First Moves
Diagram Ahoy! An attempt to bridge the gap between problemists and players. By John Roycroft
times the area was known as lusatia. Mügeln is famous today for a narrow-gauge railway link- ing local townships. he is very happy there. Now i’m not much of a com- poser—shortage of ideas and a paucity of the necessary skills account for that—but when i learned about Fiedler’s competition announced in the magazine Die Schwalbe, i thought i’d try my luck. i was particularly encour- aged by the ‘any stipulation’, which really opened the door to the imag- ination, to lateral thinking—one quality i take pride in. These competitions, or tour-
A CheSS diAgrAM will always catch the enthusiast’s eye. “who’s move is it?” is his first question. So he looks at the words that go with the diagram. when he sees “Mate in 2” or, even worse, “Selfmate” or “helpmate”, he turns the page in disgust. Composers of chess problems
have long been aware of this. Books have been written to ‘explain’ to the general chess pub- lic—your average club player is intended—what chess composi- tion is about. To little or no effect. in 2006 an energetic composer
called Frank Fiedler decided to adopt a fresh approach. To cele- brate his upcoming 50th birthday he invited composers worldwide to compose something that would appeal to players, and might attract them to the world of com- posing. he announced this as a competition, with prizes. he was careful to make plain that any stipulation—the words defining the puzzle task—would serve. he sat back to wait. Frank lived—he still lives—in
the picturesque small town of Mügeln situated between dres- den and leipzig in the south-east corner of germany. in olden
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neys, naturally have to be judged, usually by whoever thought up the idea and was providing the prizes. But Fiedler struck an original note here too. he engaged a group of over-the- board players of a range of strength to do the judging, which they would do independently of each other. That set me going. i too could be original. My thinking went along these
lines: A player will not be attracted
by any standard problem stipu- lation, so let’s find a non- standard one. There’s got to be a diagram, so let’s make the posi- tion as game-like as we can. OK —i had already dredged up from the cellar of my mind something that might serve—but what about the really big challenge, an original stipulation? The closer to a practical game poser, the better. right. A player preparing to face an opponent with known opening proclivities can always make use of a nov- elty. how about a stipulation related to an opening line cur- rently in disrepute? warming to my task—and knowing that the position i had in mind smacked of the opening—i thought of Mikhail Tal, the most charis-
Chess Life — July 2011
matic attacking player the chess world has ever known? his name would be a guarantee of hold- ing the reader’s attention. what else? was anything else required? well, since the openings realm was already invoked, and since very little is totally clear in the openings, why not challenge the reader-solver, who will be an active tournament player, to do better than the composer, just as he is motivated to beat that oppo- nent he is preparing to meet? And that is what i did. My
tourney entry is appended in its entirety, position, unique stip- ulation, and my two suggested solutions. And the composition’s fate in
the tourney? The award, when it finally appeared, was in a 96-page special-purpose brochure, lov- ingly prepared by the admirably workaholic herr Fiedler. Ah. No trace of my entry, quickly verified by scanning the diagrams. Correc- tion! There it was, in four words, in the german: Entfiel, da Forderung unklar! Or: rejected— for invalid stipulation! An aside about the sidebar to
the right: i use ‘S’ for knight, for moves, following British chess problem practice dating back a century (see the Chess Amateur, passim). This is a British prob- lemist, not player, habit, adopted a century ago to get around the awkwardness of having both K and Kt. The monthly Chess Ama- teur was largely edited by problemists, the leading one being Thomas rayner dawson. The ‘S’ was borrowed from the german Springer, deliberately avoiding the obvious ‘N’ because, to way-out problemists, N was already in use for Nightrider, the fairy piece that extends the move of the knight in a straight line to the board’s limit, by analogy with the other three pieces which all have line movements.
. The Player’s Puzzle
-+-wq-trk+ zpl+-+-zpp -+-+-+-+ snQ+-+p+- -+-vl-+-+ +-sN-+-+- PzPPzP-zPPzP tR-vL-+RmK-
Black to play
Stipulation: Black is to play in this composed game posi- tion; the diagram arises from the following ‘game’:
1. e4 e5 2. Sf3 Sc6 3. Bc4 Sf6 4. Sg5 d5 5. exd5 Sa5 6. Bb5+ c6 7. dxc6 bxc6 8. Qf3 cxb5 9. Qxa8 Bc5 10. Se4 Sxe4 11. Qxe4 0-0 12. 0-0 f5 13. Qxe5 Bd4 14. Qxb5 Bb7 15. Sc3 (see above diagram)
The player-solver challenge is to find the most Mikhail Tal- like continuation. Supporting analysis is NOT required. Your ‘solution’ is as valid as the composer’s. You are your own judge.
Composer’s solutions: 15. ... Qg5 16. Sd5 f4 17. c4 Rd8 18. d3 Bc6 19. Qxa5 Rxd5 20. Bxf4 Qxg2+ 21. Kxg2 Rg5+ 22. Kh3 Bd7+ 23. Kh4 Rg4+ 24. Kh3 Rg1+ 25. Kh4 Bf6+ 26. Bg5 Rg4+ 27. Kh3 Rxg5+ 28. Kh4 Rg1+ 29. Kh5 Bg4 mate.
or
15. ... Qa8 16. b4 Bxg2 17. bxa5 Bh1 18. Qc4+ Kh8 19. Sd5 Bxa1
The black men have moved to all four corner squares in the last five moves.
Frank Fiedler’s book can be ordered from
ralf.kraetschmer@
t-online.de, (10 euro plus postage).
uschess.org
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