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.

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UPDATE, 4 December 2015: The information is obsolete.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.

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!

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.

Piece duels

We would like to direct the attention of our readers to an article on the blog of Sergiy Didukh, where a PDF file about piece duels can be downloaded for free, helpfully labeled in the text as PDF, so it is easily found.

For information about Didukh, one is invited to read the interesting thread on MatPlus.net here.

Garry Kasparov exposed as criminal?

When I grew up, Garry Kasparov was a hero of chess, a monument that nobody could beat, although with Karpov there he was realistically a primus inter parem. Unforgettable are his many world championship games with tactical finesses. He had charisma, intellect, humor. When he ended his career, he still was regarded the best chess player of all time. While by now on paper Magnus Carlsen is stronger, a match between Kasparov and Carlsen, possibly with Fischer, all in their best years, would prove interesting.

But by today, a shadow is lurking over Garry Kasparov: He was banned by the FIDE for two years. The allegation is that Karparov paid money to Ignatious Leong, who was also banned for two years now, in the 2014 presidential election of the world chess federation to receive Asian votes. On top of the 500,000 USD there would have been another one million dollars paid if Kasparov won the election. If that is true - and currently there is little doubt about it - Kasparov at some point must have turned into a criminal, someone willing to break the law for his success. The question now is: When was that point? Was it recently? Or was it already in 1984, when the match againts Karpov was aborted under heavily discussed circumstances? Is Kasparov a criminal? As much as I hate the FIDE under Ilyumzhinov, if the allegations made are true, if the FIDE ethics commission rightfully found both guilty, then Kasparov and Leong should be banned forever, not only for two years, from holding any official FIDE position.

Buying votes is a crime (it is at least in Germany). They should not get a chance to repeat their crimes!

EG 15 survey

We would like to draw attention to a survey in EG 15, which we have replied to in detail. The Word document with the reply can be found on my Dropbox account:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/q7p2n1jyd8biqdo/EG%2015%20reply.doc?dl=0

We would like to invite other composers and judges to share their views.

Stories

I would like to share some of my own short stories with you which are not written well, but have interesting conceptual views.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/tsxgv3pr13smjj0/AADQ5u3MNAKvlO4qz9yoscZ0a?dl=0

That's all for now. Sorry, no chess related content there.

Help wanted (Introduction / I): G. Enderlein

Introduction

In the series "Help wanted" I will present things that need further investigation. It is kind of like the Chess Notes of Edward Winter, which are highly recommended, but for more obscure matters. Also because of the openness of the subjects, I recommend that you would use the comments section, including a source, unless you need to quote copyrighted / protected material. In the latter case you most likely can rephrase it to avoid conflicts. To find all episodes, please use the key word / tag "Help wanted".

If you don't want to act in public or can't sue, you can send me an e-mail. For special conditions, such as your name or quote not being used on the website, you MUST include this with the e-mail at a place where it easily is found (for example in front of the actual quote).
For security reasons, do NOT send any attachments at your first e-mail. Make sure your PC is not infected if you send any. If a virus and/or other malware is detected, I will not open it and I might blacklist the address.

-----

Help Wanted (I): G. Enderlein

Having seen the name in an issue of the Serbian e-mail newsletter of Goran Tomić named "Šahovske hronika" (likely translates to "Chess Chronicles"), we would like to reprint here the problem from there and ask if information can be found about Enderlein. His nationality is German, according to the database "Composers' Names in Various Alphabets" as of 28 July 2015, but that is the only information I can find there. There is no first name to be found, nor any city, date of birth or date of death.

G. Enderlein

Akademisches Monatsheft für Schach (134) 1910

Mate in 4

 

Please do NOT post the solution before next Tuesday.

Any information about the composer is sought. Please send it via the comments or to my e-mail address.

Herbert Ahues (2.iii.1922 - 11.vii.2015)

The international problem chess community mourns the death of GMCC Herbert Ahues at the age of 93 in a hospital in Bremen.

