Sunday, March 31, 2013

K. T., 35 years ago

I found in scraps of an old newspaper more-mover compositions by a Greek composer unknown to me. K. T.. The Internet has info about a K. T., player of the oldest chess club of Greece (Piraeus Club of Chessplayers), born 31-05-1946.
If these compositions are actually by him, we would be glad to publish more of his work.

Problem-692
K. T.,
newspaper Eleftherotypia, 08-10-1977
rq2R3/pR1p2pb/3bP1k1/2p1pSPp/2K1P2P/8/8/8 (8 + 11)
Mate in 5 moves

Main variation : 1.Re7! Qh8! 2.Rexd7 Rg8 (if 2...Bf8 3.Rxg7+ Qxg7 4.Rxg7+ Bxg7 5.Se7#) 3.Rxa7! (Zugzwang) Bf8 4.Re7! Bxe7 5.Sxe7#


Comment by Alkinoos : Replacing bBh7 with bPh7 the problem has a solution in 6 moves :

1.Re7! [2.Rxg7#] Qh8 2.Rexd7 [3.Rxg7+ Qxg7 4.Rxg7#] Rg8 3.Rxd6 [4.Se7#] Re8 4.Rdd7 [5.Rxg7+ Qxg7 6.Rxg7#].

This problem is found to be mirror image of a composition by Kubbel, as you can see here : http://www.yacpdb.org/?id=65928
Problem-693
K. T.,
Eleftherotypia
8/8/4s2q/8/5p1p/8/3RR2K/2k5 (3 + 5)
Mate in 12 moves


1.Ra2! [2.Ra1# / Re1#] Kb1
2.Reb2+ Kc1
3.Rf2 [4.Ra1# / Rf1#] Kb1
4.Rad2 [5.Rd1# / Rf1#] Kc1
5.Rde2 [6.Re1# / Rf1#] Kd1
6.Rb2 [7.Rb1# / Rf1#] Kc1
7.Rfc2+ Kd1
8.Rg2 [9.Rb1# / Rg1#] Qg6
9.Rxg6 [10.Rg1#] Sg5
10.Rxg5 [11.Rg1#] Kc1
11.Rf2 [12.Rg1#]

(9…Kc1 10.Rf2 [11.Rg1#] Sg5 11.Rxg5 [12.Rg1#])
(8…Kc1 9.Rbe2 [10.Re1# Rg1#] Kd1 10.Ref2 [11.Rf1# / Rg1#] Ke1 11.Kg1 [12.Rf1#])

This problem is found to be mirror image of a composition by Maksimowitsch, as you can see here http://www.yacpdb.org/?id=188398

Monday, March 25, 2013

Chess in schools in Armenia

The first country in the world having chess as a mandatory lesson in schools is Armenia. The aim is to build a better society.

Read the news as transmitted (March 24, 2013) by Al Jazeera :

Chess mania captures Armenia's attention

Friday, March 15, 2013

New blog for Tourneys and Awards

Dear readers, I think that

** the friends of chess composition need a central service for publication of 
(1) tourney announcements and
(2) awards of each tourney.

** For this purpose, a blog will be used, named chess-compose,

** The administrators can come from various countries speaking English, Russian, German, Italian or any needed language.

** Each post will be a tourney with key like "2013-03-08 JT Composer-Name-50", where the date will be the deadline date.
 (The post will be published and then its date of publication will be changed to be the deadline date. So the "current" tourneys will be staying on top until their deadline is reached).
 The post can possibly contain only the link to the relevant site of country, magazine or person.

** Each post will have tags, (like #2, #3, #n, h#n, s#n, fairy, Tourney_Formal, etc), to facilitate the search. 

** When an award is published, its link will be appended to the relevand tourney.
 This blog will not be a rival of various excellent sites, just a central service.
 I have created it, but I can not support it alone, because I do not have information about all tourneys and awards and surely I do not speak all needed languages!

 If you think you can serve as administrator, please send a private message to me.
Thank you!

Sunday, March 03, 2013

Some news

In this post there are news about chess-relevant publications and tourneys of chess compositions.

Publications

The British Chess Problem Society, (BCPS), has been the publisher of magazine "The Problemist" since many decades. Inside this magazine there were interesting insets. Now you can found them in pdf form using the link http://www.theproblemist.org/supplement-archive.


Many important articles and new compositions are published at the site of Julia Vysotska (http://juliasfairies.com/). For example, you may read an article, published initially in the magazine StrateGems (No.51, 2010), "The Wonderful (new genre) Parry Series", written by the Grand Master Μαιτρ Petko A. Petkov. The page with the articles is http://juliasfairies.com/articles/.


In the Award of the tourney "MT Istokovics Ferenc 70" we see the Greek composer Pavlos Moutecidis with a self-mate in ten moves. See here.


A proposal for a new chess variant, Singularity Chess, was published in the site http://abstractstrategygames.blogspot.gr/2010/10/singularity-chess.html.
Please, do not ask me to compose problems on such a chessboard!


Announcements of chess composition tourneys

Magazine TROLL - Problemschach
Turnierausschreibung 2013-2014 (tourney announcement)

TROLL Zweijahres-Informalturniere: (TROLL announces 2-year-tourneys for orthodox #2, #3, #n)
#2 Preisrichter: N.N.
#3 Preisrichter: N.N.
#n Preisrichter: N.N.

mailto:udo-degener@gmx.de
post: Udo Degener, Stephensonstr. 47, D - 14482 Potsdam, Germany
site: http://www.schach-udo.de/


KoBulChess.com
The chess composition site KoBulChess announces Informal tourneys for 2013 in the following sections : twomovers, threemovers, helpmate, selfmate and fairy problems.


MARIO G. GARCIA 65 JUBILEE TOURNEY
The Union Problemistas’s Argentina of Chess announces the tournament of composition to commemorate Mario Guido García’s 65th birthday.

Prizes: Books. Honourable mentions and commendations will be awarded
The preliminary award of tourney will be sent to participants by e-mail and will be published on the website of Unión Argentina de Problemistas de Ajedrez (UAPA) http://www.problemistasajedrez.com.ar/

The competition will be realized in the following sections:
Part A -PROBLEMS- Send entries until July 31, 2013:
2# – Judge José Coello Alonso (España)
3# – Judge Alberto R. Rodríguez (Argentina)
n# – Judge Mykola Chernyavskyj (Ucrania)
Helpmates – Judge Christer Jonson Suecia)
Selfmates – Judge Frank Richter (Alemania) – Indicate the program used in the verification

Theme of compositions free- not more than three per composer– send to the tourney director and judge associate in mates direct: Mario Guido García (Note: Qualification of the problems from 1 to 4 points, elaborate for three experts in the resolution. The report is not binding, on the judges).

Part B -STUDIES- Send entries until June 22, 2013
Theme free in two sections : a) Win and b) Draw
Judge: Mario G. García (Argentina)

Entries – not more than three per composer for each section – send to the tourney director : Harold van der Heijden.


Gravure-2013, (8-10 pieces)
We are pleased to announce tournament of Gravure problems. The goals are:
- promotion of problems with 8-10 pieces;
- promotion the following components of solution: difficulty, depth, beauty.

Sections of the tournament: #2, #3, #N, H#2, H#2.5-3, S#3-10.
Chief Judge is Igor Agapov (Russia).

The last date for sending the compositions is June 30, 2013 via e-mail: 64@avanta18.ru .

Tendering organizer with support of “Avanta” Company.
Tournament director is Ferdinand Bagautdinov.