Julia's Fairies – Page 4 – Fairy chess composition

Danka Petkova 100 MT Award by Petko Petkov

Awards, other January 6, 2022 January 6, 2022 Leave a comment

Dear Friends,
With great delay I publish the award of the tournament Danka Petkova 100 MT2020-2021, due to my long illness after a very unsuccessful and dangerous vaccination against Covid. I apologize to everyone who waited for this material. Many thanks to the participants in the tournament, to the winners – world-famous masters, as well as to the readers who will look with interest at the tournament problems!
Be healthy, cheerful and happy in the New 2022
Yours: Petko Petkov

Award JF 2021/II (Shankar Ram)

Awards, JF January 1, 2022 January 1, 2022 2 Comments

Do you believe in Santa? You have to, as a real miracle has happened on this New Year’s night!

And here is him, with a surprising gift to all of you – Shankar Ram with the Award JF-2021/II (July-December 2021!)

Award JF-2021/II (fully prepared by Shankar Ram)

What can I say? I’m amazed! I feel I’ve got so wonderful gifts for this New year: two JF’s awards of 2021 (Ofer Comay and Shankar Ram) and also the acceptance to judge the next fairy tournament – JF-2022/I – from Vlaicu Crișan!
This is something what gives me energy and wish to do this work, to smile and to be glad and proud about so wonderful members of our society! Let’s spend the New year 2022 as we have started it!

Award JF 2021/I (Ofer Comay)

Awards, JF December 31, 2021 December 31, 2021 Leave a comment

Dear Friends, Ofer Comay was hurrying to make it for you this year, and I was hurrying to prepare it for the publication today… as a New year’s gift to all of you!

With sincere congratulations and with the best New Year’s wishes – the Award JF 2021/I

Please, don’t worry about possible mistakes in diagrams/solutions, I’ll correct everything later, will go through the whole document again tomorrow, but now I have no more time – some more champagne and the gifts are waiting! 🙂

Happy New year to all of you! Thank you for your best compositions! Stay creative and enjoy what you do!

Originals December 2021(2)

Julia's Fairies original problems December 27, 2021 December 31, 2021 Leave a comment

JF Original Problems | December, 2021 (2)

The judge of JF-2021/II: Shankar Ram
The judge of Retro & PG problems 2021-2022: Thomas Brand.

Happy New Year 2022!

(31.12) No.1679 (hs#3 ; BUL PAO, BUL VAO, BUL Lion) Vlaicu Crişan (Romania). “Probably this is one the first examples using Bulgarian pieces of the very difficult “Avant-Garde Indian theme” invented by Petko Petkov.” (Author)
(30.12) No.1666.1 (h=17 ; Circe Mirror) Sergey Shumeiko (Russia). The correction to No.1666.
(28.12) No.1678 (ser-#40 ; White Maximummer) Kıvanç Çefle (Turkey).
(28.12) No.1677 (PG 19,5) Velmurugan Nallusamy (India).

Animated diagrams use Py2Web by Dmitri Turevski and WinChloe‘s graphics, Christian Poisson

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.

Merry Christmas!

Uncategorized internal adds December 24, 2021 December 24, 2021 Leave a comment

Dear Friends,

I wish you a Merry Christmas!

Let it be snowy outside and warm inside!

Julia

Originals December 2021

Julia's Fairies original problems December 1, 2021 December 27, 2021 Leave a comment

JF Original Problems | December, 2021

The judge of JF-2021/II is Shankar Ram, who will judge JF fairy section for the 3^rd time (JF-2012 / Award ; JF-1017-0318 / Award)! Oh, I felt guilty to invite this so much overloaded man again, but he’s as Santa coming to us with Christmas gifts, always positive, always reliable! Shankar is active in composing and judging, in FCCP project, in virtual online meetings with Indian composers, following WFCC activity and many other websites related to chess composition, still working in IT and currently enjoying discovering Chromebook!
Anything else? 🙂 . Welcome, Shankar! And thank you very much!

The judge of Retro & PG problems 2021-2022: Thomas Brand.