Links:
- Read more about Ahues in German Wikipedia (German language, permalink)
- Short obituary in English by me on MatPlus
- More than 400 problems of Herbert Ahues in the Problem Database of the Schwalbe

Impressions from Belgrade

(Note: This article uses the westernized spelling of several places. Apologies for this, but I would spell it probably even wronger otherwise.)

On the corner of Kneza Milosa and Nemanjina Street is a big scar, a leftover from a direct missile hit in the night of 29 to 30 April 1999, the 37^th day of the NATO aggression, and the night of 7 to 8 May 1999, the 45^th day of the NATO attacks against Belgrade in 1999 (see photo).

Photo by Darko Hlebec, used with permission

A short walk away from this leftover of the war is to one side Kneza Milosa 53. Directly abroad that address the former U.S. embassy building is now for sale. To the other side of the former Army Headquarters as seen in the photo along the Kneza Milosa and then one further street to the right we can find the building with the chess club of Belgrade.

I arrived first on Airport Nikola Tesla and then in Belgrade on 2 June 2015 to participate in the annual Belgrade Problem Chess Festival. On the days leading up to the festival, Darko Hlebec showed me around the city, being always helpful even when I was demanding. As a personal highlight, we visited his family where his wonderful grandmother gifted me an artistic booklet of hers. Another booklet was received on the evening of the 5^th June in the Belgrade chess club where Ivan Denkovski presented a collection of proofgames, printed in 2013. Several mini-lectures were held, including Marjan Kovačević talking about a theme by our late friend Milan Velimirović.

In the technical university of Belgrade, some blocks away from the chess club, the solving event of the Open Championship of Serbia took place on the 6^th and 7^th of June. Yours Truly immediately took the first place after the twomovers round – from behind. After the threemovers, I had achieved five points but then my specialty came up – endgame studies. One particular pawn endgame was impossible to crack for me while the study ending in stalemate was easy to solve for a full five points. The first of the set of three studies proved to be the most difficult because of the move 1.-Qd2, very hard to find, but then everything ran by itself. Yet at the end of the solution I gave a point away by giving the sideline that is in my opinion equal to the main line since the same moves with the same idea are played. I gave the sheet one minute early to the judge Ivan Denkovski. When later a dual was found in the stalemate study, several results were uprated, making that minute crucial to me being the best endgame study solver with 11 points and 99 minutes, in front of Branislav “Branko” Djurasević with 11 points and 100 minutes. So I can call myself the inofficial champion of Serbia in solving endgame studies.

After this, we went again to the chess club where we friendly sat together and composers should show one work they produced since the last meeting, so I presented my study from the Sam Isenegger MT 2014 which, as Dragan Stojnić showed me, had also appeared in the “Sahovski informator” in Afek’s column (thanks, Yochanan!). I also showed around a study I composed recently which was met with positive comments. Since currently Martin Minski and I still develop it, it is not possible to present it to the public yet, sorry!

The second day saw helpmates of which I solved one completely and a line of another one. Unfortunately I wasted my time on the too difficult one instead of the easier third one, thereby probably wasting some points. The directmates had a hellish surprise by “Rätselonkel” Fritz Giegold:

Fritz Giegold

Die Welt, 1978

Mate in 5

I had of course seen this problem a long time ago but did not remember the solution. I still remembered it was by Giegold, which should have led me to the solution but it took me 70 of the allotted 80 minutes for moremovers to find it: Can you do better?

The selfmates saw me solving the two- and threemover. I was surprised at myself. Unfortunately the fivemover proved to be a too tough nut for me, chasing the wrong idea 1.Rb1 d:e6. In the end I reached place 16 of 29 contestants and a respectable 37.5 points in 259 minutes. Of course this is far behind, but more than half of the points of winner Michel “Kajo” Caillaud (68.5 points / 327 minutes). I will look forward to seeing my half-rating (in solving you must compete in two tournaments to receive a full rating).

You can find the complete results, the problems and the solutions by clicking the links in this sentence (all PDF files).

