JF Original Problems | January 2021
The judge of JF-2021: not appointed yet.
The judge of Retro & PG problems 2021-2022: not appointed yet.
Coming soon: Dmitrij Baibikov (Israel), Ľuboš Kekely (Slovakia)
Animated diagrams use Py2Web by Dmitri Turevski and WinChloe‘s graphics, Christian Poisson
JF Original Problems | December, 2020
The judge of JF-2020/II: Hans Gruber.
The judge of Retro & PG problems 2019-2020: Vlaicu Crișan.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2021 !
My very best wishes to everybody!
(19.12.) Julia’s illness is over! ⇒
Animated diagrams use Py2Web by Dmitri Turevski and WinChloe‘s graphics, Christian Poisson
What happens in our Going Forward to Light and Order project? While I haven’t followed the project for about 3 weeks, the team was continuously discovering new highlights and new questions as well. Tonight I couldn’t provide any summary of the current situation, but let me show you some moments jumped into my eyes. Later on the members of the team might comment something more, and of course, all of us would appreciate your comments (and joining to the team as well! 🙂 )
Shankar always makes some nice graphical presentations for us. So, I’d like to share something with you:
“I did a small analysis of the way Leapers evolve into Riders, Hoppers and other related types. This scheme generates 116 different pieces – some of them possibly not yet used and/or named!
Note: the 116 pieces are generated from only the 3 basic leapers: Wazir, Fers and Wazir+Fers(Erlking). Another 63 can be added with the Knight evolving into Nightrider/Rose, N-Hopper, Nao, N-Lion, etc. Adding up to 179 Pieces!”
Of course, the discussion goes in different directions, and can go continuously deeper and deeper, as Vlaicu commented:
Human imagination has actually no limits! 🙂
“What we need to do immediately is make a selection of some popular elements belonging to each of the main groups and fill out the intended details like history, popularity, supporting software and example problems to put into a publicly viewable and searchable database on JF. This will give some immediate benefit and feedback. We can then fine tune our work to improve it further.” (Shankar)
Thanks a lot to everybody involved!
JF Original Problems | November, 2020(2)
The judge of JF-2020/II: Hans Gruber.
The judge of Retro & PG problems 2019-2020: Vlaicu Crișan.
Coming soon: nobody in the waiting list…
Animated diagrams use Py2Web by Dmitri Turevski and WinChloe‘s graphics, Christian Poisson
Going Forwardby Shankar Ram
Our chess problem field is not gaining as many new followers as it should. There is a competition for ways to spend leisure time: various other board and video games – most of them available online, as well as the old ways like music, movies, serials, sports – again mostly online. Also, the regular game is experiencing a boom, with more OTB and online tournaments. But here too, players are less interested in chess problems, than before.
In this atmosphere, we should try to make our hobby as attractive as possible for newcomers. The biggest area in chess problems is the category of fairy chess. Here, more and more new forms are being invented. The easy availability of chess problem solving software is probably helping in this. But this has created a big obstacle for the newcomer, who might well be scared away by the plethora of incomprehensible terms under the diagrams!
Therefore, this project is an attempt to provide an easy and helpful way for a newcomer to find the definition of an unfamiliar fairy element, as well as some additional information about its history, popularity, software supporting this element and of course, some carefully selected example problems which bring out the characteristics of the element.
In the process of this project, we need to classify the various elements into groups and sub-groups, along with linkages between similar elements – in short, produce a taxonomy or knowledge organisation of fairy chess elements. This will aid understanding, meet the human need for orderliness, and help to check whether a particular element is already existing.
Of course, various sources are available online, many of which meet the above objectives. These have been used as the basis or foundation for this project. All of them have been listed and acknowledged. However, all of them have some shortcomings in terms of completeness, being up-to-date, clarity, example problems and organisation. Our project is an attempt to address all these shortcomings.
We welcome all comments and suggestions!
A great work to classify fairy elements has been already done mostly by Shankar Ram and Chris Tylor! (Julia)
JF Original Problems | November, 2020
The judge of JF-2020/II: Hans Gruber.
The judge of Retro & PG problems 2019-2020: Vlaicu Crișan.
Coming soon: nobody in the waiting list…
Animated diagrams use Py2Web by Dmitri Turevski and WinChloe‘s graphics, Christian Poisson
Fairy Classification project: step 1
Our Fairy Classification project has started, motivated by the great enthusiasm and good will of Chris Tylor and Shankar Ram! Now our small group is moving from the Preliminary questions to the next steps. The main ideas of this post are :
On this first step we’re very grateful to:
If anybody still feels himself enthusiastic about our project – please, join us! Your suggestions and info about sources, classification, fairy definitions, historical facts, etc, may help a lot!
JF Original Problems | October, 2020 (2)
The judge of JF-2020/II: Hans Gruber.
The judge of Retro & PG problems 2019-2020: Vlaicu Crișan.
Coming soon: nobody in the waiting list…
Animated diagrams use Py2Web by Dmitri Turevski and WinChloe‘s graphics, Christian Poisson
Fairy Classification: preliminary questions
If the project of creating some better database of fairy elements might succeed? If we’re ready to jump into it? Who would be ready to join the team? What is the order and what’s the freedom? And what’s is the main purpose of this database?
Let me quote the words of Chris Tylor’s comment which has just appeared: “I now propose that we go back to basics and make the overall aim of our new database not so much to produce order as to give light – to show users new properties and applications of a range of fairy elements, together with the way in which they relate to other elements (or perhaps stand alone), and maybe in the process point users to ways in which new advances might be made.” – Agree!
Let’s summarize the most important ideas from about 80 comments to Fairy Statistics post:
1. Statistics about fairy elements
2. INTRO to the classification: questions to the definitions of the classes, by Dmitri Turevski
3. Preliminary Classification, suggestions by Chris Tylor and Shankar Ram
4. Sources of information for classification and definitions
If we’re getting into this project, from the moment when the new database appears and has some entries I can start presenting it on JF. So, it might get in use before the whole project might be considered as finished or being up to date 🙂
For now I’ve created a GoogleSheet document Fairy-Classification for online work. The statistics and preliminary classification groups already included for future correction. I’d like to ask Shankar Ram to accept my invitation to be the main moderator of this project. The right to view/edit the document will be granted to all members of the team.
Welcome to join the project!
Your comments and updates are highly appreciated!
18th TZUICA TOURNEY AWARD – 2020ORTHODOX SECTION: Almost half of the received entries were orthodox. We had 19 entries from 13 composers from 10 countries. The overall level of the section was average, with no really outstanding compositions. We hoped to see more Schnoebelen promotions in Rook and Bishop, but alas, the Queen and Knight promotions prevailed. Due to the lack of surprise element, we decided to start our award from Honourable Mentions.
FAIRY SECTION: We must admit this section exceeded our expectations, due to the out-of-the-box interpretations of the theme. In spite of the rather reduced participation (23 entries from 19 composers from 9 countries), the level of the tournament was quite high, with many problems worth retaining. We could hardly refrain ourselves from including all of them in the award!
