Showing posts with label Chess composition meeting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chess composition meeting. Show all posts

Monday, September 9, 2019

WCCC photos (Vilnius 2019)

While Yours Truly did not attend, he wants to share the photos from Vilnius with you. Mikalai Sihnevich has published his photos from August's Vilnius World Congress for Chess Composition on a Google Drive. Note that I do not take any responsibility for anything shown on the photos, this includes giving information about what is shown, or possible content changes of the directory in the future. As of writing this, there are only the photos from Vilnius, i.e. the links are clean.

I also want to remind readers of Branko's Ohrid photos.

Vilnius 2019:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ZK1Yn5XwIoJJBSN7_JFA1aKfxUJdWvMx

Ohrid 2018:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1D6KBmJvlMTxHHrQ65Cew4kmYojJlm7wi

Saturday, December 15, 2018

There is nothing new under the sun

Discovering a masterful battle of the rook against queen, Martin Minski and I gladly sent it to a tourney in Azerbaijan.

Siegfried Hornecker & Martin Minski
Dedicated to Klaus Rubin
ŞAHMAT BƏSTƏÇİLİYİ–15 YUBİLEY YARIŞI, 2018
Special Prize [final award]
White to move and win

1.Sf7+ Ke6 2.Ke8 g2 3.Sf7 Rh8+ 4.S:f8 g1Q
 5.Re4+! Kd6 6.Rc4! Ke6 7.Sf7 Qg2 8.Ra4! Qe2 9.Rb4! Qe3 10.Rb2!! (zugzwang) 10.-f5 11.Rg2! f4 12.Rg6 mate


A great study, very well worthy of the second prize given, if there was not, as found by Sergiy Didukh... (PS, 30 December 2018: but it received the Special Prize in the final award!)

Peter Krug
The Problemist, March 2013
White to move and win

1.Sf7! Be7+ 2.R:e7 Q:g4 3.Bh3! Q:h3
4.Rc7! Qg2 5.Ra7! Qf1 6.Ra2! (zugzwang) 6.-g5 7.Rh2 Qb1 8.Rf2+ Kg6 9.Se5+ Kh5 10.Rh2 mate
With this, our study, which is superior to Krug's setting, has only the bare minimum of existential right, but sadly no justification for any award. What a horrible coincidence!

But why was the dedication to Klaus Rubin?

Siegfried Hornecker
White to move and win (incorrect)
Original publication

Not: 1.S:c7? Q:b5+! 2.S:b5 B:d5 3.Sf7+ Kf4!! (3.-K:e6? 4.Sd4 mate!) 4.e7 Bc6+ 5.Kd8 B:b5 6.Sd6 Bc6 7.Sc4 Kf5! 8.Sb6 Ke6 draws

1.Sf7+! Kf4 2.Rb4+! Kf5 3.S:c7 B:d5 4.S:d5 K:e6 5.Se3! (or 5.Se7) Qf3 6.Rb6+ Qc6+ 7.R:c6 mate
Symbiosis of checkmate in try and solution. 

But Klaus Rubin, on testing, claimed that 2.Rc5! also wins. Upon further examination, I found the variation 2.-Qg1! 3.Rc4+ Kf5 4.S:c7 B:d5 5.S:d5 K:e6 6.Se7!, and the study now of the Azerbaijan tourney is reached, after 7.Sf7 there.

So seeing this idea, Martin Minski developed a great foreplay, leading up to the duel of rook against queen. Sadly, now it turned out to be anticipated.

"There is nothing new under the sun", the proverb says. But also not anymore on the chessboard?


PS, 30 December 2018: The original study for SB15 has received a Special Prize now. The text above is amended to tell this.

Tuesday, September 4, 2018

Monday, August 8, 2016

Impressions from the WCCC 2016

29 July
We arrived in the Serbian capital of New Belgrade (Novi Beograd, often and further in this article just called Belgrade) as one of the earliest WFCC participants. Upon the registration I was handed a special bag with a personalized WCCC ID and a noteblock with double-colored pen.