Later on the day we visited the grave of my friend Milan, bringing the closure and possibility to honor him to me that I sought when I first came to Belgrade in 2013.

On the evening of the 8^th of June a special treat awaited those who participated in the “normal” chess club evening: Darko Hlebec just had won (shared) the draw section of the Johann Berger 170 Memorial and presented his study that ends in a wonderful end pattern. Judge Peter Krug from Austria was right in awarding the highest honors to it, even if a certain other composer disagreed because of the two inactive pieces in that position.

See video (or with this link as part of a playlist with several lectures from Belgrade).

Darko Hlebec

Johann Berger 170 MT, Draw section, 1^st/2^nd prize

White to move and draw

I give only the main line of the solution, you can find the full solution in the PDF file of thepreliminary award:

1.Ra6+! R:a6 2.S7c5+ Kb5 3.Sd4+ Q:d4 4.Q:d4 Rg6+ 5.Kf4 Sg2+ 6.K:f5 Sh4+ 7.K:e4 Rg4+ 8.f4 B:d4 9.e8Q+ Kc4! 10.Qe6+/Qf7+ Kc3 11.Sa4+ B:a4 12.Qc4+ K:c4 stalemate

Final position.

The stalemate is funny and interesting, of a certain beauty since the whole fourth rank is filled. Sergiy Didukh on his blog however complained that the two pieces on the left side, the Ba4 and Pb4, are unessential for the stalemate. However, I believe they were intentionally added by Darko, which he pretty much confirmed, and they do contribute in my opinion to the overall final picture.

As all journeys will reach their end, so did mine. Armed with one painting bought from street painter Zoran and with the 8 June 2015 issue of “Politika” in my luggage that featured our solving competition on page 29, I left Belgrade on the early morning of 9 June 2015 by plane. For a short moment prior to the landing it did not look good: We flew through clouds and suddenly something black seemed to show up below the wing – smoke? No, as it turned out, the weather in Germany just made the ground look rather dark. We arrived safely, and as the customs police officer told me I did not have to pay taxes for the beautiful painting showing the back of a half-naked young woman. It might not be Jan Vermeer’s Maiden with the Pearl Earring, but I don’t think any other German has a painting of Zoran from Belgrade in his apartment?

As we say in Germany: Ein schöner Rücken / kann entzücken.

Halldór Ásgrímsson (8.ix.1947 - 18.v.2015)

We have seen news that Halldór Ásgrímsson has died. He was prime minister of Iceland when it granted refuge to my childhood hero Bobby Fischer in March 2005 from the United States. No three years later, on January 17, 2008, Bobby Fischer died at the symbolic age of 64.

There is an interesting historic article on the Icelandic politics of that time on grapevine.is, an online magazine from Iceland's capital Reykjavik.

(We believe that as of writing this blog post en-Wikipedia's date of 19.v.2015 is incorrect, de-Wikipedia gives 18.v.2015 with the source Iceland Review Online.)

Congratulations to the Klarsfeld couple!

We would like to congratulate our almost president Beate Klarsfeld and her husband Serge Klarsfeld for receiving the Bundesverdienstkreuz, the highest civil honor of Germany. (The both links are to de-Wikipedia, en-wikipedia has an article on them as a couple.)

Beate Klarsfeld is a famous nazi hunter, most well known are her contributions to the capture of war criminal Klaus Barbie as well as her controversial bitchslap against alleged nazi criminal Kurt Georg Kiesinger while he was chancellor of Germany in 1968.

Europa Rochade commendation. ŠAH-MAT still infringing

While we do not want in any way to endorse the magazine, our journalistic principles necessitate, after we had warned earlier, now to commend the Europa Rochade for acknowledging the composers of chess problems and studies now, thereby being mostly in accordance with the Codex for Chess Composition. This can be seen for fellow composers as an example that they should complain at such magazines.

Indeed, we would like to see the same kind of e-mail sent against the magazine ŠAH-MAT as we sent against the Europa Rochade. Unfortunately we have a language barrier there.

