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).
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
Monday, January 11, 2016
Studies and book of Yours Truly on ARVES
On the newly designed website of ARVES the editor Peter Boll has kindly agreed to publish a selection of 23 studies and the book of Yours Truly (under Latest News, alternatively from the linked Dropbox of Y.T.). Unfortunately the photo is very outdated (it is from around 2007), but no newer one is available, possibly after the WCCC a new one can be submitted.
Saturday, January 9, 2016
Chess composition news (9 January 2016 edition)
Here's a few news about recent chess composition activities:
Yehuda Hoch 70 JT
Ofer Comay sent me an e-mail that the Variantim 2016 tourney will also serve as the birthday tourney Yehuda Hoch 70 JT. Please send your originals to Ofer Comay at his gmail.com address (first name and last name together without any point in the middle at gmail.com). As I checked for this article, the official website has no announcement yet but builds up an archive of old issues of Haproblemai and Variantim.
Didukh's pseudonyms
In the comments on his always interesting blog, Sergiy Didukh has admitted to using two pseudonyms. The article is to be found here, with thanks to Martin Minski for showing it to me. Yours Truly is interested if the pseudonym himself once used will also be found out eventually.
hhdbv
The endgame study collector Harold van der Heijden has published the fifth version of his database, now containing a total of 85,619 entries, 164 of them bear the name of Yours Truly. The internet address to order the database (download only, 14 MB, PGN format) is http://hhdbv.nl/ and the price of 50 Euro that, while looking steep at first, are made up for by the huge content. For hhdbiv owners, there are over 9000 new studies - literally, as it had 76,132 entries. Most of the year 2015 is covered, seeing as the database was issued in December (the previous one was of October 2010). For those who decide to wait, the next version is scheduled for 2020, which Yours Truly expects to be around the same price, unless the Euro breaks apart. (As a full disclosure, Yours Truly received as EG editor a free database download. The EG Archive has the issues 1 to 152 for download but those were long before he became an editor.)
Study of the Year 2014 entries
The entries for the annual contest Study of the Year for the year 2014 are online. The contest does not want to show the best study, but rather the one most suitable for the general chess public. In the past, we saw easily accessible studies without deep analysis but with a memorable ending or idea as the winner, suggesting that this time again analytical endgames would be without a chance - rightfully so, as they lack appeal to newcomers, even if they might importantly contribute to the theory.
EDIT, 14 January 2016: I found all previous "Study of the Year" winners on Sergiy Didukh's blog, with PGN.
Article on Didukh's blog in Russian
Yehuda Hoch 70 JT
Ofer Comay sent me an e-mail that the Variantim 2016 tourney will also serve as the birthday tourney Yehuda Hoch 70 JT. Please send your originals to Ofer Comay at his gmail.com address (first name and last name together without any point in the middle at gmail.com). As I checked for this article, the official website has no announcement yet but builds up an archive of old issues of Haproblemai and Variantim.
Didukh's pseudonyms
In the comments on his always interesting blog, Sergiy Didukh has admitted to using two pseudonyms. The article is to be found here, with thanks to Martin Minski for showing it to me. Yours Truly is interested if the pseudonym himself once used will also be found out eventually.
hhdbv
The endgame study collector Harold van der Heijden has published the fifth version of his database, now containing a total of 85,619 entries, 164 of them bear the name of Yours Truly. The internet address to order the database (download only, 14 MB, PGN format) is http://hhdbv.nl/ and the price of 50 Euro that, while looking steep at first, are made up for by the huge content. For hhdbiv owners, there are over 9000 new studies - literally, as it had 76,132 entries. Most of the year 2015 is covered, seeing as the database was issued in December (the previous one was of October 2010). For those who decide to wait, the next version is scheduled for 2020, which Yours Truly expects to be around the same price, unless the Euro breaks apart. (As a full disclosure, Yours Truly received as EG editor a free database download. The EG Archive has the issues 1 to 152 for download but those were long before he became an editor.)
Study of the Year 2014 entries
The entries for the annual contest Study of the Year for the year 2014 are online. The contest does not want to show the best study, but rather the one most suitable for the general chess public. In the past, we saw easily accessible studies without deep analysis but with a memorable ending or idea as the winner, suggesting that this time again analytical endgames would be without a chance - rightfully so, as they lack appeal to newcomers, even if they might importantly contribute to the theory.
EDIT, 14 January 2016: I found all previous "Study of the Year" winners on Sergiy Didukh's blog, with PGN.
Article on Didukh's blog in Russian
Friday, December 4, 2015
John Roycroft has a new website
John Roycroft now also has an own website:
http://www.roycroft-ajr.uk/
It contains (to my knowledge never before published) private information about Roycroft as well as his bibliography and a link to a Youtube video where he practices yoga.
We hope for more content to come.
http://www.roycroft-ajr.uk/
It contains (to my knowledge never before published) private information about Roycroft as well as his bibliography and a link to a Youtube video where he practices yoga.
