Tuesday, July 16, 2013

StrateGems magazine, and three prized helpmates

First we will say a few words about the American chess magazine StrateGems and then we will see the three prizes from a tourney for moremovers helpmates.

The magazine StrateGems, with the issue 63 July - September 2013, 56 pages, has reached its 16th volume.
Its site is http://strategems.net and you may reach the chief editor, Mike Prcic, via e-mail tuzlak@aol.com .

To have an idea for the variety of the contents, here they are in titles:

StrateGems 2010 Retros Award, by Gerd Wilts
StrateGems 2012 h#n Award, by Mike Prcic
StrateGems 2012 Retros Award, by Henrik Juel
Dan Meinking and the 'Legal' Variation of the Parry Series Genre, by Valery Liskovets
An Andernach-Equihopper Theme, by Newman Guttman
Recently Honored US Compositions
Original Compositions,
...Twomovers (editor Eugene Fomichev),
...Threemovers (editor Rauf Aliovsadzade),
...Moremovers (editor Richard Becker) and Studies (editor Eugene Fomichev),
...Helpmates (editor Nikola Stolev), Selfmates (editor Petko A. Petkov),
...Series-movers and Stalemates (editor Radovan M. Tomasevic),
...Fairies (editor Petko A. Petkov),
...Retros and Proof Games (editor Kostas Prentos)
Small is Beautiful!, by Sebastien Luce
Three Amigos, Part III, by Robert Lincoln
StrateGems 2011 Fairies Award, by Juraj Lorinc
StrateGems 2012 Moremovers Award, by Mike Prcic
Bournemouth 2013, by Robert Lincoln




From all these, we will see the prizes from the tourney StrateGems h#n 2012 (with n greater than 3).



Problem-715
Tichomir Hernadi
1st Prize, StrateGems 2012 h#n

8/kb1r4/2Bp4/6p1/q7/2p3bp/2r4p/4s2K (2 + 12)
h#7,5

1...Be4 2.d5 Bxc2 3.Bb8 Bxa4 4.c2 Bc6 5.c1=B Bxb7 6.Be3 Bc8 7.Ka8 Bxd7 8.Bea7 Bc6#

The wBc6 makes two roundtrips (in German : RundLauf) like the figure 8!
 

Problem-716
Kostas Prentos
2nd Prize, StrateGems 2012 h#n

8/1p5r/6q1/3p4/4r1k1/1p6/1p2S3/1K3B2 (3 + 8)
h#4,5  2 solutions

1…Sd4 2.Rh2 Bb5 3.Kh3 Se6 4.Qg3 Bd7 5.Rh4 Sf4#
1...Bh3+ 2.Kh5 Bf5 3.Rh4 Bc2 4.Qg5 Bd1 5.Rh6 Sf4#

The White forms twice a battery Knight / Bishop and the wS goes to the same square to give a model mate. There is a mirror-Echo of the mates in the two solutions. We see the self-blocks of the Black and a Pelle-move of the pinned wB. The position of the wK defines the sequence of the black moves.
 

Problem-717
Christer Jonsson, Rolf Wiehagen
3rd Prize, StrateGems 2012 h#n

8/3pK1p1/3p3p/3p1Sp1/3p1pBs/5P2/8/7k (4 + 10)
h#3,5  duplex

White plays : 1...Sxh4 2.Kh2 Sg2 3.Kg3 Se3 4.Kh4 Sf5#

Black plays : 1...Sxf5+ 2.Kf7 Se3 3.Kg6 Sg2 4.Kf5 Sh4#

Reciprocal captures. When the piece, which gives mate in another solution, is captured we have Theme Zilahi. We see model mates. The interesting part is that the knights step on the same squares, making their roundtrips, but in opposite directions!
 

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