Milan Velimirović 64 Memorial Tourney (announcement)

 Milan Velimirović 64 Memorial Tourney (21.04.2015 – 21.04.2016) 

The Serbian Problem Chess Society announces Memorial tourney devoted to Grandmaster Milan Velimirović. There will be three sections in Milan’s favourite thematic fields: direct #2 and #3, without fairy elements. 

A) Single-phase #2

Judge: Barry Barnes (Great Britain).

B) Multi-phase #2 with cyclic combination named Velimirović Attack

Judge: Touw Hian Bwee (Indonesia).

C) #3 – free theme

Judge: Hans-Peter Rehm (Germany). 

With the selection of sections and judges, whose work and friendship Milan especially admired, we tried to remain faithful to his unique spirit. 

Group A covers the field Milan loved and suggested in his concept of the 7th WCCT theme, believing it would give composers many hours of pleasure. 

Group B is devoted to one of Milan’s favourite cyclic invention. Contrary to group A, it will be a real challenge for composers to compete with the small number of existing examples, all composed by Milan himself. The definition and the name of the theme were suggested by him, in the article published in Mat Plus Review Summer 2008”, pages 100-103: 

“In tries White self-invalidates two out of three thematic elements, which are almost inevitably white lines. Each try provides compensation for one invalidation so that black can utilize only the remaining one to reject the try. In this way all thematic tries contain two degrees of attack, i.e. each one is at the same time a correction and an error to be corrected.” 

Link: http://matplus.net/pub/VelimirovicAttack.pdf 

Group C represents the field where Milan produced some of his best known masterpieces. It is not devoted to cyclic concepts only, because Milan loved all kinds of attractive chess ideas. 

The closing date, April 21st 2016 will mark Milan’s 64th birthday – the milestone he found to be the most appropriate one for a chess player or composer. 

The method of entering originals for the tourney directly to the Mat Plus website (with automatic confirmation) was created by Milan (click “Originals” on the main Mat Plus Menu on the left side). It is one of his numerous sophisticated tools for the benefit of chess composition. Composers unable to use it may send their entries by e-mail to the Mat Plus administrator: borislav.gadjanski@gmail.com.

PLEASE REPRINT!

 http://matplus.net/pub/MilanVelimirovic_64_MT.pdf

Nur die Besten sterben Junge

Yesterday or today, 70 years ago, one of the greatest German chess players of all time fell in the last days of the madness brought upon Germany and the world by the nazi regime, the World War II.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Klaus_Junge&oldid=641422473

If Germany ever could have had a world champion after Lasker again, Junge would have without a doubt been a contestant.

His gravestone can be seen here:
http://www.kwabc.org/archive/Home/graeber_02.htm

Just a thought

Where there is no hard evidence, only what history wants to remember will ultimately be considered the truth.

WCCT 10 Announcement

The WCCT 10 has been announced in memorial of the late Uri Avner. The announcement is available on the website of the WFCC:
http://www.wfcc.ch/10th-wcct-announcement/
http://www.wfcc.ch/competitions/composing/10-wcct/

Yours Truly hopes to be able to participate again. An article on section D will be written for eg with several more studies.

The themes unfortunately can't be copied easily without breaking their markup, resulting in ugly empty lines and other issues. For the full announcement, including regulations and examples, please visit the website given above and download/open the PDF document.

An incredible move

We would like to draw attention to the game of Denis Khismatullin vs. Pavel Eljanov, played on 6 March 2015 in the European Individual Championship in Israel. After 43 moves, the following position was reached:

 White to move

There are five possible moves for White: 44.Ra1, 44.Re1, 44.f4+, 44.h4+ and 44.Qe7+. Let us analyze them.

