Oscar Bonivento

 

27 November 1914 /
01 October2012

With a deep regret I have to inform that this morning, being 98 years old, has gone famous Italian maestro, President of API, for 50 years editor of Italian chess problem magazine l’Italia Scacchistica and author of dozens of books – Oscar Bonivento.

He was like a father for Italian problemists. Oscar’s death is a heavy loss for Italian and the World chess community.

Per i problemisti italiani è stato come un padre. Ha curato la sezione problemi sull’Italia Scacchistica per oltre 50 anni ed ha scritto decine di libri che per noi sono una vera e propria miniera storica di informazioni.” (Valerio Agostini)

Variantim to tourneys

Dear Friends,

The announcement of V A R I A N T I M is added to the Tourneys section!


Сompetitions at V A R I A N T I M

Bulletin of

The Israel Chess Composition Society

www.variantim.org

Fairy:   

Judge  2012: Petko A. Petkov

Judge  2013:  Christopher Feather    

send  to: 

Michael Grushko, BOX  363  Kiryat Bialik  27019 bargrushko@bezeqint.net

→See the whole announcement


WinChloe 3.20 & update of Echecs

WinChloe 3.20 & latest update of the WinChloe Echecs database!

    • New version of WinChloe program – WinChloe 3.20 is available starting the middle of September. The changes are: 
      A bug in Anti Take & Make with castles is fixed.
      
      New conditions programmed:
      Andernach neutre
      Superguards
      Circé couscous diagramme

      I’d like to specially mention the Superguards condition. The inventor of this condition is Seetharaman Kalyan, whom I consider more like a support of the site, than a visitor. I’d like to ask  Mr.Seetharaman to tell us something more about this condition! Please!

  • The latest update (as of 12-Sep-2012) of WinChloe Echecs database is available for those, who uses it. The number of problems has increased till 441047!
  • 65 of original problems published at juliasfairies.com are added to WinChloe Echecs database as of 12-Sep-2012.
  • I’d like to tell a few words about how the updates of Echecs database are made. This is a very impressive work of the whole command of people! I was interested about how it all works, so asked Christian Poisson and share here what I’ve found out! 🙂
    At http://winchloe.free.fr/ouvrages_table_echecs.html you can see a list of those who help Mr.Poisson – the author of the program  – to record new problems into Echecs database. Let me quote Christian Poisson:
    Laurent Riguet records problems since the first version of WinChloe in 1995 (this first version was written in Visual Basic).
    Also, Harry Fougiaxis, Vaclav Kotesovec, Imanol Zurutuza, Henk Le Grand, Michel Caillaud, Pierre Tritten, José Coello Alonso, Abdelaziz Onkoud etc… send each month tables with new and/or updated problems. (Ch.P.)
    So, Mr.Poisson gets tables with a new problems or updates to the existing problems from the “support-command” (thanks a lot to all of you!!) and makes a copy from all these tables into Echecs table (the main database) – one by one, using “Copy in another table” option from File menu, adding a “Treatment of the duplicates” – ‘Verify each duplicate‘. 
    So, during the copy, if a duplicate is found (same position, same stipulation, same fairy conditions), and if there are differences between some fields, a new window appears indicating these differences.  I make the necessary modifications and when I close the window, the new informations are added in the record of the table Echecs (but note that this works with all tables, not only the table Echecs).  (Ch.P.)
Users always criticize programmers – this is something what always existed and will exist I think! 🙂  I’m sorry about it.. I do the same thing from time to time, but the same time I’m impressed about such a big permanent work and I’m saying “Thank you!” to Christian Poisson and to those who help him in this huge project! 

WCCC2012 – The Awards

My dear Friends,
Welcome home to those who were going to Japan!
I believe you all had a great time there!

The 55th World Congress of Chess Composition (WCCC)
and 36th World Chess Solving Championship (WCSC)
in Kobe, Japan,

took place from September 15th to September 22th, 2012.

The Awards from Composing tourneys I have for now:

Congratulations to the winners!!!

I’d appreciate if you send me to julia@juliasfairies.com more Awards for the site to add!


Solvers @igra.lv

2 “solving days” in Riga – 23-24.Aug –
for those, who never solved before!

This post is dedicated to Latvians (Rigans really), who participates in the project IGRA.lv. (“igra” in Russian = game). This is not about chess at all! Commands, who participate in the game, have to do many very different things. This time a pre-game to get the additional bonus was to solve a fairy problem!

The problem above was composed for this game. So, it was impossible to find a ready solution in the internet. The only information the commands have got was that this is a helpmate (they had to find what it is), has 2 solutions of 2 moves, and a strange figure on d1,h1 was called a “shaman” with a given definition how it moves (in reality it was a simple Lion, but it was also not easy to find out it). The author was not mentioned as well.

Click here to see how the problem was presented to the commands by the organizers of this game (in Russian only). And click on the diagram to see the problem with solution.

  • As I know, at least 2 commands have really solved the problem themselves. Congratulations to you!!! I hope you enjoyed the solving and the happiness at the moment when you have found the right solution! 
  • I was also surprised a lot to see about 10 of you at my site, and you were on the right way looking at fairy terms and at popeye solving program! As I was told, some of you have solved a problem using solving software! So, you have done 2 things: have found the right name of the fairy piece, have learned how to install and to use a program! Congratulations to you too!! It is not that easy if you do it for the first time.

As I know for now, about 7 commands have submitted the right solution. But I don’t know how many commands participated in total.

Dear participants, I had fun during your time of solving… And now I wish you good luck in the real game you have this night!!!

Thank you for solving! – Julia 

WinChloe: Echecs database as of 12-Aug-2012

The latest update of the WinChloe Echecs database!

  • The latest update (as of 12-Aug-2012) of WinChloe Echecs database is available for those, who uses it. The number of problems has increased till 437957!
  • 53 of original problems published at Julia’sFairies are added to WinChloe Echecs database as of 12-Aug-2012 – you can see the list of them(pdf) I’ve exported from WinChloe! I’d like to add that WinChloe offers 2 possibilities of exporting diagrams: bitmap (graphics like I have on the site) and rtf-form (text form, which uses Echecs font to display the board and pieces, used in my exported list of problems here).
  • I’d like to write more about WinChloe program and I will do it part by part when have time. For now my WinChloe section has just some basic information about, but you can leave your comments/questions there – I’d try to answer (as also some other users of WinChloe maybe?)!

WCCC2012


My dear Friends,  
One of the most significant chess-events of the year is coming –  just one month left till

The 55th World Congress of Chess Composition (WCCC)
and 36th World Chess Solving Championship (WCSC)
in Kobe, Japan!

The Congress takes place from September 15th to September 22th, 2012.
(WCSC on Tuesday and Wednesday, September 18th and 19th.)

Attention: Composing tourneys are starting to appear there!

I like how the WCCC2012 site is decorated with the sakura-like flowers and colors.