Category: Awards, JF

It’s not only my effort bringing to you all those good news in the beginning of the spring 🙂
No, not at all! It’s about the great collaborators we have here! 

One more award on JF! By the one who has already judged JF Fairy section in 2014 (JF-2014-I / Award), but now will show himself in Retro & PG problems. The one who brings so much of positive attitude mixed together with a deep analysis to everything he touches, the one having the sun inside… this time delivers JF Retro&PG 2019-20 Award in a very short time after the end of the tournament, for your nice Sunday’s time!

My gratitude to Vlaicu, congratulations to the winners, and best wishes to all participants!
Your fine works are always welcome to JF!

Some more words about the awards on JF: as you can see in the Tournaments section, I have two delayed awards. The good news are that Tadashi Wakashima (JF-2017-I) expects his award to be ready by the end of May, so you might see it in June! The bad news are that after some years of promises Diyan Kostadinov (JF-2013-II) keeps silence, and I’m sorry for now I couldn’t answer your questions about this too late award.

I believe, announcing an award is one of the most enjoyable jobs for any editor. And the one I’m glad to present to you is also so carefully made, including detailed analysis of problems and versions, written in a pleasant style of sharing opinions, and fully prepared for publication after all… not leaving any work for me (except writing these few words I couldn’t really find to express my delight and gratitude)!

Dear authors, readers, enjoy some wonderful reading for Easter holidays! My warmest congratulations to the winners! And my deepest appreciation to one of the JF’s most faithful contributors Kjell Widlert, the 2^nd time overtaking this hard work – for me, for JF, and for all of you!

Well, I have to admit I’m very happy about my own results as well. For about 5 years of composing not more than 3-5 problems per year, when catching some time from other jobs, when getting some inspiration stronger than the guilt about all my waiting lists 🙂  And now, not only happy about the distinctions, but also appreciating Kjell’s comments very much, good words and wise observations by the high class judge and composer.

In Julia’s Fairies 2019/I tourney took part 43 problems. It is slightly less than in previous tournaments on Julia’s website and in my opinion, the quality of published problems was lower too. Not in general – I considered relatively high number of problems for low distinction – but I missed problems impressive at the first look.

→ to the Award…

Published with a gratitude to the judge, Michal Dragoun, for so exceptionally fast results! /Julia/

Reported by Michel Caillaud:

Christian Poisson just released a new version of Winchloe with improved solving for proofgames.
On his site can be found a booklet with 562 (!!) original homebase PGs and some explanations:  http://christian.poisson.free.fr/problemesis/problemesis.php 

From Readme of v.3.46 (oct.2019)
Solving of proof games (‘partie justificative’) is a little more “intelligent”. A new option in “Solving options” allows you to choose whether short solutions are sought. In this case, a solution in p moves will not be sought if there is a solution in p-n moves (n integer).
I composed some simple proof games to check the programming with several fairy conditions. They are gathered in a pdf available on Problemesis.

Winchloe is (sometimes much) slower than Jacobi, but it is interesting for conditions not implemented in Jacobi, as it is sometimes much quicker than Popeye.
Such the case is for Take&Make, and in solving the 8,0 first moves of 550(1), Winchloé finds the cook :
1.d4 Sç6 2.Bh6 g×h6(ç1=S) 3.Sd2 S×é2(Sé4) 4.Ba6 S×d2(Sb3) 5.a×b3(d2) b×a6(f1=B) 6.R×a7(Ra5) Sé5 7.Qf3 S×f3(Sb7) 8.Sé2 Bg7…

It’s already too late to change the Award by Hans Gruber…

I believe, even those who don’t have any close relations with Retro/PG problems will enjoy the introduction to this award! But what to say about the lovers of this genre?.. I think it’s so wonderful gift to all of you! Very much grateful to Dirk for so fast and interesting judgement (I have to tell that the first draft version of the award was sent to me 2 months ago, and I’m the only reason of the delayed publication)!

Congratulations to the winners and to all participants of this 2-years long competition! 

With a gratitude to Shankar Ram, who for the 2^nd time kindly accepted judging of JF original fairy problems and has made his Award so fast! Enjoy the selection of the problems, the statistical summary of 19 kinds (!) provided by the judge, and the Award JF-10/2017-03/2018 itself fully designed by Shankar Ram!  Thanks a lot to all participants and congratulations to the winners!

For polishing English I’m very thankfull to Stephen Emmerson, who was so kind to offer me his help, and who’s nice style of writing we all can enjoy now.

I’m very grateful to Julia for her invitation to judge this interesting fairy retro tourney: I’m convinced that carefully selected fairy conditions (more than fairy pieces) will extend the options for interesting retrograde analysis in the future. The most popular current example is AntiCirce with defensive retractors, but the general idea goes back to Thomas R. Dawson (whom else?), and gets more and more popular. → to the Award…

Published with a gratitude to the judge, Thomas Brand /Julia/

The Award of JF-2015/I

“In total, I selected 40 problems, the most I have ever awarded in any tourney I judged. I consider myself a rather strict judge, but this time I had no difficulty finding problems to include in the award. My main difficulty was to leave out many other candidates that were also good and interesting. I can say that it was the strongest tourney I have ever judged. Congratulations for making this happen.” (The judge of JF-2015/I, Kostas Prentos)

Only the first and the longest informal competition on JF, April-December 2012, had more problems and authors than January-June 2015. In 2013-2014 we had six 4-months tourneys, and the 2015/I was the first 6-months tourney. At the end of that period, I felt guilty about giving so much work to Kostas Prentos as the judge. Now, he writes in the award, “neither of us expected such a large number of entries: 169 original compositions and versions, by 57 composers”.

Today, it is time for readers to enjoy the Award of JF-2015/I, appearing like a booklet of selected problems… The 23 pages of the award include not only detailed comments for 40 rewarded problems (the comment to the 1st Prize takes 1,5 pages!), but also some remarks for 44 problems left out of the award… What an appreciation for the work of all composers!

And the last, more technical detail: the award you see was fully prepared by Kostas, with all the diagrams and links to original publications, leaving me without work… and words to thank him!

My sincere congratulations to the authors of rewarded problems and gratitude for all the comments, always highly appreciated by the authors and judges. 

Dear Friends,
I believe I have a very nice surprise to you (same as it was for me), as who could expect to see the Award in a few months after the end of informal tournament? From 87 problems judged 34 problems rewarded, and the Award with diagrams is fully prepared for publication by the judge: 

The Award of Julia’sFairies-2016/II
by Franz Pachl

My sincerest gratitude to the judge, and congratulations to all authors of rewarded problems! As always, I’m inviting all readers to give a feedback to the authors of published problems, to tell what you like in the problems, remembering that not only the improvements or critics are of the main importance.

The Award is provisional and will become final after one month. – Julia