• 44.Ra1 Rf6 45.f4+ Kh4 46.Qh6+ Kg3 47.Qg5+ Kh2 48.Q:f6 Qe2 mate (or 48.Qg4 h5 49.Qf3 Q:c6 or even stronger 49.-h4! and Black wins).
• 44.Re1 Rf6 45.f4+ Kh4 46.Qh6+ Kg3 47.Qg5+ Kh2 48.c7 Rc6! and Black wins, or 48.Q:f7 Q:g2 mate.
• 44.f4+ Kh4 45.Q:d6 Q:d1+ 46.Kf2 Qe2+ 47.Kg1 Q:e3+ 48.Kh2 Qg3+ 49.Kg1 Qe1+ 50.Kh2 leads to perpetual check.
• 44.h4+ Kh5 45.g4+ K:g4 leaves White in a difficult situation, where 46.Q:f7!! Q:d1+ 47.Kg2 leads to a draw, according to the computer.
• 44.Qe7+ Rf6 45.f4+ Kh6 46.Qf8+ Kh5 is dangerous for White, although here also 47.Kg1!! draws, according to the computer.

It seems obvious that White should play 44.f4+ with a rather easy draw then. Of course, there is no possible way to win.

It did not matter that day. Khismatullin found an impossible way to win.
44.Kg1!!
Wait, what? The rook hangs with check, Black has an incredible passed pawn, and he still is lost? Indeed. The real depth of the trouble can be seen by the computer giving 44.-Rd5(!!) and 44.-Q:c6 as the best suggestions, both of which leave White with a big advantage but Black could fight for a draw. It really is difficult to give a question mark to the next move, although it objectively deserves one.
44.-Q:d1+?
This loses soon, but it is difficult to see why. Most likely Black assumed Khismatullin was going for a draw in style.
45.Kh2 R:c6 46.Qe7+ Kh6 47.Qf8+ Kg5
With a draw, after all, Eljanov might have thought.
 48.Q:f7!!

 Black to move

Black has every advantage in this position - active pieces, a rook up, a dangerous passed pawn - except one: The king's security. And as unfair as it is, no matter how good you have played and how many advantages you collected: if you are checkmated, you lose.

And Black will be checkmated sooner or later. The game lasted for another nine moves, which will be given without further comment.

An incredible position we have in this diagram, great play by Khismatullin!

48.-Rf6 49.f4+ Kh6 50.Q:f6 Qe2 51.Qf8+ Kh5 52.Qg7! h6 53.Qe5+ Kh4 54.Qf6+ Kh5 55.f5! g:f5 56.Q:f5+ Kh4 57.Qg6 and Black gave up.

As a postscriptum it should be added that both did not take a top rank. The tournament was won by Jewgeni Najer, in front of David Navara and Mateusz Bartel. If there was a beauty prize, however, this 44.Kg1 would have deserved it.

Thanks to fellow historian Wolfgang Pieper (Osnabrück) for telling me about the game!

Warning against Europa Rochade

We must warn against the Europa Rochade, as it violates the codex of chess compositions, article 21 on pages 59 and 65 of the March 2015 issue by not naming the sources of the problems and studies presented.


UPDATE, 1 May 2015: The Europa Rochade now shows author's names everywhere, so that is enough of a win for us.

An idea for the first 100 Mars colonists

Since Mars is a different world, you can have your own world chess champions. Do it! :-)

Study of the Year 2013

An expert gremium has selected the "Study of the Year 2013", which is not the best study of the year but the best one to promote chess composition to a general public. Last night Dr. Harold van der Heijden (Netherlands) has sent the e-mail (the small error in the linking was there in the original mail but the link itself works):

Dear all,

The Study of the Year 2013 has been selected!

The marvellous study of Pavel Arestov can be downloaded here:

www.arves.org/PDF-Awards/The%20Study%20of%20the%20Year%202013%20-%20study.pdf

www.arves.org/PGN-Awards/SOY%202013%20Arestov.pgn

Every year we select a Study of the Year to popularize endgame studies among the general chess public. Therefore I ask you to publish it in your magazine or on your website. Please also refer to: www.arves.org/English/index.htm

Further details (report, all studies submitted, and the scores of the judges) can be found here:

www.arves.org/English/StudyOfTheYear2013.htm

www.arves.org/PDF-Awards/SOY%202013.pdf

www.arves.org/PGN-Awards/SOY%202013.pgn

Best wishes,

Harold van der Heijden

Spokesman of the endgame study subcommittee of the WFCC

 For the convenience of the reader, the study is reproduced here.