30 July
I used the second day, prior to the official start, to get myself acquainted with some people and the hotel "Metropol Palace" in Belgrade. Unfortunately we used the Miloseva Kuzina (with some Serbian letters) restaurant too late, missing out a few days of great breakfast (four scrambled eggs, french fries, two small blocks of cheese and three tomato slices for together 350 RSD ~ 3 EUR). So I usually would have some bakery items from across the hotel and water or when the congresses got late some coke from the kiosk nearby.

The official opening of the WCCC was held by the Serbian organizers, but was not too spectacular. There was a kind of domestic demonstrator attack on the mayor of Belgrade where someone had thrown toilet paper on him some days ago, leading him to not show up. Instead we were greeted by one of his replacements. Luckily, the prepared movies about the Serbian chess events of the past (sadly only in Srpski) and some drinks saved the evening.

31 July
Yours Truly attended the 15:00 (3:00 PM) opening session of the WFCC on the Sunday of 31 July 2016. Much to his delight, the German team, apparently bernd ellinghoven, had forwarded his request for a small change of titles giving (permanently instead of for life, in accordance with the practice of giving posthumous titles) to the WFCC. The sad news was heard that among other famous men such as the space hero Valentin Rudenko and the national German hero's nephew Wichard von Alvensleben also the never-tiring humorous publicist and prolific chess composer Fritz Hoffmann had died. The e-mail news had been sent a few hours after the departure of Yours Truly to Belgrade and so was left unread until the return, so this was a kind of shocking but mainly sadness inducing news to us.

The evening saw a "quick composing" of which we would like to (re-?)produce a good twomover we composed, but unfortunately the award is not yet online. We believe that the twomover should be in the award, unless it was found to be anticipated.

1 August
The participation of Yours Truly in the Open Solving Tournament was unsuccessful. We solved one twomover and one study, for a total of 11 points. Martin Minski's original (which we can not reproduce here for that reason) proved difficult to solve. With more time we could have solved a selfmate in three in the second round, but we spent all time looking for a point in a study that simply had none.

The Studies committee met under the good leadership of Yochanan Afek in the afternoon, whereupon unfortunately it was decided the "Study of the Year" contest was not successful to promote chess composition to the general public. Yours Truly reeived a great offer by Afek, which we accepted. If this will fall onto open ears on the necessary third party we will have a great possibility to promote endgame studies soon. More will be given on this in about a month.

 In the evening lectures were held. Avni and Afek talked about studies, and Yours Truly could have been seen crying by a close observer as Afek prior to his lecture talked about his personal relationship to the dearly missed Milan to which Afek dedicated the complete WCCC. Yours Truly wants to believe that the ever kind spirit was attending the lecture himself.

2 August
The day was mostly used for activities related to personal contacts with other composers. The lectures at the evening were with the exception of that by a newly crowned Honorary Master of Chess Composition, not interesting to Yours Truly. Misha's hour long lecture where he demonstrated his solving tourney organizing program might have been a bit too long, as bernd ellinghoven canceled his lecture afterwards. It is without a doubt that the program is great, but we believe there is not a large audience that is interested in such demonstrations.

3 August
As the day before, we mostly got personal contacts up. The evening saw an OTB match of the hosts vs. guests - or rathre the WFCC against the Serbian olympia team. Who could win such an event? Well, of course the WFCC - a lucky John Nunn scored 1.5 points out of his two games! A photo of John Nunn will be uploaded later, when we got to processing them all. Of course it was also his suggestion that was the best one at the committee meeting a few days before...

4 August
Just no! With the excursion that was tiring to Yours Truly, he regret not listening to Yochanan Afek on this topic who warned against the heat in Novi Sad where Afek attended the chess olympiad 1990. Oops!
Out hero of the day was Alexander "Stop the bus!" Bulavka who was worried about Yours Truly. Thanks!

