Category: Theoretical Articles

I don’t know how they found me… but in the spring 2021 I was invited to give an interview to OTIA magazine – uncovering arts and culture in the tech community. 

Somehow I got caught right away by OTIA’s project, which opens not only “technological” but also human part of us. Of course, my first thought was that it’s a wonderful chance to promote chess composition, to tell about it to the world out of our society. But when started answering questions, I was brought back to the very beginning.. to my first steps in chess composition. Those emotional moments remain in our memories and mean more than any achievements later.

It is usually hard to start writing… but later it is the same not easy to finalize it! I had a reason to complete the interview faster: 10 years ago, in July 2011, I started to compose my first chess problem! The article “Julia Vysotska, Financial Manager on Chess Composition” came on July 23^rd to celebrate my anniversary in chess composition!

It is their problems what we know about Chess Composers, and their magazines – what we know about the Editors. But we are not only that. What is behind each of us? Here, on JF’s home page, I’m on the stage in front of you.  My original questionnaire (the full version of the interview) is the story from the backstage I’d like to share with you.

Let’s add some human touch to the diagrams – you’re welcome to share your stories too!

Günther Weeth (1935-2020) himself had prepared this translation of his article published in Die Schwalbe 306-2/2020. p.821 ff. in November 2020 in German language. We have made some small adaptions replacing examples 5&9 with new versions as the Schwalbe-originals had turned out to be incorrect. However the original source of those versions is “Die Schwalbe 2020, version 2021”.
K.Wenda, A.Thoma

…So far my first explorations in the ”new territories”.
I hope I could draw the attention of retro-experts on the combination AntiCirce + Circe inspiring them to continue my studies.
Günther Weeth /Stuttgart, November 2020/

“In the late 1970s, I circulated among the members of the now defunct Fairy Chess Correspondence Circle some ideas and illustrative problems for variants arising from different effects of a piece moving to an occupied square. By 1987, many of these ideas and problems had appeared in a series of articles in George Jelliss’s magazine Chessics (issues 10-12, 17 and 29/30) under the name of ‘Chess Reactions’.”

..skipped..  ⇒ see the full article in PDF, 23 pages

“The present version of this account contains 105 problems belonging to 17 distinct variants (4 of them established ones, the others my own) plus another 12 more miscellaneous problems in an appendix. Almost all the problems have positions that are ‘fairy-legal’ from the normal game array; 76 of them are CT originals/corrections of variable quality, some being mere sketches to illustrate possibilities. Only a few are computer-testable, but although the majority have been looked at by someone other than myself, in the very nature of things it is likely that some will prove to be unsound. It is hoped that any defects in the problems will neither detract too much from their interest nor discourage composers from tackling some of the variants described.” – Chris Tylor

First of all, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to all the readers who sent me positive feedback for the first issue of my little magazine. There were interesting suggestions and questions, to some of which I will try to give a concise answer in this issue.
A priority goal regarding the content of ANDA FAIRY PLANET is the presentation of fairy conditions and pieces that I have either invented in the past or else are proposed for the first time… (Petko A. Petkov)