Julia – Page 8 – Julia's Fairies

Originals December 2021

Julia's Fairies original problems December 1, 2021 December 27, 2021 Leave a comment

JF Original Problems | December, 2021

The judge of JF-2021/II is Shankar Ram, who will judge JF fairy section for the 3^rd time (JF-2012 / Award ; JF-1017-0318 / Award)! Oh, I felt guilty to invite this so much overloaded man again, but he’s as Santa coming to us with Christmas gifts, always positive, always reliable! Shankar is active in composing and judging, in FCCP project, in virtual online meetings with Indian composers, following WFCC activity and many other websites related to chess composition, still working in IT and currently enjoying discovering Chromebook!
Anything else? 🙂 . Welcome, Shankar! And thank you very much!

The judge of Retro & PG problems 2021-2022: Thomas Brand.

Coming soon: Velmurugan Nallusamy (India);
questionable problems moved to the end of queue: James Malcom (USA), Sergey Shumeiko (Russia), János Csák & Béla Majoros (Hungary)

(22.12) No.1676 (Retro ; add pieces for an illegal cluster) Bojan Bašić (Serbia). “In comparison to the Baibikov & Keym’s problem (feenschach III–IV/2019, Nr. 12009; also WJP 2019, 2.-3. Place ex æquo), here we have twice as many pieces in the initial position!” (Author)
(22.12) No.1675 (#2 ; Berolina pawns) Ralf Krätschmer (Germany). Dedication to Stephan Dietrich 50. Birthday. “A #2 with Berolina pawns and a theme which was a great discussion in the MAT-Plus Forum” (Author)
(19.12) No.1674 (hs#4) Borislav Gadjanski (Serbia). “The mechanism uses all 8×8 space of the board, and all 4 edges.” (Author)
(19.12) No.1673 (h#2 ; Circe) Menachem Witztum (Israel).
(19.12) No.1524-2.1 (-30 & #1 Proca ; Anti-Circe) Dmitrij Baibikov (Israel). The problem in a process for about 1.5 years, first version – No.1524 (JF-R2019-20) – published in July,2020!
(12.12) No.1672 (PG 9.5 ; Pandemic) Mario Parrinello (Italy). The Pandemic condition invented by Alexandre Leroux, 2020.
(11.12) Dear composers, I have a tight time at the end of year. Mostly office work, plus more of original problems expected at the end of cycle. Also updating wfcc.ch and preparing ecsc2022.wfcc.ch. I would very much like to help you to publish your problems this year. But, planning today several hours to publish all I’ve got, I’m facing the fact that none of 6(!) entries are really ready for publication. Something is missing or not working and I’ve spent most of my time for writing requests. So, please, if you’d like to be published this year, the entry should have: notation and diagram for initial position, solution in full notation (departure and arrival squares), if computer tested and what program used. Thank you!
(11.12) No.1651.1 (h#2 ; LEO, PAO, VAO, Grasshopper, Nightriderhopper) Michal Dragoun (Czech Republic). In the comment to No.1651 author wrote: “A little pity is RHg4…”. So, no RHg4 anymore in this version!
(05.12) No.1671 (hs#3 ; LEO, PAO, VAO) Kjell Widlert (Sweden) & Thomas Maeder (Switzerland). “Started for the Tzuica tourney in Rhodes…” (Authors)
(04.12) No.1670 (#2 ; Nightrider, Half-Neutral pieces) Kjell Widlert (Sweden). “The theme from SuperProblem 232-TT doubled…” (Author)
(04.12) No.1669 (PG 10.5) Velmurugan Nallusamy (India). “Schnoebelen & Prentos theme doubled” (Author)
(01.12) No.1668 (h=10.5 ; Blac kMaximummer, White Maximummer) Kıvanç Çefle (Turkey). Warm welcome to Kıvanç!

Animated diagrams use Py2Web by Dmitri Turevski and WinChloe‘s graphics, Christian Poisson

An update to JF 10 JT

Tournamens, JF November 26, 2021 November 26, 2021 Leave a comment

An important update to JF 10 JT

Maximum number of pieces: 15
The discount works up to the deadline for submissions, 10.02.2022 🙂
The maximum number of pieces changed from 12 to 15 considering some further thoughts and some of your comments.

The Jubilee composing tournament JF 10 JT dedicated to 10 years of JF (10.04.2012-10.04.2022) | announcement in PDF

Let’s find and show something the best of what we know the best!

Originals November 2021

Julia's Fairies original problems November 12, 2021 November 26, 2021 Leave a comment

JF Original Problems | November, 2021

The judge of JF-2021/II: not appointed yet.
The judge of Retro & PG problems 2021-2022: Thomas Brand.