5 August
After the "business as usual", the afternoon until the late evening saw the prizes being given for tourneys etc.
One Darko Hlebec won some study awards while Yours Truly left without any. Not even for the twomover. Oh vey!

At the evening the Yacht proved to be an interesting experience, but for the future we would like clearer markings on which food is vegetarian. Some bread, cheese and potatoes saved the meal.

6 August
After the offficial end of the WCCC, the never tiring Brank Djurasevic helped Yours Truly with one request we had. The evening saw Yours Truly visiting Darko Hlebec's house, where his family provided a nice talk.

7 August
Upon leaving Belgrade, we had enough of the city, mostly due to the extreme noise and heat. The travel back home took all day since for reasons far beyond our imagination planes fly the route Munich - Belgrade, but not Berlin - Belgrade.


Youtube videos, provided by Julia Vysotska and the WFCC:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK2tO_SLX1FvCV7RuSxbLhA

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

WCCC 2016 website is up

The Serbian Chess Problem Federation has put the website of WCCC 2016 online as a subpage of the MatPlus website:
http://wccc2016.matplus.net/index.php

This will most likely be a good opportunity to meet Yours Truly who unfortunately will not participate in the world solving championship due to lack of qualification, but is open for all kinds of fun ventures such as a private study solving. Unfortunately the overall world champion has declined the invitation for such a 1 on 1 exhibition match because of time constraints. Send any crazy ideas or an application for such a match to Yours Truly under the known e-mail address SH - Schach at GMX dot EU (letters can be small or big, remove the empty spaces but keep the minus sign).

Friday, June 19, 2015

Impressions from Belgrade




(Note: This article uses the westernized spelling of several places. Apologies for this, but I would spell it probably even wronger otherwise.)

On the corner of Kneza Milosa and Nemanjina Street is a big scar, a leftover from a direct missile hit in the night of 29 to 30 April 1999, the 37th day of the NATO aggression, and the night of 7 to 8 May 1999, the 45th day of the NATO attacks against Belgrade in 1999 (see photo).

Photo by Darko Hlebec, used with permission

A short walk away from this leftover of the war is to one side Kneza Milosa 53. Directly abroad that address the former U.S. embassy building is now for sale. To the other side of the former Army Headquarters as seen in the photo along the Kneza Milosa and then one further street to the right we can find the building with the chess club of Belgrade.

I arrived first on Airport Nikola Tesla and then in Belgrade on 2 June 2015 to participate in the annual Belgrade Problem Chess Festival. On the days leading up to the festival, Darko Hlebec showed me around the city, being always helpful even when I was demanding. As a personal highlight, we visited his family where his wonderful grandmother gifted me an artistic booklet of hers. Another booklet was received on the evening of the 5th June in the Belgrade chess club where Ivan Denkovski presented a collection of proofgames, printed in 2013. Several mini-lectures were held, including Marjan Kovačević talking about a theme by our late friend Milan Velimirović.

In the technical university of Belgrade, some blocks away from the chess club, the solving event of the Open Championship of Serbia took place on the 6th and 7th of June. Yours Truly immediately took the first place after the twomovers round – from behind. After the threemovers, I had achieved five points but then my specialty came up – endgame studies. One particular pawn endgame was impossible to crack for me while the study ending in stalemate was easy to solve for a full five points. The first of the set of three studies proved to be the most difficult because of the move 1.-Qd2, very hard to find, but then everything ran by itself. Yet at the end of the solution I gave a point away by giving the sideline that is in my opinion equal to the main line since the same moves with the same idea are played. I gave the sheet one minute early to the judge Ivan Denkovski. When later a dual was found in the stalemate study, several results were uprated, making that minute crucial to me being the best endgame study solver with 11 points and 99 minutes, in front of Branislav “Branko” Djurasević with 11 points and 100 minutes. So I can call myself the inofficial champion of Serbia in solving endgame studies.

