate

1.Bd3 Qh1 2.0-0-0 Q:b7 mate

This small idea has the flaw of Black castling both times to the same side, and Paz decided to work on it. After an earlier unthematic version, he presented a final result, which he sent as original to the judge.

Paz Einat & Siegfried Hornecker

20th Sabra Tourney 2017, 4th prize

Helpmate in 2

a) Diagram above

b) Diagram below

a) 1.S4g5 R:h4 2.0-0 B:h7 mate

b) 1.S4c5 B:f3 2.0-0-0 B:b7 mate

Pinning the white queen prevented many unwanted solutions, but there is unfortunately a lot of material necessary to ensure the correctness. However, the helpmate shows both castlings, and this was pretty difficult to develop. So of course the bottle of Sabra we won went to Paz, as he did most of the work! But - hopefully we will see it in the FIDE Album! And what better celebration of the friendship of our countries Israel and Germany?


Addendum, 14 August 2017: The complete award is now available on the Variantim website:
http://www.variantim.org/20th%20Sabra%20Tourney%20award.pdf