Coming soon: nobody in the waiting list

(26.11) No.1667 (h#2 ; Loco, Faro) Franz Pachl (Germany).
(14.11) No.1666 (h=17 ; Mirror Circe) Sergei Shumeiko (Russia). Author writes he was able to test only 6 last moves with Popeye, but intuitively feels the problem is correct.
(12.11) No.1665 (hs#3 ; Take & Make) Borislav Gadjanski (Serbia). The idea for the 19^th Tzuica not finished by Borislav in time. “3×2 paradoxical Pelle movements” (Author)
(12.11) No.1664 (PG 8 ; Sentinels) Mario Parrinello (Italy).

Animated diagrams use Py2Web by Dmitri Turevski and WinChloe‘s graphics, Christian Poisson

JF 10 JT (C10.02.2022)

Tournamens, JF November 10, 2021 January 8, 2022 14 Comments

JF 10 JT

Julia’s Fairies is pleased to announce the Jubilee composing tournament JF 10 JT
Dedicated to 10 years of JF (10.04.2012-10.04.2022)

Let’s find and show something the best of what we know the best!

The background: on April 10th, 2022 the JF website will celebrate its 10 years. see/hide more…

By that time about 1700 original fairy problems will be published. Some problems are pleasant little things, some others are head breaking complexes. And some are only for the selected groups of experts or followers. On JF, new ideas and new fairy elements are mixed with the old ones. And I hope JF has something to offer to each fairy taste!
It took me a while to make some decisions about the thematic condition for this JT, after consulting Kjell Widlert, who generously accepted to be the judge. No, I didn’t want to limit it to the promotion of a concrete fairy element and to receive many similar problems in the award. Also, it wouldn’t be fair to offer only my favourites, and I didn’t want to have no restrictions at all, as in the informal tournaments.
Then, coming to the beginning: creating JF I wanted to learn about the world of fairies together with all of you: while publishing your problems, while reading comments. It turned out that the variety of fairy elements is too big (around 2.700!), and nobody is really able to follow the play in all of them. Each of us selects some problems for their own taste and ability to understand (and to enjoy!).
As the result of this tournament, I’d like to have the selection of “reader-friendly” fairy problems. I’d like them to be accepted by newcomers and enjoyable for experienced composers. Let it be a touch of the most popular fairy elements of the last 10 years, to mark that period and to promote fairy chess!
Christian Poisson was so kind as to make for me a statistic for fairy pieces and conditions from Echecs database, with the numbers of problems using them since 2012. The same kind of extraction I’ve made from JF’s database. I have taken the top 21 of fairy pieces and the top 21 of conditions from both of them, selected those matching ones, removed several too complicated/doubtful for the idea… and finally made a list of most popular fairy elements of the last 10 years. So, please, let’s find and show something the best of what we know the best!

Theme: Unpin of any kind. The unpinned piece may be white, black or neutral, and unpinning may be done by any side, in any way: interposition, withdrawal, K move, etc. For this tourney, we define a pin to be a situation where a random move by one piece would cause its own K to be in check from one or more enemy pieces = the pinner(s). An unpin is any move that eliminates this situation, including self-unpin (the pinned piece makes a move that eliminates the pin) but excluding captures of the pinned piece that remove it from the board.

THIS MEANS THAT WE NOW ALLOW SELF-UNPINS WHERE THE PINNED PIECE CAPTURES THE PINNER, AND ALSO ALLOW CAPTURES OF THE PINNED PIECE AS LONG AS IT IS REBORN SOMEWHERE ELSE ON THE BOARD (SO IT IS NOW UNPINNED). (update 08.01.2022)

Stipulations for three sections: (A) #2-4; (B) h#2-4; (C) hs#3-4
Maximum number of pieces: 15

Fairy pieces and conditions: The idea of the tournament is to present most popular fairy pieces and conditions of the last 10 years. Problems should have at least one fairy piece or fairy condition, and at most two different fairy pieces/families, and/or at most two different fairy conditions from the lists below. Any other fairy pieces or conditions are not allowed.

See/hide accepted fairy pieces and conditions

Number of entries per composer: 3 entries per composer in total, in one section only or spread over several sections.

Joint problems: Allowed; a joint work counts as 1 for the group of composers, and less than 1 for each of them (if there are 2 composers of the joint problem, it’s counted as 0.5 entry for each).

Deadline: February 10^th 2022

Judge: Kjell Widlert

Tournament director: Julia Vysotska
Please, send computer tested problems only (indicate the program used for testing), to julia@juliasfairies.com

Results and prize giving: May 15^th 2022 in Riga, at the closing ceremony of the 15^th ECSC.

Prize fund €450 : Three prizes in each section, each prize €50.

