Tourney : Ikaros 2011

Read about the International chess tourney in island Ikaria, Greece.

Select Language : Greek, English, French, German, Russian.

Bringing back checkmate (2)

Friends of chess-problems, please read this article, second in a series.
Steve Giddins writes in a very enjoyable manner about helpmates and selfmates.

New Champion of Greece, Nikos Mendrinos

The 10th Greek Championship for Solving Chess problems took place today in the Chess Club Ambelokipi in Athens, Greece.
The solvers had to solve 18 problems (9 problems per 2 hours).

Results :
1. Nikos Mendrinos, Champion of Greece, points 68 (with 90 as maximum)
2. Kostas Prentos, p. 64
3. Andreas Papastavropoulos, p. 62,5
4. Panagiotis Konidaris, p. 55
5. Panagis Sklavounos, p. 53
6. Spiliadis Athanassios, Champion Junior, p. 50,5
7-8. Papathanassiou P., p. 47,5
7-8. Skyrianoglou D., p. 47,5
9-10. Manolas E., p. 45
9-10. Anemodouras L., p. 45
11. Alexandrou, p. 40
12. Petridis, p. 36
13. Mitsakis, p. 34 (3 hours 58 minutes)
14. Delikanakis, p. 34 (4 hours)
15. Pagkali Maria, Champion in Women, p. 15 (3 hours 57 minutes, participated only in the second round)
16. Kapnia D., p. 15 (4 hours )

These details was gathered by the judge (end selector of the problems) Ioannis Garoufalidis.

We note that Kostas Prentos was holding the first position in the first nine Champioships.

A collection of studies

The friends of the OTB chess (Over The Board chess) believe that the studies (or etudes), that is chess problems composed to look like end-games, are worthy of their attention since the studies contain useful ideas.

I give below a link to a site presenting a wealth of studies, organised by composer, and of other interesting curiosities of chess composition.

The link is here, so start exploring! It is surely rewarding!

Award for Nikos Dampassis

	An honourable award was given today to Nikos Dampassis (he is 91 years old) for his devotion to chess. He was a graduate of the Military School of Evelpidon and he was a supporter of chess during the difficult years of WW2. He gave to us details about his friend Vassilios Lyris and an old photo of them. You may see there the editors of the chess magazine "To Skaki" (owner : Zorbas), which was circulating during (Italian-German) occupation and was discontinued after liberation. I hope that more biographical data will be published soon.
Below you see two frontpages of the magazine "Skakistis" (January 1972 and May 1972) presenting two of Nikos Dampassis' compositions (4# and 3#)
Problem-495 Try : {1.Rxe4? fxe4!} Key : 1.Ra4! [2.Rxa5#] 1...Rxa4 2.Be8 [3.Bc6#] 2...Rb4 3.Bc6+ Rb7 4.Bxb7# 2...Sb4 3.gxf5 zz S~ 4.Bc6# 2...Sb6+ 3.cxb6 [4.Bc6# / b7#] 1...Rxe6 2.Rxa5+ Ra6 3.Rxa6# 1...Sb4 2.Rxa5+ Sa6 3.Rxa6# 1...Sxc7 2.Rxa5+ Sa6 3.Rxa6# 1...Sb6+ 2.cxb6 [3.b7# / Rxa5#]	Problem-496 Tries : {1.Rf6+? Sxf6!}, {1.Rd7? Sf6!}, {1.Re7+? Sxe7!}, {1.Rc7? Sxc7!}, {1.Kc5? Kxe5!}, {1.Rf8? / Rb7? / g6? / Bh2? / Bg3? / Bf4? / Bh8? / Bg7? / Bd6? Sc7!}. Key : 1.Bb8! zz 1...Sc7 2.Rxc7 [3.Rf6# / Re7#] Kd6 3.Rf6# 1...S~ 2.R(x)f6# / (2.R(x)e7#)