MARIO G. GARCIA 65 JT

MARIO G. GARCIA 65 JUBILEE TOURNEY

The Union Problemistas’s Argentina of Chess announces the tournament of composition to commemorate 65 Mario Guido García’s birthdays

Prizes: Books,honourable mentions and commendations will be awarded
The preliminary award of tourney will be sent to participants by e-mail and will be published on the website of Unión Argentina de Problemistas de Ajedrez (UAPA) http://www.problemistasajedrez.com.ar/   ?Read more… (click to show/hide)


WFCC website

wfcc-site
9th of June, 2013

News about WFCC website

 

By Harry Fougiaxis, President of the WFCC:

Dear colleagues,

In March Hannu Harkola informed the presidium that he would like to step down from the post of the webmaster after nearly 15 years of hard work with the site. Hannu started the site back in 1999, and we truly realised the immense effort he had invested on it when we had to migrate it to the new server!

Hannu, on behalf of our federation, I should like to express my warmest thanks!

We approached several candidates and we eventually decided that Julia Vysotska from Latvia will be the new webmaster. I guess you are familiar with her own site www.juliasfairies.com featuring a wealth of articles, originals, comments, short discussions and news on fairy chess (and not only…)

Julia started the migration in early May and, as it usually happens, various technical issues had to be resolved. She was always eager to sort them out by learning new things, installing a plugin, proposing some new layout, and so on. I have been working with her for only a month and it was a real delight. I am confident that she will keep working on the site with the same enthusiasm and devotion.

The new site is available at www.wfcc.ch If your browser still points to the old site, clear your browsing history (or write wfcc.ch in the address bar of your browser and hit Ctrl+Enter).

Warm regards,
Harry Fougiaxis
President of the WFCC


I’d like to tell thanks a lot to Harry Fougiaxis for so kind words! For me these about 1,5 months of work under WFCC website were full of new experiences, and the most great experience was a joint work we had. Harry himself put so much of efforts into the project, testing hundreds of pages, fixing broken links, correcting materials, creating working lists for me! Every day I felt I’m not alone here and it motivated and helped a lot!
I also was amazed by the amount of work done by Hannu Harkola! – about 500 web pages of information and so many of them with a huge tables! So many years Hannu took care of this site! 
I’m also thankful to Thomas Maeder, who was very helpful in the final steps of launching the site. It was about domain name, account for the site, setup of name servers etc. – the things I had known almost nothing about, but was finally taught!

For me the invitation to do this work is a great honor! I’ll try to do my best to  meet your expectations! Thank you! /Julia


WinChloe update – 06/2013

WinChloe 3.24 – June’s update!

A new version of WinChloe solving program is just released – WinChloe 3.24 is available from the 8th of June, 2013! Features added or corrected:

3.24 (juin 13)

The link “Help guide for English users (by Reb Orrell)” is active again,
Reb having transfered the files to a new site: http://rebschess.com/winchloe/

New conditions programmed:
Retour
Réflexe puis Minimum noir
Réflexe puis Minimum blanc
Circé maléfique clône
Growing men blanc
Growing men noir
Promotions en Caméléon autorisées

Myself I’d like to comment 2 conditions:

  • Retour – this is a “Back-home” condition described by its inventor, Nicolas Dupont, in just published article The “back-home” fairy condition – Nicolas Dupont;
  • Promotions en Caméléon autorisées – “Promotion to chameleon allowed” – this condition was used in a joint problem No.326 by Michel Caillaud & Julia Vysotska. The problem was shown as C-, but now it can be changed to C+!

As always its a pleasure for me to say “Thank you very much!” to Christian Poisson for his work!


The back-home fairy condition – Nicolas Dupont

nicolas-dupontThe back-home fairy condition

Nicolas Dupont

I got the back-home idea several years ago and, after having composed an educational example, I felt such a fairy condition could be of great interest. I sent the back-home rules together with this illustration to Mario Richter, who was able to show its correctness via a partial programming of the condition, mainly for proof games.

Then came the Trillon Memorial Tournament, asking for fairy proof games. The Director, Laurent Riguet, kindly accepted back-home entries although this fairy condition wasn’t officially defined. But the judgment took a long time and hence “squeezed” back-home: it was impossible for me to publish the rules otherwise my entries for the Trillon would have been no more anonymous.

The goal of this article is, finally, to officially define back-home (section 1), as well as to provide illustrative examples. The rules seem easy to understand but lead to practical difficulties, so I will begin with two 0-positions (section 2) in order to get started. Two educational examples will follow (section 3) and, lastly, three “real” problems (section 4).

I thank Christian Poisson for his great programming of back-home (condition “Retour” under WinChloe 3.24) and his help for achieving a correct understanding of it. I also thank the composers and friends from the FranceEchecs website, the place where most of the problems presented here were constructed, as well as my co-authors during the Trillon, Michel Caillaud and Mario Richter.