We hope for more content to come.
Thursday, November 19, 2015
And I'm gone for now
Because of personal issues, I need to take a break from the blog for several months. I hope to be back in February or March 2016!
Until then, I wish you all the best, and stay strong!
May your heart always be joyful, even in those dark times that sought Europe again! And may cannonballs be forever banned!
UPDATE, 4 December 2015: The information is obsolete. I am in fact still here. Apologies.
Until then, I wish you all the best, and stay strong!
May your heart always be joyful, even in those dark times that sought Europe again! And may cannonballs be forever banned!
UPDATE, 4 December 2015: The information is obsolete. I am in fact still here. Apologies.
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
A call for solidarity with 11/13 victims and Paris
After the crimes that happened in Paris on the night of 13 to 14 November, the French newspaper Le Monde will publish a declaration of solidarity. Here I want to forward an address that my mother sent me in an e-mail to sign this declaration on the website of "campact". It is in German, but hopefully you can navigate through, if necessary with a translator. The declaration says that we feel with the victims of terror worldwide, be it in France, in Iraq, in Syria. And - as it does not say, but as I may add - be the terror from Daesh or from western governments or from even the people's own government, like in Syria or North Korea.
No human should have to suffer, and if it was for me, no living creature at all. As I wrote somewhere else - in a chess magazine in 2014 - this century will be the one that decides if humanity is to survive or to go extinct. We can only survive together, for we face enemies greater than ever before in the form of the climate change, the overpopulation - or rather the wrong distribution of resources, as there would in theory be enough food for everyone -, possibly new diseases, and also an impending nuclear holocaust as much as in the 20th century's second half.
My sympathy goes not only with the victims of terror, but with all the people, with all who suffer, not only today but also with those who are still to be born and with those who have been before us. My pain so is endless, but I just want to believe so much that humanity will change enough to survive, that regardless of religion, of believes, of their race, of their health, of their gender, of their social status, in this century all people will stand together. I believe that the Arab revolution has shown that no matter what they believe, humanity will work together when it comes to facing a greater threat. But I also believe that its aftermath, which includes the endless war between sunnites and shiites again, has shown that humanity still is divided after the fact, that their holocaust - to use the word in its original sense as a great burning, a great fire -, their genocide against each other, will only bring them suffering.
I believe from my observations that 95 to 99 percent of people just want to live in peace, harmony and happiness, but the other few people are those who abuse their power to make others suffer. Those are the politicians, the heartless bureaucrats, the sectist leaders of terroristic organisations. Those who want to protect their country are sent to a perversion of protection into occupation of a foreign country. Who wants to live can't live because the hate of few fuels the pain of many. This is not a religious war, for I have seen those who shine the Islam by willingly giving their life for the victims of the so-called islamistic terror. No, those who attacked in Paris are driven by other motives, by blind hate.
As for what I believe to be reasons, although many will dismiss this as spiritual nonsense:
Our young century has a great imbalance of souls, there are many young ones and many old ones. Those who are young know not God, they know not love. They are searching, and they are victims. And those who are old ones will suffer, for they know love and they feel the pain of the world, and they are yet so unable to help. But even old souls have the danger to just descend into that pain, to give in and to hate. Yet, those from Daesh do not deserve our hate, they are people as we are. Even those who try to kill us deserve our love! This is not to say that what they do deserves love, on the contrary, that deserves to be damned, to be condemned. But the humans themselves, they are misled by liars who promise them literally the paradise if they go out and kill. They are victims as much as everyone else. Yes, they are murderers, they ultimately will need to be eliminated, but their very souls deserve love. They will be reborn - this is my belief, as I said - and they will feel the consequences of their actions. Those who rape will see how bad rape is - they might be raped in their next life or they might just see how a beloved one breaks from it or whatever other plans there are for their growth. Those who murder will feel the pain of the murder. For the victim there is no pain but bliss, but for those left behind there is pain, and that is what they will feel as well. They will learn their lessons, just as everyone did. In the time of darkness, this is the only consolation I can offer, that those who died will be in a place without suffering, without pain, until their wounds are healed, until they are reborn or until they ascend. But those who survive with injuries, they deserve our sympathy. Those who died deserve to be honored, they deserve their vigils, for even in the world of spirit this will make them happy, to see that they are remembered, but they will also be endlessly sad about the pain brought to their beloved ones.
This, as I said, is my belief, that you may most likely not share. But I felt it necessary to tell.
