For the 32nd time Zdravko Maslar (together with bernd ellinghoven) has organized the fairy chess meeting of Andernach. After the historical Balkan Pik (restaurant owned by Maslar himself) the meeting is now held in the Kolpinghaus. Andernach is a town on the Rhine north of Koblenz, which is now well known to all fairy chess enthusiasts around the world thanks to Maslar who settled there in the '50s after leaving Yugoslavia (a well known fairy condition is named after the town). Many composers attended the meeting (about forty) from nine countries: Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Great Britain, Israel and, after too many years, Italy.
As always there were a composing tourney, a solving contest (with Andernach rules: i.e. the number of solutions is not known) and an over the board fairy chess blitz tournament. The composing tourney was for any type of problems in take&make a new condition invented by Hartmut Laue. When a piece captures, it must make a new move moving like the captured piece. Legality is checked only at the end of the move. Pawns move differently according to the color (white upwards, black downwards). Promotion is done when a pawn ends its move on the eigth rank. If it's not possible to make the second part of the move, then the move is illegal. King capture is orthodox (i.e. there's no need to make the second part of the move). An interesting condition, perhaps is worth trying to play it. The tourney has been subdivided into three parts: direct, help and proof games. The blitz tournament was played Saturday afternoon: the new fairy condition was elektroblizz, just a funny name to indicate orthodox chess played on a 8x7 chessboard. A small change that makes the game especially violent, e.g. the double-step move of a pawn attacks a normally developed knight. Too optimistically we played in the open air ... and the last round had to be canceled (all remis) for adverse condition of the pitch with pieces flooding everywhere. Myself ... hmm ... am trying and forget my results. Minilectures in the evenings: Hartmut Laue on take&make, Werner Keym on helpmates with four castles in two solutions. Werner accompanyed his lecture playing a saxophone (yes, it is a soprano saxophone and not a clarinet). Sunday morning prize givings and goodbye to 2007! Results Composing tourneys: direct play 1 prize: Reto Aschwanden 2 prize: Hans-Peter Rehm 3 prize: Michel Caillaud Composing tourneys: help play 1 prize: Hemmo Axt 2 prize: Thomas Maeder and Ulrich Ring 3 prize: Ruud Beugelsdijk Composing tourneys: Proof games 1 prize: Michel Caillaud 2 prize: Dirk Borst 3 prize: Dirk Borst, Joost de Heer Solving tournament 1 prize: Thomas Maeder 2 prize: Manfred Rittirsch 3 prize: Michel Caillaud Composing proof games with take&make is really interesting; unfortunately Popeye has been updated (by Stephen Emmerson) at exceptional speed, but there was a bug just for SPGs! I put four of them (one of mine for sheer narcissism) and you can have a go trying to cook them all! Reto Aschwanden Andernach 2006 - 1 prize Hemmo Axt Andernach 2006 - 1 prize Show/Hide (LI is the Lion, LB and LR are Lions moving like B and R) 1.LBb5:-b4? (2.LRc6#) Nc3/Nc5/Rd7 2.LIf3:-f6/LIf3:-e3/LIf3:-f5#, but 1.-Rc3! 1.LRb4! (2.LRc6#) Nc3/Nc5/Rd7 2.LIf3:-e3/LIf3:-f5/LIf3:-f6# Theme Lacny Thanks to Thomas Maeder for the solutions which I had lost! Show/Hide 1 ... Na:c4-c3 2. R:e5-c4 2. B:d2-d6# 1 ... N:b5-d7 2. R:e5-c6 R:f6-d4# Two pin mates where the same mating move captures the pinned piece and moves on a new line. Note Na3 that makes the first moves controlling a white square in 'a' and a black one in 'b'. (14+14) (8+9) #2 take&make 90° rotated pieces are Lions that move on the Q, B, R lines h#2 0.1.1.1. take&make b) d2 → e3 Michel Caillaud Andernach 2006 - 1 prize Dirk Borst Andernach 2006 - 2 prize Show/Hide 1. b4 a5 2. b5 Ra6 3. b:a6-a8=N Nf6 4. N:c7-c6 d:c6-a7 5. h3 Bg4 6. h:g4-c8=Q Nc6 7. Qe6 Qc7 8. Qd6 e:d6-d7 9. a3 Bb4 10. a:b4-f8=B Rd8 11. Bb4 a:b4-e7 Three Ceriani-Frolkin promotions in eleven moves! Show/Hide 1. a4 e5 2. Ta3 B:a3-h3 3. d3 d5 4. Bh6 gh6-c1=B 5. e3 Nd7 6. Be2 Nb6 7. Bh5 B8g4 8. Ne2 Qb8 9. OO B:b2-b4 10. Nf4 B:d1-c1 11. Td1 Bc8 12. g4 Kf8 13. Kg2 Kg7 14. Kh3 Bf8 A cyclic change of place; Bishop f8 is now in c8, Bc8 is now in c1, Bc1 (i.e. a promoted one) is in f8! Obviously a theme impossible with orthodox chess. (13+12) (12+16) SPG 11.0 take&make SPG 14.0 take&make Joost de Heer, Dirk Borst Andernach 2006 - 3 prize Marco Bonavoglia Andernach 2006 - 5 prize Show/Hide 1. d3 Nf6 2. Bg5 Ne4 3. B:e7-e5 Qh4 4. B:c7-c5 Be7 5. B.a7-a6 Ra7 6. B:b7-b5 Rc7 7. B:d7-d5 Bb7 8. B:f7-f5 Kf7 9. B:h7-h6 Rd8 10 B:g7-g5 Kg6 11. Bc1 Bg5 12. d:e4-d2 1. Nc3 Nf6 2. Nd5 Ne4 3. N:e7-e6 Qh4 4. N:g7-g5 Be7 5. N:h7-h6 Bg5 6. N:f7-f6+ Kf7 7. N:d7-d6 Kg6 8. N:b7-b5 Rd8 9. N:a7-a6 Ra7 10. N:c7-c5 Rc7 11. N:e4-c3 Bb7 12.Nb1 Two different captures chains, the first with bishops, the other with knights. Show/Hide 1. b3 d5 2. Bb2 Qd7 3. Bf6 e:f6-b2 4. Nc3 d4 5. Rc1 b:c1-a1=R 6. Qc1 d:c3-b1=N 7. d4 f6 8. Qg5 f:g5-c1=B An almost AUW, and of course I would have liked to have all pieces in the original square. The positions of the three promoted pieces is nice. (16+7) (15+15) SPG 11.5 take&make two solutions SPG 14.0 take&make
To end up a funny example showing the possibilities of take&make. What was the last move? It's so easy, I don't give the solution!