ChessProblems.ca TT1

Well, after 12 days and 240 emails, it came to an end! It has been a great pleasure organizing this tournament and being on "the other side" this time around, and having the opportunity to have the best seat in the house! :-) I hope that each participant enjoyed the tournament at least as much as I did!

Beyond a few inherent challenges, dictated by the short duration of the tournament, and more importantly, by the lack of Popeye support, I believe that all in all this was a successful tournament (your feedback is greatly appreciated!). It was a very pleasant surprise seeing a few new participants, as one of our goals was to popularize this type of series-movers tournament!

I also hope that you enjoyed composing for this tournament and dealing with a new stipulation! While the possibilities of achieving long solutions are certainly limited, the few matrices found have proven to be quite fruitful, as you will see below!

As mentioned in the news section, all problems are C+ (WinChloe 3.04), with the exception of three entries: Ivan Skoba 11/62*, Ivan Skoba 12/73* (N.B. see Post Scriptum!) and Ralf Krätschmer 12/66, therefore the results below are provisional until January 15 - if any of you finds cooks, please let me know! At the same time, please also note that each of those problems has a well positioned C+ reserve, listed at the bottom of this page, thus even if all of them are found to be unsound (highly unlikely), there will be no change in the final tournament standings!

Therefore, congratulations to the three prize winners, Itamar Faybish, Ralf Krätschmer and Ivan Skoba! Also, congratulations to Arno Tüngler, for being the first to reach 104 moves and being the overall move-length record holder, together with Itamar Faybish! Last, but not least, congratulations to each participant, for your wonderful problems and making this tournament a successful event! Thank you!

Before continuing with the final rankings, the table of records and, of course, the compositions, I would like to point out that those records, as impressive as they are, seem to be, at least in some cases, far from being written in stone, as proven by the following version, which is a new record for 9 units!

Ralf Krätschmer
(version Cornel Pacurar)


1.Ke7-d6 2.Kd6-c6 3.Kc6-b5 4.Kb5-a4 5.Ka4-a3 6.Ka3-a2 7.Ka2-b1 8.Kb1-c1 9.Kc1-d1 10.Kd1-e2 11.Ke2×f3 12.Kf3-e2 13.Ke2-d1 14.Kd1-c1 15.Kc1-b1 16.Kb1-a2 17.Ka2-a3 18.Ka3-a4 19.Ka4-b5 20.Kb5-c6 21.Kc6-d6 22.Kd6-e7 23.Ke7×f7 24.Kf7-e7 25.Ke7-d6 26.Kd6-c6 27.Kc6-b5 28.Kb5-a4 29.Ka4-a3 30.Ka3-a2 31.Ka2-b1 32.Kb1-c1 33.Kc1-d1 34.Kd1-e2 35.Ke2-f3 36.Kf3-g4 37.Kg4×h5 38.Kh5-g4 39.Kg4-f3 40.Kf3-e2 41.Ke2-d1 42.Kd1-c1 43.Kc1-b1 44.Kb1-a2 45.Ka2-a3 46.Ka3-a4 47.Ka4-b5 48.Kb5-c6 49.Kc6-d6 50.Kd6-e7 51.Ke7-f7 52.Kf7-g8 53.Kg8-h8 54.g7-g8=B !#

For those interested in further investigating the possibilities offered by this stipulation, a private online workshop has been created at forums.chessproblems.ca , please feel free to register and join, if not already done!

And, finally, I hope that at least some of you will participate in the next series-mover tournament, already announced at tt2.chessproblems.ca!

Cornel Pacurar
Toronto, January 5, 2010

(1) Arno Tüngler (06.01.2010 06:11 GMT) and Mario Richter (06.01.2010 10:25 GMT) have cooked in 37 moves Ivan's 12/73* (details at the bottom of the page)!. The unsound problem has been replaced by the C+ reserve, 12/67*. There are no changes to the standings.


(2) It is our pleasure to inform that Václav Kotesovec sent (06.01.2010 09:37 GMT) a new and beautiful 5/18, with a completely different play and mating position! Many thanks for the dedication as well!

Václav Kotesovec
(dedicated to Cornel Pacurar)


1.f2-f4 2.f4-f5 3.f5-f6 4.f6-f7 5.f7-f8=R 6.Rf8-f2 7.Rf2-e2 8.Kd2-e1 9.Ke1-f1 10.Re2-f2 11.Rf2-f3 12.Kf1-f2 13.Kf2-g3 14.Kg3-h3 15.g2-g3 16.Rf3-f4 17.Rf4-h4 18.g3-g4 !#

(3) 06.01.2010 19:39 GMT - Again, a very pleasant suprise! Ivan Skoba sends another dedication: a very elegant composition found during the tournament, with Excelsior and interesting King route, executed with the help of the promoted piece! Thank you!

Ivan Skoba
(dedicated to Cornel Pacurar)


1.Ke8 6.f8=B 7.Bd6 9.Kc6 10.Bc5 12.Kc4 13.Bd4 19.Kxg4 23.Kc4 24.Bc5 26.Kc6 27.Bd6 30.Kf6 31.Be7 32.e6 !#

(4) 07.01.2010 18:02 GMT - Impressed and motivated by Václav Kotesovec's fine idea presented above, Arno Tüngler looked for possibilities to extend it to a new length record! He quickly succeeded to do so and we are now glad to present the joint composition below, a very impressive new record for 5 units!

During the tournament, only one participant, Dmitry Zhilko, used the exact same material, and he came just short of a sound 5/20* setting, with a different checkmate position, so maybe even more than this is possible?!

Václav Kotesovec, Arno Tüngler


1.d2-d4 2.d4-d5 3.d5-d6 4.d6-d7 5.d7-d8=R 6.Rd8-d5 7.Rd5-c5 8.Kb1-c2 9.Kc2-d3 10.Rc5-d5 11.Kd3-e4 12.Ke4-f5 13.Rd5-d6 14.Kf5-g6 15.Kg6-h6 16.g5-g6 17.Rd6-d7 18.Rd7-h7 19.g6-g7 !#

(5) 11.01.2010 09:00 GMT - Ralf Krätschmer removes one pawn from his 12/66 tournament entry and that is enough for a new record for 11 units: 11/64! While still above WinChloe's capabilities, based on the properties of the mating position, final move and possible final wK-square, this composition certainly seems to be sound! This is also Mario Richter's conclusion regarding the 12/66 and 11/62 positions - with thanks for sending detailed analysis in this regard!

Ralf Krätschmer


13.Kxf2 27.Kxe7 44.Kxh5 63.Kh8 64.g8=B !#

(Last updated: 11.01.2010 09:00 GMT)