External Events & Adds – Julia's Fairies

The Hopper is out!

External Events & Adds December 27, 2021 December 27, 2021 Leave a comment

Welcome to THE HOPPER – a new chess problem magazine
from Singapore!

The team – Andrew Buchanan, Anirudh Daga and James Quah – has created something you’ve never seen before.

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

FIDE ALBUM POINTS 1914-2018 (final)

External Events & Adds August 4, 2021 August 4, 2021 Leave a comment

The result in Fairy Section, FIDE Album 2016-18 section G report, finalizes the judging phase of the current album. The final list of Current Album Points 1914-2018, including the results of sections C, F and G, is updated and published on WFCC official website. Current Album points, most successful composers, top 100 composers can be found on the FA 2016-18 main page.

FIDE ALBUM 2016-2018 – Results in Fairy section

External Events & Adds June 23, 2021 June 23, 2021 3 Comments

The results of the FIDE Album 2016-18 section G are published at WFCC official website!

“An impressive number of 1520 entries (excluding duplicates) were received and they were split in two groups: G1 for fairies without conditions and G2 for problems with at least one fairy condition. This classification was a success as 747 entries were allocated to G1 and 773 to G2. In each group there were three judges with each team of judges working independently. 1331 entries scored at least 4,5 points (87,5% of the total entries, a very good ratio for such a popular genre). 357 problems out of them (63 more compared to the previous album) scored at least 8 points, which represents a ratio of 26,8% selected problems; 125 entries (one third of the selected problems) had already qualified from the WCCI process.” (Harry Fougiaxis)

Our TOP 10:

Name	Album G1	Album G2	WCCI	Total	Points
Petkov, Petko	8	13	6	27	27.00
Loustau, Jean-Marc	19	5		24	22.00
Caillaud, Michel	6	14		20	17.00
Dragoun, Michal	24		6	30	16.83
Gockel, Hubert	4	9	6	19	14.83
Pachl, Franz	6	8	6	20	14.67
Parrinello, Mario	2	8	3	13	13.00
Rittirsch, Manfred	1	12		13	12.50
Lörinc, Juraj	3	5	5	13	12.00
Salai jr., Ladislav	23			23	9.83

“Regarding the selection percentages, I think the results without the “pre-selected” WCCI entries should also be mentioned. As seen below, they are only 14.76% for G1 and 18.47% for G2. In total, they are only 16.63%. If we take the WCCI entries into the total, then obviously the percentages increase.” (Shankar Ram, one of G1 judges)

Thanks a lot to the judges!
Sincere congratulations to all of us!

Sad news – Jaroslav Stun

External Events & Adds March 6, 2021 March 6, 2021 Leave a comment

Jaroslav Stun passed away… With a deep condolences to family and friends

Dear Jaroslav’s colleague and friend,

It is with deep sorrow and sense of loss in my heart when I write these lines.
However, as his colleague and friend, I wanted to let you know that my father has recently, shortly before his 70th birthday, passed away, after a valiant month-long struggle with a severe COVID-19 infection.

I know and I am sure Jaroslav valued every bit of exchange, collaboration and sense of community he took part in together with you on the field of Chess – all the Problems, Compositions, Fairies and Puzzles he worked on or shared with you; and I wanted to take this time to Thank you for all the joyful and happy moments you made for him.

My dad died in complete peace, we know the One who my father believed in and relied on the most throughout his whole life, took good care of him, and we will always keep Jaroslav in our hearts and memories.

Jaro Stun

In memory of Günther Weeth

External Events & Adds January 25, 2021 February 13, 2021 Leave a comment

In memory of Günther Weeth

(13 August 1935 – 28 December 2020)

By Klaus Wenda (Vienna, Austria)

On 28 December 2020, Thomas Brand’s Retro-blog featured truly sad news: Günther Weeth had died after a long and severe disease.

Günther Weeth became a member of Die Schwalbe, the German association for Problem chess, in 1973 and earned his first spurs as a strong solver. Due to the friendship with retro specialist Josef Haas, his interest in retro analysis awoke. The traditional Christmas solving tourneys of the newspaper “Stuttgarter Zeitung”, widely known by an international problem solving audience, offered him the perfect arena to thrill, or sometimes exasperate, the participants with his witty and tricky riddles.

-> see more / less…

I got to know Günther in the 1990s during one of the chess meetings in the German town of Andernach. We continued to see each other there every year but only had little contact in between. This clearly changed in 2002 after Günther had read my article “Beckmesser versus Stolzing”, which was published in feenschach,144/ 2001, and dealt with reflections on the legality under the condition AntiCirce. Günther’s interest was not only aroused by the chess-related retro analytical content of my piece but also by the parallels I had drawn to the art term of Richard Wagner’s opera “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg”.

