Julia’s Fairies
Informal Tournament Retros and Proof Games 2013/2014
Award by Hans Gruber (Regensburg, Germany), International Judge of the FIDE
“In recent years, many parts of the retro genre have been strongly developing, including fairy retros and fairy proof games. As the specific characteristics of retros are quite distinct from those of other genres, it is advisable to judge them in separate tournaments. Julia’s Fairies has proven to clearly attract retro composers so that a satisfying number of originals (26 in total) competed in its first retros and proof games tournament.” ?See full Award in PDF!
With a gratitude to Hans Gruber for the willingness to judge this competition and for so fast, precise and competent work! My congratulations to the active authors and especially authors of awarded problems in this complicated genre! – Julia
What a great effort by the judge … even arranging for testing by expert solvers ! Congrats Hans Gruber for this painstaking work and award!
Indeed a well thought out award by Hans, with a lot of hard work behind it – which he hopefully enjoyed!
I had long ago abandoned “hard core” retros as something beyond my comprehension… but going through the pdf, I’m tempted to try them again..!
Yes, great job Hans, congrats! In particular concerning the amount of cooks you and your friends were able to find – indeed such a human work is actually very necessary as computers are not always enough efficient in e.g. fairy proof games.
By the way I can’t fully agree with your remark concerning “figurative entries” (where the theme is visible on the diagram position) – otherwise I would not have composed problem 589… But obviously I highly respect the fact that you don’t like much the American television series Columbo! (where the murderer is always known at the very beginning of each episode)…