Chess Compositions revisited

All Things Chess
1

I originally started this as a reply of Computer and Creativity, but decided to start a new thread.

I’d say we’re no longer in the golden age of chess compositions, but back in the day, composing chess problems was quite engaging. Newspapers and other periodicals would not only publish compositions on a regular basis, but there were numerous tournaments over the years that gave birth to amazing number of artful, and well thought out compositions.

Too bad the USCF doesn’t look into chess compositions as a way to engage members in something a bit different than OTB chess. I don’t mean compete with The World Federation for Chess Composition (WFCC), but maybe at least do something in Chess Life. I’d actually written about that a while back, but I thought I’d mention it again.

Sadly, the bulk of chess composers seems to be in Europe, or at least, not in America, so it kinda limits the options of the USCF, which prefers to have columnists from the USA. One should get a person that has an active interest in composing chess problems to do it. Like Pal Benko would compose endgame problems on a regular basis, back when he was a columnist.

Truthfully, we could actually just sans a columnist and go with 6x historical problems on a half page, with the problems spanning a range of ability levels from C to expert or harder. Just mention where each problem came from and the difficulty range of the problem. The problems should be harder than ABC’s of chess though. Unlike Chess to Enjoy, the problem would be actual historical compositions… with at least one or two (of the 6), being very difficult. Of course, the easier problems (usually a mating pattern or theme) could be freshly composed, if it’s faster than trying to find a problem for the target rating level. In any event, no problem (no matter how enticing), should be come from an actual game. That would be against the theme of being chess compositions.

For more information about chess compositions: wfcc.ch/
I’m not a member, but it does have quite a bit of information on chess compositions.

2

Here’s something I just came across:

The British Chess Problem Society. http://www.theproblemist.org/

Seems like chess compositions are a European thing. I haven’t really come across anything outside of Europe. It wouldn’t surprise me if the creator of “Yet Another Chess Problem Database” is from Europe.

They have a section on how to solve compositions. Even the sample problem in part #1 is a bit insane for a beginner. Still cool though. :smiling_imp:

3

Here are two of my compositions. (They’re the only two I’ve ever composed.)

  1. White to move and win:

Bill Smythe

4
  1. White to move, black to win. Or, black to move, white to win.

Bill Smythe

5

need to get to h1, walk k over to a2, forcing Ra3+, then walk back to b2, and then to a1, then no more checks.

6

You mean h1, don’t you?

Bill Smythe