After this, we went again to the chess club where we friendly sat together and composers should show one work they produced since the last meeting, so I presented my study from the Sam Isenegger MT 2014 which, as Dragan Stojnić showed me, had also appeared in the “Sahovski informator” in Afek’s column (thanks, Yochanan!). I also showed around a study I composed recently which was met with positive comments. Since currently Martin Minski and I still develop it, it is not possible to present it to the public yet, sorry!

The second day saw helpmates of which I solved one completely and a line of another one. Unfortunately I wasted my time on the too difficult one instead of the easier third one, thereby probably wasting some points. The directmates had a hellish surprise by “Rätselonkel” Fritz Giegold:

Fritz Giegold
Die Welt, 1978
Mate in 5

I had of course seen this problem a long time ago but did not remember the solution. I still remembered it was by Giegold, which should have led me to the solution but it took me 70 of the allotted 80 minutes for moremovers to find it: Can you do better?

The selfmates saw me solving the two- and threemover. I was surprised at myself. Unfortunately the fivemover proved to be a too tough nut for me, chasing the wrong idea 1.Rb1 d:e6. In the end I reached place 16 of 29 contestants and a respectable 37.5 points in 259 minutes. Of course this is far behind, but more than half of the points of winner Michel “Kajo” Caillaud (68.5 points / 327 minutes). I will look forward to seeing my half-rating (in solving you must compete in two tournaments to receive a full rating).

You can find the complete results, the problems and the solutions by clicking the links in this sentence (all PDF files).

Later on the day we visited the grave of my friend Milan, bringing the closure and possibility to honor him to me that I sought when I first came to Belgrade in 2013.

On the evening of the 8th of June a special treat awaited those who participated in the “normal” chess club evening: Darko Hlebec just had won (shared) the draw section of the Johann Berger 170 Memorial and presented his study that ends in a wonderful end pattern. Judge Peter Krug from Austria was right in awarding the highest honors to it, even if a certain other composer disagreed because of the two inactive pieces in that position.
See video (or with this link as part of a playlist with several lectures from Belgrade).


Darko Hlebec
Johann Berger 170 MT, Draw section, 1st/2nd prize
White to move and draw

I give only the main line of the solution, you can find the full solution in the PDF file of thepreliminary award:
1.Ra6+! R:a6 2.S7c5+ Kb5 3.Sd4+ Q:d4 4.Q:d4 Rg6+ 5.Kf4 Sg2+ 6.K:f5 Sh4+ 7.K:e4 Rg4+ 8.f4 B:d4 9.e8Q+ Kc4! 10.Qe6+/Qf7+ Kc3 11.Sa4+ B:a4 12.Qc4+ K:c4 stalemate

Final position.

The stalemate is funny and interesting, of a certain beauty since the whole fourth rank is filled. Sergiy Didukh on his blog however complained that the two pieces on the left side, the Ba4 and Pb4, are unessential for the stalemate. However, I believe they were intentionally added by Darko, which he pretty much confirmed, and they do contribute in my opinion to the overall final picture.

As all journeys will reach their end, so did mine. Armed with one painting bought from street painter Zoran and with the 8 June 2015 issue of “Politika” in my luggage that featured our solving competition on page 29, I left Belgrade on the early morning of 9 June 2015 by plane. For a short moment prior to the landing it did not look good: We flew through clouds and suddenly something black seemed to show up below the wing – smoke? No, as it turned out, the weather in Germany just made the ground look rather dark. We arrived safely, and as the customs police officer told me I did not have to pay taxes for the beautiful painting showing the back of a half-naked young woman. It might not be Jan Vermeer’s Maiden with the Pearl Earring, but I don’t think any other German has a painting of Zoran from Belgrade in his apartment?

As we say in Germany: Ein schöner Rücken / kann entzücken.

Friday, October 10, 2014

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.

Saturday, August 30, 2014

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!)

Saturday, July 12, 2014

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