Coming soon: Velmurugan Nallusamy (India);
questionable problems moved to the end of queue: James Malcom (USA), Sergey Shumeiko (Russia), János Csák & Béla Majoros (Hungary)

(22.12) No.1676 (Retro ; add pieces for an illegal cluster) Bojan Bašić (Serbia). “In comparison to the Baibikov & Keym’s problem (feenschach III–IV/2019, Nr. 12009; also WJP 2019, 2.-3. Place ex æquo), here we have twice as many pieces in the initial position!” (Author)
(22.12) No.1675 (#2 ; Berolina pawns) Ralf Krätschmer (Germany). Dedication to Stephan Dietrich 50. Birthday. “A #2 with Berolina pawns and a theme which was a great discussion in the MAT-Plus Forum” (Author)
(19.12) No.1674 (hs#4) Borislav Gadjanski (Serbia). “The mechanism uses all 8×8 space of the board, and all 4 edges.” (Author)
(19.12) No.1673 (h#2 ; Circe) Menachem Witztum (Israel).
(19.12) No.1524-2.1 (-30 & #1 Proca ; Anti-Circe) Dmitrij Baibikov (Israel). The problem in a process for about 1.5 years, first version – No.1524 (JF-R2019-20) – published in July,2020!
(12.12) No.1672 (PG 9.5 ; Pandemic) Mario Parrinello (Italy). The Pandemic condition invented by Alexandre Leroux, 2020.
(11.12) Dear composers, I have a tight time at the end of year. Mostly office work, plus more of original problems expected at the end of cycle. Also updating wfcc.ch and preparing ecsc2022.wfcc.ch. I would very much like to help you to publish your problems this year. But, planning today several hours to publish all I’ve got, I’m facing the fact that none of 6(!) entries are really ready for publication. Something is missing or not working and I’ve spent most of my time for writing requests. So, please, if you’d like to be published this year, the entry should have: notation and diagram for initial position, solution in full notation (departure and arrival squares), if computer tested and what program used. Thank you!
(11.12) No.1651.1 (h#2 ; LEO, PAO, VAO, Grasshopper, Nightriderhopper) Michal Dragoun (Czech Republic). In the comment to No.1651 author wrote: “A little pity is RHg4…”. So, no RHg4 anymore in this version!
(05.12) No.1671 (hs#3 ; LEO, PAO, VAO) Kjell Widlert (Sweden) & Thomas Maeder (Switzerland). “Started for the Tzuica tourney in Rhodes…” (Authors)
(04.12) No.1670 (#2 ; Nightrider, Half-Neutral pieces) Kjell Widlert (Sweden). “The theme from SuperProblem 232-TT doubled…” (Author)
(04.12) No.1669 (PG 10.5) Velmurugan Nallusamy (India). “Schnoebelen & Prentos theme doubled” (Author)
(01.12) No.1668 (h=10.5 ; Blac kMaximummer, White Maximummer) Kıvanç Çefle (Turkey). Warm welcome to Kıvanç!

Animated diagrams use Py2Web by Dmitri Turevski and WinChloe‘s graphics, Christian Poisson

An update to JF 10 JT

Tournamens, JF November 26, 2021 November 26, 2021 Leave a comment

An important update to JF 10 JT

Maximum number of pieces: 15
The discount works up to the deadline for submissions, 10.02.2022 🙂
The maximum number of pieces changed from 12 to 15 considering some further thoughts and some of your comments.

The Jubilee composing tournament JF 10 JT dedicated to 10 years of JF (10.04.2012-10.04.2022) | announcement in PDF

Let’s find and show something the best of what we know the best!

Originals November 2021

Julia's Fairies original problems November 12, 2021 November 26, 2021 Leave a comment

JF Original Problems | November, 2021

The judge of JF-2021/II: not appointed yet.
The judge of Retro & PG problems 2021-2022: Thomas Brand.

Coming soon: nobody in the waiting list

(26.11) No.1667 (h#2 ; Loco, Faro) Franz Pachl (Germany).
(14.11) No.1666 (h=17 ; Mirror Circe) Sergei Shumeiko (Russia). Author writes he was able to test only 6 last moves with Popeye, but intuitively feels the problem is correct.
(12.11) No.1665 (hs#3 ; Take & Make) Borislav Gadjanski (Serbia). The idea for the 19^th Tzuica not finished by Borislav in time. “3×2 paradoxical Pelle movements” (Author)
(12.11) No.1664 (PG 8 ; Sentinels) Mario Parrinello (Italy).