See Examples in the PDF announcement JF10JT. Welcome to take part!!! – Julia

Correction to Award JF-Retros-PG-2019-2020

Awards, JF November 10, 2021 November 10, 2021 Leave a comment

The Award JF-Retros-PG-2019-2020 is updated with the Annex 2 (on the last page) by the request of the judge, Vlaicu Crișan:

“In the initial award I decided not to award a prize to the problem 1223.2 from the “Other Retro Section”, due to the existence of a predecessor. However, the aforementioned problem is actually the correction of the original problem 1223 published in 4^th June 2017, published two years before the predecessor.

The correction 1223.2 was published in 24^th June 2019, two years after the publication of the original setting. In accordance with the first paragraph of the article 23 from the Codex, if a published chess composition is found to be unsound, it loses its priority date unless a correction is published within three years after the publication of the unsoundness. That also means 1223.2 can’t be penalized for this reason and my decision to downgrade it to the 1^st Honourable Mention must be reconsidered.

To be fair, based on the assessment criteria used in the award, this problem must actually be placed on the top of the section. However, lowering the initial place of the higher ranked problems after the award is published can be perceived as an injustice.

Therefore, my decisions are the following => see/hide more…

Originals October 2021 (2)

Julia's Fairies original problems October 30, 2021 November 12, 2021 Leave a comment

JF Original Problems | October, 2021

The judge of JF-2021/II: not appointed yet.
The judge of Retro & PG problems 2021-2022: Thomas Brand.

Coming in November: Mario Parrinello (Italy), Borislav Gadjanski (Serbia)

(31.10) No.1663 (Retro (result?) ; Circe) Andrew Buchanan (Singapore). “What could Black’s prior move have been?…” (Author)
(31.10) No.1662 (PG 7.5) Anirudh Daga (India). A very warm welcome to 13 years old composer, also participant of the 5^th YCCC!
(30.10) No.1661 (ser-#10 ; Sentinels) Ali Okan Pandar (Turkey). “…my jewel, a Fairy-Albino” (Author)
(30.10) No.1660 (h#2 ; Point Reflection) Daniel Novomesky (Slovakia). 4 twins.

Animated diagrams use Py2Web by Dmitri Turevski and WinChloe‘s graphics, Christian Poisson

Back from Rhodes WCCC…

External Events & Adds October 26, 2021 October 26, 2021 Leave a comment

I’m back from Rhodes Congress!

With the Title of FIDE Master in Chess Composition! The first title I ever had, making the final banquet even more special!

With all excitement and success of the 5^th YCCC (50 young composers from 12 countries)! See the post 63.WCCC – 5.YCCC results, but some more materials and photo gallery is still coming.

With the 15^th ECSC in Riga, 13-15.05.2022 – welcome to be my guests!
Although this is mostly an event for solvers, I’m looking for the reason to composers to come as well 🙂 And here the reason is: 10 years jubilee of JF next spring! So, the thematic composing tournament with the prize giving in Riga will be coming too!

It was nice to have an alive meeting, to catch some warmer sun, the atmosphere of vacation and a competition at the same time, and the celebration after all! I tried to put the main events, results and photos, on the WFCC website: 63.WCCC: the first events | 44. WCSC, Rhodes, 19-20.10.21 | 63.WCCC: Machine gun & Fairy solving | 63.WCCC – 5.YCCC results | WCCC 2021 final: agenda and bulletin

…my photo gallery I gladly share with you – Google Album 63.WCCC Rhodes. – Julia

Originals October 2021

Julia's Fairies original problems October 9, 2021 October 20, 2021 Leave a comment

JF Original Problems | October, 2021

The judge of JF-2021/II: not appointed yet.
The judge of Retro & PG problems 2021-2022: Thomas Brand.

Coming AFTER WCCC 16-23.oct: Andrew Buchanan (Hong Kong), Daniel Novomesky (Slovakia), Ali Okan Pandar (Turkey), Anirudh Daga (India)

(09.10) No.1659 (PG 11 ; PWC) Michel Caillaud (France) & S. K. Balasubramanian (India) & Velmurugan Nallusamy (India). “It was unfortunate that Pr. No. 1648 was cooked. However, Mr. Michel Caillaud was kind enough to suggest a new version with less moves which is most unlikely to be cooked. He was also gracious to have it as a joint publication of we three.” (SKB)
(09.10) No.1658 (=2 vvv) Gerhard Maleika (Germany). Warm welcome to Gerhard! Author says “This is perhaps the first orthodox (no fairy pieces) stalemate twomover on this website.” – yes, it is!
(09.10) No.1657 (hs#3) Mykola Vasyuchko (Ukraine). Warm welcome to Mykola! For me the most fairy moment in this problem is a far away Ukrainian village, Mala Snihurivka, from where it has arrived.
(09.10) No.1656 (h#5.5 ; Functionary Chess) Niels Danstrup (Denmark). “… In the second solution it is opposite…“