We entered into a vivid exchange of ideas via regular mail and e-mail which, over the years, has amounted to several hundred pages. Our preferred topic, for obvious reasons, was problem chess with a focus on retro analysis, but we also discussed about classical music, in particular about Richard Wagner’s oeuvre. I always wholeheartedly enjoyed Günther’s critical reviews of symphonic concerts and opera performances, which were coined by profound expertise and a good sense of humor. His observations would have outshone the newspaper comments of many renowned cultural journalists.

The great German retro expert Wolfgang Dittmann (1933-2014) was the first one to pick up my appeal in the above-mentioned feenschach-article to give fresh life to the almost forgotten defensive retractor by connecting it with the condition AntiCirce, closely followed by Günther Weeth. Günther brought new, creative ideas to the table, which did not only concentrate on theoretical innovations but also elaborated on the riddle character, on the degree of difficulty, and on surprising effects. Some of his ideas proved to be real “gold veins” and opened new perspectives. All in all, Günther’s life work in this genre consists of approximately 250 problems.

In the course of our lively correspondence, I soon realized that we were kindred spirits whenever we worked on retro problems. The result of our almost magical connection comprises 80 joint compositions, among them numerous prize winners in notable international tournaments. This close chess co-operation led us to an even closer friendship, which also included our spouses, Gudrun and Doris.

As a former enthusiastic educator, Günther was not satisfied to merely compose and solve retro problems. Instead, he strove for explaining the secrets of fairy conditions and fairy pieces on the chess board to a broader audience in order to make the subject more transparent. A rich number of specialized articles in international chess publications such as feenschach, Die Schwalbe, StrateGems or Julia’s Fairies give evidence of his tremendous efforts in this respect. Günther was famous for his entertaining presentations at Andernach- and Schwalbe-meetings, which showed him as an eloquent and amusing protagonist of the AntiCirce defensive retractor.

The installation of the Magic Square in defensive retractors with the condition AntiCirce (see Weeth, “Die Schwalbe”, 240/2009, pp. 305-306) is a solid example of his intellectual joy to experiment. On the occasion of Günther Weeth’s 75^th birthday in 2010, feenschach announced its 63^rd Theme Tourney, where problems dealing with the Magic Square had to be composed. The rules of Günther´s creation “Magic Wander Unit” were explained by him and Hans Gruber in a complex “Convention” published in feenschach, 213/2015, pp.181-182.

Since the summer of 2020, Günther intensively worked on a new project, the defensive retractor with the conditions AntiCirce+Circe. He presented the results of his analysis, decorated with some quite original problems, in an article in Die Schwalbe, 306-2/2020, pp. 821-824. Günther still translated the piece into English before his passing. It is expected to be published in Julia’s Fairies soon.

My sincere sympathies go to Günther’s family, especially to his wife Gudrun, who always appreciated his time-consuming hobby, problem chess. An eminent problemist left Caissa’s World – and I have lost a good friend.

3 problems by Günther Weeth: G.W. – König & Turm 2011 | G.W. – StrateGems 2016 | K.W. & G.W. – Die Schwalbe 287/2017

Vienna, January 2021

Klaus Wenda

Problems by Günther Weeth published on JF 2015-2019: No. 885 | 1223 | 1261 | 1322 | 1357 | 1440

Andernach 2020 cancelled

External Events & Adds August 5, 2020 August 5, 2020 Leave a comment

Due to the Corona pandemic, the Andernach 2020 meeting (postponed to August 21 to 23)
eventually has to be canceled for Corona reason. Now we plan for Andernach 2021.

ChessProblems.ca Bulletin – issue 18, June 2020

External Events & Adds July 1, 2020 July 1, 2020 Leave a comment

Issue 18, June 2020 , of the ChessProblems.ca Bulletin is available online at http://Bulletin.ChessProblems.ca. Includes Original problems, ChessProblems.ca TT8 Award, and the Articles: Vaclav Kotesovec: Records in ser-#= PWC problems with one white piece p.876 | Jeff Coakley & Andrey Frolkin: The Continuity of Ambiguity p.885 | Arno Tungler: Series-mover Artists: Michel Caillaud p.894 | Arno Tungler: Record Breakers IX p.897

The bulletin is published by Cornel Pacurar since March 2014 and is mainly dedicated to Fairies, Series-Movers in particular.

External Events & Adds May 3, 2020 August 20, 2020 Leave a comment

Due to the Corona pandemic, the Andernach 2020 meeting has to be cancelled, or better: postponed;
new date is planned for Friday, August 21 to Sunday August 23 of course in Andernach, of course in Hotel Stammbaum.

ChessProblems.ca Bulletin – issue 17, December 2019

External Events & Adds March 23, 2020 March 23, 2020 Leave a comment

Issue 17, December 2019 , of the ChessProblems.ca Bulletin is available online at http://Bulletin.ChessProblems.ca. Includes Originals, 4 articles (Andreas Thoma, Jeff Coakley & Andrey Frolkin, Arno Tüngler, Adrian Storisteanu), TT9 & TT10 Report, Blast from the Past IV.

The bulletin is published by Cornel Pacurar since March 2014 and is mainly dedicated to Fairies, Series-Movers in particular.