Animated diagrams use Py2Web by Dmitri Turevski and WinChloe‘s graphics, Christian Poisson

JF 10 JT (C10.02.2022)

Tournamens, JF November 10, 2021 January 8, 2022 14 Comments

JF 10 JT

Julia’s Fairies is pleased to announce the Jubilee composing tournament JF 10 JT
Dedicated to 10 years of JF (10.04.2012-10.04.2022)

Let’s find and show something the best of what we know the best!

The background: on April 10th, 2022 the JF website will celebrate its 10 years. see/hide more…

By that time about 1700 original fairy problems will be published. Some problems are pleasant little things, some others are head breaking complexes. And some are only for the selected groups of experts or followers. On JF, new ideas and new fairy elements are mixed with the old ones. And I hope JF has something to offer to each fairy taste!
It took me a while to make some decisions about the thematic condition for this JT, after consulting Kjell Widlert, who generously accepted to be the judge. No, I didn’t want to limit it to the promotion of a concrete fairy element and to receive many similar problems in the award. Also, it wouldn’t be fair to offer only my favourites, and I didn’t want to have no restrictions at all, as in the informal tournaments.
Then, coming to the beginning: creating JF I wanted to learn about the world of fairies together with all of you: while publishing your problems, while reading comments. It turned out that the variety of fairy elements is too big (around 2.700!), and nobody is really able to follow the play in all of them. Each of us selects some problems for their own taste and ability to understand (and to enjoy!).
As the result of this tournament, I’d like to have the selection of “reader-friendly” fairy problems. I’d like them to be accepted by newcomers and enjoyable for experienced composers. Let it be a touch of the most popular fairy elements of the last 10 years, to mark that period and to promote fairy chess!
Christian Poisson was so kind as to make for me a statistic for fairy pieces and conditions from Echecs database, with the numbers of problems using them since 2012. The same kind of extraction I’ve made from JF’s database. I have taken the top 21 of fairy pieces and the top 21 of conditions from both of them, selected those matching ones, removed several too complicated/doubtful for the idea… and finally made a list of most popular fairy elements of the last 10 years. So, please, let’s find and show something the best of what we know the best!

Theme: Unpin of any kind. The unpinned piece may be white, black or neutral, and unpinning may be done by any side, in any way: interposition, withdrawal, K move, etc. For this tourney, we define a pin to be a situation where a random move by one piece would cause its own K to be in check from one or more enemy pieces = the pinner(s). An unpin is any move that eliminates this situation, including self-unpin (the pinned piece makes a move that eliminates the pin) but excluding captures of the pinned piece that remove it from the board.

THIS MEANS THAT WE NOW ALLOW SELF-UNPINS WHERE THE PINNED PIECE CAPTURES THE PINNER, AND ALSO ALLOW CAPTURES OF THE PINNED PIECE AS LONG AS IT IS REBORN SOMEWHERE ELSE ON THE BOARD (SO IT IS NOW UNPINNED). (update 08.01.2022)

Stipulations for three sections: (A) #2-4; (B) h#2-4; (C) hs#3-4
Maximum number of pieces: 15

Fairy pieces and conditions: The idea of the tournament is to present most popular fairy pieces and conditions of the last 10 years. Problems should have at least one fairy piece or fairy condition, and at most two different fairy pieces/families, and/or at most two different fairy conditions from the lists below. Any other fairy pieces or conditions are not allowed.

See/hide accepted fairy pieces and conditions

Number of entries per composer: 3 entries per composer in total, in one section only or spread over several sections.

Joint problems: Allowed; a joint work counts as 1 for the group of composers, and less than 1 for each of them (if there are 2 composers of the joint problem, it’s counted as 0.5 entry for each).

Deadline: February 10^th 2022

Judge: Kjell Widlert

Tournament director: Julia Vysotska
Please, send computer tested problems only (indicate the program used for testing), to julia@juliasfairies.com

Results and prize giving: May 15^th 2022 in Riga, at the closing ceremony of the 15^th ECSC.

Prize fund €450 : Three prizes in each section, each prize €50.

See Examples in the PDF announcement JF10JT. Welcome to take part!!! – Julia