by Juraj Lörinc
Opening Words from the Editor:
It is no secret among chess composers that already for some time I am trying to advocate compositions where White and Black are really fighting one another, just like in the most common direct mates. Obviously, fight of two sides is not limited to direct mates, it can be found in selfmates, reflex mates, their cousins with different aims (stalemate, check, etc.), then in fairy problems introducing fairy pieces or fairy conditions with the same stipulations, various kinds of retractors, and obviously in endgame studies too. -> more
All this is in opposition to helpmates, helpselfmates and similar genres, where both sides cooperate for the large part of the solution. Cooperative genres are currently much more popular among composers. Why? Reasons can vary, but in general, it is much easier to motivate help play than antagonistic play with the similar intensity of effects.
Yet, there are many ideas that are unfit (if not impossible to show) for help-genres. With the shift of popularity, such ideas are in my view under-represented in the current chess composition press, both paper and electronic publications.
The present e-zine – named Conflictio for obvious reason – hopes to become a small counterweight to the described shift. It will be dedicated to problems with antagonistic stipulations (rare exceptions possible).
While I have a good idea about its future content (commented reproductions of problems, focused articles, possibly TTs and maybe also originals column, if the e-zine catches up), I do not dare to predict anything about frequency of publication. Most probably it will be irregular, depending on the available time and material for publication. The same goes for the size – It might be just one-pager in some cases or quite long – depending on the circumstances.
The key content for me are comments to published problems. Nowadays you can find more problems in databases than you can study in your lifetime. But comments are an uncommon asset, while good and deep comments are a very rare asset. I hope to provide valuable ones.
Your comments, e-mails and even contributions are welcome – however the final decision about content published in Conflictio is mine. I hope you will like the new e-zine. – Juraj Lörinc
Two first issues of the Conflictio are added to the Articles section of JF: Conflictio No.1 (04.03.2018) | Conflictio No.2 (18.03.2018)