Animated diagrams use Py2Web by Dmitri Turevski and WinChloe‘s graphics, Christian Poisson

Composing tournaments in the frames of 63.WCCC

Tournaments, other October 7, 2021 October 8, 2021 1 comment

Internet Tourney Announcement

Helpmates in 2 to 3 moves are required with neutral units (pawns included, kings not allowed). In each phase a neutral unit plays when it is Black’s turn to move and later when it is White’s turn to move or vice versa. The thematic moves could be played immediately (one right after the other) or with a delay. Fairy pieces are allowed, but fairy conditions are not. Set play, twins and multiple solutions are allowed, but not duplex or zero-positions. Composers may participate with two entries as a maximum.

Closing date: 25 September 2021 | Controller: Themis Argirakopoulos | Judge: Kostas Prentos

WCCC 2021 Internet tourney announcement

Champagne Tourney Rhodes 2021
The Tourney is divided in 2 sections (with separate awards) : A . ProofGames ; B. Any other kind of Retro problems
Theme (in honour of Nikita Plaksin for his 90th birthday) : The same piece captures at least 2 promoted pieces.
(capturing piece is a Pawn in the examples but any other kind of capturing piece is accepted)
Fairy conditions (but not fairy pieces) allowed in both sections. Maximum 2 entries per composer per section (collaboration counts for 1 full entry). Maximum 1 non computer tested entry per composer in section A

WCCC-2021-Champagne-tourney-announcement

Entries to the director Eric Pichouron, by Wednesday 20 October 20:00 PM, e-mail : chess.champagne2021@gmail.com
Judge: Michel Caillaud

19^th Romanian Tzuica Tourney
Theme: Helpself compositions (hs#n/hs=n) with at least 2 solutions showing each at least one Pelle move.
Problems with twins or zeroposition are allowed. All fairy pieces and conditions are accepted, provided that the problem is checked by a known solving program

WCCC-2021-Tzuica-tourney-announcement

Judges: Vlaicu Crişan & Eric Huber (Romania) | Deadline: Wednesday, 20 October 8 p.m
Send to: Eric Huber by e-mail at hubereric@yahoo.fr
Prizes – bottles of Tzuica, hopefully deliverable during 2021 WCCC. The tourney is open worldwide, however the prizes will be for 2021 congress participants only.

Originals September 2021

Julia's Fairies original problems September 12, 2021 October 5, 2021 Leave a comment

JF Original Problems | September, 2021

The judge of JF-2021/II: not appointed yet.
The judge of Retro & PG problems 2021-2022: Thomas Brand.

Coming in October: Niels Danstrup (Denmark), Mykola Vasyuchko (Ukraine), Gerhard Maleika (Germany), Michel Caillaud (France) & S. K. Balasubramanian (India) & Velmurugan Nallusamy (India)

(25.09) No.1655 (s#2 ; Royal Grasshopper ; SAT) Neal Turner (Finland). The previous problem by Neal on JF was also in September, same conditions and similarly looking number – 1544! 🙂
(21.09) No.1654 (h#2.5 ; Andernach Chess) Hiroaki Maeshima (Japan). Warm welcome to Hiroaki!
(18.09) No.1653 (h#2.5 v ; Circe) Aleksey Oganesjan (Russia). “Make castling legal again!” (Author)
(18.09) No.1652 (#2 v ; Anti-Mars Circe) Armin Geister & Daniel Papack (Germany). “Reversal II and reciprocal changes in elegant form.” (Authors)
(18.09) No.1651 (h#2 ; Grasshopper, Nightriderhopper, Rookhopper, LEO, PAO, VAO) Michal Dragoun (Czech Republic). “All solutions are interconnected by cycle of six white moves.” (Auhor)
(13.09) No.1650 (h#2 ; Anti-Circe, Madrasi RI) Giuseppe Lucchesini (Italy). Warm welcome to Giuseppe!
(13.09) No.1649 (-8 & s#1 Proca ; Anti-Circe Cheylan) Andreas Thoma (Germany). “Klaus Wenda zum 80 Geburtstag” – published with the best wishes to Klaus on his 80^th jubilee!
(12.09) No.1648 (PG 13.5 ; PWC) S. K. Balasubramanian & Velmurugan Nallusamy (India). “Paradox: All black pieces are on their home base and …”

Animated diagrams use Py2Web by Dmitri Turevski and WinChloe‘s graphics, Christian Poisson