ChessProblems.ca TT1

Introduction

ChessProblems.ca organizes a 12-days thematic Quick Series-Movers Online Tournament. While similar in nature with the ones previously organized by Jean-Marie Choreïn (TT1, TT2 (results), TT3 (rankings, results)), Nicolas Dupont (TT1) and, more importantly, Itamar Faybish (TT1, TT2, TT3, TT4 and TT5), this tournament will be different in many respects, as you will see below!

Schedule

The tournament will last for 12 days.

Start date and time: December 25th, 2009, at 00:00 GMT
End date and time: January 5th, 2010, at 23:59 GMT

There will be no exceptions, new submissions after the deadline will not be accepted.

Prizes

There will be three book prizes, based on the rankings for each of the different numbers of total force.

The Theme and the Rules

1	The tournament is open for compositions with the following stipulation: Series Auto-Mate - ser-!# (black does not play at all, white plays a series of "n" moves, and at the end of the series puts itself into a mate position).
2	Only compositions with normal force (no promoted figures in the initial position) and with a total number of units between 4 and 12 (including kings) are allowed.
3	The goal of the tournament is to find the move-length record for each of the different numbers of total force (4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12).
4	The criteria used to decide the ranking within each of those subcategories is as follows: a) The number of moves: the more, the better. b) Compositions with the king not in check in the initial position are preferred over compositions having the same number of units and moves, but king in check (which is allowed). c) The date and the time of sending: the earlier, the better. Other aspects of the economy of force (i.e. total number and type of figures) are not taken into consideration. Within those 9 subcategories, only the top three composers will receive tournament points, as follows: 1st place: 3 points, 2nd place: 2 points, 3rd place: 1 point. The cumulated number of points will decide the overall tournament rankings. The top three composers will receive the book prizes.
5	Only compositions with a unique solution and no duals are accepted. If there are more unique solutions of different move-length, the shortest one will be considered.
6	Only normal 8x8 board and orthodox pieces are accepted.
7	All initial positions must be legal under the rules of chess.
8	No other (fairy) conditions are accepted.
9	Promotions during solution are, of course, acceptable.
10	No joint compositions are accepted. This tournament is only open for individuals, and not for teams.
11	At the end of the tournament, in the event of not being able to confirm that all entries are C+, provisional results will be posted.
12	In trying to find the overall length record, compositions with more than 12 units are accepted "Hors-Concours". They will not be verified at our end during the tournament (an impossible task, WinChloe needed about 25 hours to validate the 17-unit, 66 moves position mentioned below). The best entry received from each composer will be posted at the end of the tournament, for further verification.

Computers Implications

1	Computers are allowed for both validation of the uniqueness of the intended solution and for composing! If anyone can program this and run exhaustive checks in 12 days, then hats off!
2	Unfortunately, Popeye does not support this stipulation. We do not have sufficient information about the latest version of Alybadix, but we confirm that this stipulation/aim is supported by WinChloe.
3	For those participants that do not have WinChloe, beyond going back to the roots and manual checks, we provide sequential computer verification support, on a first-come, first-served basis.

Submission of entries

Please send your entries to tt1(at)chessproblems.ca (replace (at) with @), in the following format:

Subject:
   TT1 [Total number of pieces (including the kings)/Number of moves]
Body:
   Position: [Forsyth notation]
   Solution:
   C+ ?:
   Comments:

Background Information

To the best of our knowledge, no series-movers having this aim (DEU: eigenmatt, FR: auto-mat, EN: auto-mate (we prefer this over self-mate, for obvious reasons)) have been published.

In 2000, Bedrich Formanek published a help-auto-mate:

There is also a fairy "Vielväter" problem, auto-mate in 1 move, from 1989 (information kindly provided by Hans Gruber - thank you!):


Prior to the tournament, we also spent a few days working with this stipulation, and after taking into consideration the short duration of the tournament, we have decided to share those results with you. There is no doubt that they will be surpassed quickly during the tournament, but they show the potential of this stipulation and provide some guidelines during the initial phase of the tournament! They will all be shown at the end of the tournament.

"*" below denotes King in check in the initial position

Units	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	17
Moves	11	18	30	38*	46*	49	51	52*	53	66*

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