Finally my gratitude goes to Julia, for having accepted to publish this article on her excellent website!

→See the whole article!


Marco Bonavoglia 60 – Jubilee Tourney

MB-60JT-diagsMarco Bonavoglia 60 – Jubilee Tourney

Required are proof games with multisolutions and/or twins, showing bicolor strategy (see examples below). Fairy conditions allowed, but no fairy pieces; depending on the number of entries there could be two sections in the final award (orthodox and fairies).

→See full announcement as pdf!

Any number of entries per composer, but no more than one non-computer-tested problem per composer. For C+ problem, please indicate the software used for checking.

The judge will receive all entries in anonymous form.

Send entries to Antonio Garofalo (perseus@bestproblems.it) by January 31st 2014

Judge: Marco Bonavoglia


Circe X – new fairy condition by Diyan Kostadinov

diyan-k

Diyan Kostadinov introduces a new fairy condition – Circe X!

KoBulChess-logo

Definition:  as a normal Circe – captured units (not Ks) reappear on their game-array squares, of the same colour (pieces), on the file of capture (pawns), or on the capture file’s promotion square (fairy pieces), but if the rebirth square is already occupied by another piece (A) it must immediately move (without capturing) vacating the square for landing of the captured piece (B). The capturing side decides where the piece A should move. If there is not possible legal movement, the capture is not allowed (or possible variation – the captured piece disappearing). 

→See schemes and examples at KobulChess!


AWARD SEETHARAMAN-64 JT

superguards-logoAWARD OF THE

SEETHARAMAN-64 JUBILEE TOURNEY’

for Superguards PROBLEMS

 

I received 50 problems from C.G.S.Narayanan in anonymous diagrams. It was nice to get so many entries though the Superguards condition was programmed only in Winchloe. It is gratifying to know that so many leading composers liked the new fairy condition and that 17 of them (from 13 countries) participated in the tourney.

Many correspondents helped and encouraged me with valuable inputs before I publicized the new Fairy condition ‘Superguards’. Apart from my Indian colleagues, special mention should be made of C.J.Feather, J.M.Rice (who suggested the name Superguards), Kevin Begley, Diyan Kostadinov, Petko A.Petkov, Christian Poisson & Julia Vysotska. I thank all the participants especially Mr.Jacques Rotenberg (20 entries!) and the Tourney Director. Congratulations to the award winners. Here is myaward which will be final after 15 days. ?See the Award!


3-rd FIDE World Cup in Composing 2013

FIDE-logo

3rd FIDE World Cup in Composing 2013

 

The International Chess Federation (FIDE), within the framework of its “Chess Composition” special project, is organising the 3rd FIDE World Cup in Composing for 2013 in eight sections.

The tournament is coordinated with the WFCC Presidium and is a part of the joint efforts by FIDE and WFCC for the popularization and development of chess composition worldwide. →Read more…

The closing date is September 1st, 2013.


Zabunov-85MT 2013

KoBulChess-logoZabunov-85MT 2013

(20.05.2013) The website for chess composition KoBulChess.com organizing a memorial tourney on the occasion of the 85th anniversary of the famous Bulgarian chess composer of the recent past FM Vladimir Zabunov (1928-1997).

Theme: Help-selfmate in 2-4 moves (HS#2-4) with the Zabunov theme – the front piece from one battery makes an ambush move and becomes the rear piece of a newly created battery. Anti-batteries and other type specific fairy batteries can be used too.

Fairy pieces and conditions are allowed, but the problems must be computer checked by the solving program Popeye or WinChloe.

The judge of the tourney is GM Petko Petkov (Bulgaria).
Send problems to Diyan Kostadinov by email: dkostadinov@abv.bg

Deadline: 15.11.2013. The award will be published in KoBulChess.com till to the end of 2013.

See the whole announcement at KoBulChess.com website!


Messigny 2013 Fairy Tournament

messigny-2013-excrptMessigny 2013 Fairy Tournament

Nicolas Dupont

The theme is: problems with a fairy condition and a zugzwang goal Gz.

Remember that a zugzwang goal Gz (where G can be capture, check, mate, stalemate, etc.) is achieved when the side which hasn’t played the terminal move:

  • ♦ has one or more legal moves which achieve G;
  • ♦ and has no legal moves which fail to achieve G;
  • ♦ and is not in check.

→See Full Announcement

Entries should only contain orthodox pieces and a unique fairy condition, the choice of the problem’s type being free. They should have been checked with Popeye (at least “by parts” when too long) and have to be send to the following email address: RIFACE.2013@gmail.com

Closing date is 18:00 on Sunday, May,19th!!!