Pavel Arestov

Jenever tourney 2013, prize

White to move and draw

1.d7 Ke5! 2.Sd3+! Ke4! 3.Sf2+!! B:f2 4.d8Q Sd4+

5.Kc5!!, and:

5.-Se6+ 6.Kd6 S:d8 stalemate (left diagram)

5.-Rh5+! 6.Kb6!!/i Se6+ 7.Ka6 S:d8 stalemate (right diagram)

i - 6.Kc4? Rc5+! 7.K:c5 reaches the position after the fifth move, but without the Rh7. Now 7.-Se6+ 8.Kd6 S:d8 wins since the king can enter the seventh rank. This is known among experts as the "WCCT 7 theme" since it was required for White in that tourney that ran from 2001 to 2004.

         

Left: Stalemate after 5.-Se6+

Right: Stalemate after 5.-Rh5+

Odds and Ends

When I grew up, success used to be something meaningful, something like a big medical discovery, a cure for pox, a political breakthrough, signing the START papers, a big scientific thing, the first man on the moon.

Nowadays it is having nuclear war averted for one more day...

The explosion at Donetsk on 8 February 2015 should be a wake-up call. How easy would it have been to mistake it for a nuclear explosion, just as some onlookers did!
I have played through many nuclear retaliation scenarios in my head, and all except one resulted in a nuclear holocaust. Usually Russia would score a short term victory thanks to the superior MARV technology where the MIRV of the western allies such as the United States would have trouble penetrating. In the end, however it would come down to the post-war effects which would be disastrous. If humanity was to survive, then we would still have a large scale catastrophe similar to an extinction event.

The one scenario that DID end well included a single nuclear missile shot by the western allies onto unoccupied Russian territory that would be let through, explodes with minor casualties, as a warning. It would include a high risk by Russia - after all, who knows that the missile does not change its course in the end - and a highly increased threat of a nuclear holocaust for the next between 1 to 2 and 5 to 20 years, equaling a Doomsday Clock set to between 0.30 and 1.30 minutes.

Humanity is at a turning point. Either it survives the nuclear age united, which would mean that finally people understand there is a lot more to lose than to gain, or it falls divided. There might be an alternative, but I fail to see it. Maybe humanity can survive divided, but at some point the climate change, the outer threats by asteroids, will not leave any other choice than to unite. The threat comes from humanity itself, but also from other places, those beyond control, those where a divided humanity no matter with what good intentions might not be enough to survive... or to avert its extinction for one more day.

Afek 64 Jubilee Tourney (31.1.2016)

The Israeli chess composition society (ICCS) announces an endgame study tourney to celebrate the 64th birthday, on 16 April 2016, of the composer and promoter of the art of the endgame study Yochanan Afek.

Theme: free

Maximum 2 entries per composer; Joint compositions are allowed.

Closing date: 31/1/2016

The award will be published in "Variantim" in mid-2016.

Total prize fund: 1400 US$. 5 money prizes: 400$, 300, 250, 200, 100 and additional 150$ value in books prizes.

Judge: Yochanan Afek.

Tourney director: Amatzia Avni

Send your original studies (diagram, detailed solutions and postal address) by e-mail (avniam@zahav.net.il) or by post (Amatzia Avni, 9 Oranim, Givaat-Shmuel 54052, Israel). Studies sent by e-mail should be in Word or PDF; an additional attached pgn file would be appreciated.

Please reprint!

Estj task babsona!?

