Friday, February 20, 2015

Sunday, February 15, 2015

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:
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:
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+

Saturday, February 14, 2015

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.

Thursday, February 5, 2015

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!