Pray for Paris, and while you're at it, stop not there but pray for all who suffer. Everyone deserves sympathy. Pray for those who want to kill us that they will have a change of heart, that they will see the way of love, that they realize that even they are wonderful people inside, deep buried under the hate they have, under their wrong ideas of religious war. Pray for them to repent, to leave the path of death, to find their true selves and to find the God they believed to follow. If they want to serve Allah, then pray for them to find Allah. But this goes for all the "religious" warriors. Pray for them to find their God, to find that it is so different from how they imagined it to be, that they are always loved, that they realize that the soul is the very essence of the eternal entity, just as love. Pray for them to realize that love can change more than hate. Miracles happen, and prayer is energy sent. I believe that if enough people pray, there is a strong reaction, and just maybe they might feel just that one moment of bliss that changes their life forever, that will make them oppose their former belief.
May the eternal love be with all that suffer and lead those who are evil to the right path!
No human should have to suffer, and if it was for me, no living creature at all. As I wrote somewhere else - in a chess magazine in 2014 - this century will be the one that decides if humanity is to survive or to go extinct. We can only survive together, for we face enemies greater than ever before in the form of the climate change, the overpopulation - or rather the wrong distribution of resources, as there would in theory be enough food for everyone -, possibly new diseases, and also an impending nuclear holocaust as much as in the 20th century's second half.
My sympathy goes not only with the victims of terror, but with all the people, with all who suffer, not only today but also with those who are still to be born and with those who have been before us. My pain so is endless, but I just want to believe so much that humanity will change enough to survive, that regardless of religion, of believes, of their race, of their health, of their gender, of their social status, in this century all people will stand together. I believe that the Arab revolution has shown that no matter what they believe, humanity will work together when it comes to facing a greater threat. But I also believe that its aftermath, which includes the endless war between sunnites and shiites again, has shown that humanity still is divided after the fact, that their holocaust - to use the word in its original sense as a great burning, a great fire -, their genocide against each other, will only bring them suffering.
I believe from my observations that 95 to 99 percent of people just want to live in peace, harmony and happiness, but the other few people are those who abuse their power to make others suffer. Those are the politicians, the heartless bureaucrats, the sectist leaders of terroristic organisations. Those who want to protect their country are sent to a perversion of protection into occupation of a foreign country. Who wants to live can't live because the hate of few fuels the pain of many. This is not a religious war, for I have seen those who shine the Islam by willingly giving their life for the victims of the so-called islamistic terror. No, those who attacked in Paris are driven by other motives, by blind hate.
As for what I believe to be reasons, although many will dismiss this as spiritual nonsense:
Our young century has a great imbalance of souls, there are many young ones and many old ones. Those who are young know not God, they know not love. They are searching, and they are victims. And those who are old ones will suffer, for they know love and they feel the pain of the world, and they are yet so unable to help. But even old souls have the danger to just descend into that pain, to give in and to hate. Yet, those from Daesh do not deserve our hate, they are people as we are. Even those who try to kill us deserve our love! This is not to say that what they do deserves love, on the contrary, that deserves to be damned, to be condemned. But the humans themselves, they are misled by liars who promise them literally the paradise if they go out and kill. They are victims as much as everyone else. Yes, they are murderers, they ultimately will need to be eliminated, but their very souls deserve love. They will be reborn - this is my belief, as I said - and they will feel the consequences of their actions. Those who rape will see how bad rape is - they might be raped in their next life or they might just see how a beloved one breaks from it or whatever other plans there are for their growth. Those who murder will feel the pain of the murder. For the victim there is no pain but bliss, but for those left behind there is pain, and that is what they will feel as well. They will learn their lessons, just as everyone did. In the time of darkness, this is the only consolation I can offer, that those who died will be in a place without suffering, without pain, until their wounds are healed, until they are reborn or until they ascend. But those who survive with injuries, they deserve our sympathy. Those who died deserve to be honored, they deserve their vigils, for even in the world of spirit this will make them happy, to see that they are remembered, but they will also be endlessly sad about the pain brought to their beloved ones.
This, as I said, is my belief, that you may most likely not share. But I felt it necessary to tell.
Pray for Paris, and while you're at it, stop not there but pray for all who suffer. Everyone deserves sympathy. Pray for those who want to kill us that they will have a change of heart, that they will see the way of love, that they realize that even they are wonderful people inside, deep buried under the hate they have, under their wrong ideas of religious war. Pray for them to repent, to leave the path of death, to find their true selves and to find the God they believed to follow. If they want to serve Allah, then pray for them to find Allah. But this goes for all the "religious" warriors. Pray for them to find their God, to find that it is so different from how they imagined it to be, that they are always loved, that they realize that the soul is the very essence of the eternal entity, just as love. Pray for them to realize that love can change more than hate. Miracles happen, and prayer is energy sent. I believe that if enough people pray, there is a strong reaction, and just maybe they might feel just that one moment of bliss that changes their life forever, that will make them oppose their former belief.
May the eternal love be with all that suffer and lead those who are evil to the right path!
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Helmut Schmidt (23.xii.1918 - 10.xi.2015)
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmut_Schmidt
One of the last voices of sanity in our country is gone.
One of the last voices of sanity in our country is gone.
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