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.