We would like to direct attention to a beautiful Russian article by Vladimir Tyapkin on the early AUW and Babson problems:
http://ru-chess-art.livejournal.com/35856.html

On humor, or why we all are Charlie

The terroristic attacks of two fanatic young man who killed two policemen and 10 members and visitors of the office of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, the "weekly Charlie", on 7 January 2015 in Paris have seen manifold reactions. I have sent an e-mail of my support to the three French composers I cooperated with, but I also feel it is time for a personal reaction, a defense for the work of the heroes of the pen that have been slaughtered by infidels - and you can not call "islamic" terrorists anything else whose first act of "avenging the prophet" is killing a 42 year old muslim (and another policeman). If their religion is true, they can be sure that Allah will send them to hell for this act, no matter what else they did on that day or on the rest of their life. The Quran that I have read does not say "Make sure to kill some muslim to avenge the prophet. Also Allah is either not almighty because otherwise I would just give people I want to kill a heart attack or a bad judge because I don't kill people that you think insult me or my prophet. So please play the almighty judge that Allah is not."

Wait, your Quran also does not say that? Makes you wonder if there is a special Quran version for terrorists, just like the Jehovah's witnesses make their own version of the Bible.

So yes, let us start with humor in the wake of the unspeakable. If I see the caricature of R.L. Oppenheimer where a plane is seen flying into one of two tall pens clearly resembling the terroristic attacks of 11 September 2001 I do not think that the writer disrespects any of the victims of that attack, but that he rather takes the symbolism behind those pictures, behind those attacks. He takes the unspeakable, the attack against the freedom of speech, and blends it with the back then unspeakable, the attack on freedom. This picture symbolises perfectly what happened on the attacks while simply putting the death toll aside, making it "just 12 more victims of an endless war" and showing instead the essence of the attacks, the truth that is so cruel that humor is the only weapon against it.

There was a famous joke in the 1930s in Stalin's Russia: A jewish businessman falls into a river in a big Russian city and two guards (policemen maybe) come by. He cries for help, but the guards don't react. So he starts screaming "Down with Stalin!" and the guards jump into the river and help him out.

This joke was as much resembling its time as Oppenheimer's caricature resembles our time. It took the unspeakable, the pogroms that went on in Russia - in hindsight you could not even replace it with nazi Germany because of the different mentality of genocide - and it took the essence of all the things that were wrong into one construct: Antisemitism, the twisted Russian values of that time, and the Führerkult around Stalin. Does this joke disrespect jews? Hardly so, since it is jewish, it is the very essence of jewish humor. In the light of unspeakable pain and suffering, when nothing else remains, the joke, the humor, still is there, even if it comes in the form of a dark cynism. In a world of hate, it is the only weapon that helps to cope with life, the only means of self-expression, of just for one moment feeling a small bit of joy inside.

Coming back to the present time, David Pope's caricature which is quoted on the page linked above shows a subtle sense of humor, assuming but not requiring the knowledge of the phrase that the pen is mightier than the sword. Behind the punchline - "He drew first!", a pun on unholstering a weapon as well as drawing a picture - the bigger question is asked to society: Is the pen also mightier than the Kalashnikov? Will the free world react to terrorism by self-censorship, or will it just now, as a reaction, take out the caricatures that it did not dare to show? Will the terrorists in the end have gotten what they wanted, or will they get the exact opposite? Does the caricaturist deserve to die from the terrorist, or is the terrorist unjustified in his means, is he someone who broke the moral event horizon as Oppenheimer's caricature would imply? These are the questions hidden under Pope's punchline, the seemingly obvious joke turns into a deeply philosophical, an even religious discussion about the meaning of freedom, life and humor.

Let us not lose the respect that Albert Uderzo shows to the staff of Charlie Hebdo, but also to caricaturists, to the free press, worldwide by having his two most known heroes bow down in an act of reverence, transcending the border between history and reality, between humor and tragic, between the essence of life and death. But let us also show the finger to terrorism, to the people who think that they can win against the pen while they already have lost this war. That is, unless now society decides to commit self-censorship, unless we decide to lose! Just as you can not suppress humanity forever, you also can not suppress humor!

In the end, I can only repeat the words of Tim Wolff of the German satirical magazine "Titanic": Es lebe der Witz! Or, as our French friends would express it: Le humour est mort, vive le humour!