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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200920
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200921
DTSTAMP:20210920T225258Z
CREATED:20190920T100224Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210920T225258Z
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SUMMARY:Death Anniversary of Hugh Blandford (24-i-1917 20-ix-1981)
DESCRIPTION:BCN remembers Hugh Blandford who was a British composer. \nHugh Francis Blandford was born on Wednesday\, January 24th in 1917 in South Stoneham\, Hampshire\, England. \nOn this day Ernest Borgnine was born and an earthquake measuring 6.3 in magnitude struck Anhui Province\, China\, causing 101 deaths. \nHugh’s father was the Rev Albert Francis Blandford and his mother was Alice Rhoda Crumpton Evans. Hugh had two younger brothers\, Philip Thomas. and Evan Arthur. \nThe family moved to Jamaica and he spent his early childhood there until he was nine years old when they sailed from Kingston\, Jamaica with his family to Bristol on board the SS Carare (Elders & Fyffes Line) : \nPassenger Manifest (part) for SS Carare \, 30th May 1926.\nHis mother Alice Rhoda Crumpton passed away on 19 July 1964 in Minehead\, Somerset\, at the age of 79. \nHis father Rev Albert Francis passed away in December 1967 in Somerset at the age of 79. \nHe had three children during his marriage. \nHe died in Hatfield\, Hertfordshire on Sunday\, September 20th\, 1981. \nBlandford is also known for participating in defining the GBR (Guy\, Blandford Roycroft) code. \nIn 1961 he was awarded the title of “International Judge of the FIDE for Chess Composition” \nCM Bent wrote the following obituary in the British Chess Magazine\, Volume CI (101\, 1981)\, Number 12 (December)\, page 532 : \n“The modest and self-effacing composer who formerly conducted our Studies column from 1951-1972 died in September. His work as a metallurgist and his family responsibilities allowed him to make periodical contributions over a long span and to offer us many of his own original compositions.  \nHis style\, as with his manner\, was essentially quiet and it was a rarity for him to compose anything other than wins.  \nHis last voluntary labour was to compile an index for E.G. of all studies published there to date. His loss to the world of of studies will be greatly felt.  \nThe first prize winner below is a classic of exquisite refinement and matches the immaculate handwriting which was always such an elegant feature of his work” \nStudies by Hugh Francis Blandford\nSolutions to studies by Hugh Francis Blandford\nSee more of his compositions here from the arves.org database. \nFrom The Encyclopedia of Chess by Anne Sunnucks : \n“British study composer and FIDE Judge of Endgame Studies. Born on 24th January 1917. Since July 1951\, Hugh Blandford has conducted the Endings Section of the British Chess Magazine. By profession a metallurgist\, he was married and had two children. Of his 60 or more studies he was best known for the excelsior theme.” \nFrom Wikipedia : \n\nHugh Francis Blandford (24 January 1917 – 20 September 1981) was a chess endgame composer born in Southampton\, England.[1]\nHe spent several years of his childhood in Jamaica with his father\, the Reverend Albert Francis (Frank) Blandford\, a Minister in the Congregational church\, his mother and two younger brothers\, Evan Arthur and Philip Thomas Blandford. All three brothers then returned to England and attended Eltham College (the School for the Sons of Missionaries) in South-east London\, while their parents remained in Jamaica. He married Marjorie Cox\, whom he had worked with during the Second World War. \nHe played chess from his schooldays and as well as playing\, also started to compose original chess endings. He became known in the field of chess endgame studies for a small but elegant body of compositions\, expertly edited and published after Hugh’s death by his long-standing chess endings colleague\, John Roycroft.[2] \n\n1st Prize\, Springaren 1949\, White to move and win\n\nHugh Blandford was co-inventor with Richard Guy – and\, later\, with John Roycroft – of the Guy–Blandford–Roycroft code for classifying studies.[3] In July 1951 he began as the endgame study editor for the British Chess Magazine.[4][5] He was made an International Judge for Chess Composition[4] in 1961.[6] \nA metallurgist\, he continued to compose chess endgame studies until the end of his life\, dying of a heart attack in early retirement in Hatfield\, England\, on 20 September 1981.\n \n Save as PDF
URL:http://britishchessnews.com/event/death-anniversary-of-hugh-francis-blandford/
CATEGORIES:Composer,Death Anniversary,History,Problemist,Studies,Writer
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20201009
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20201010
DTSTAMP:20211009T100528Z
CREATED:20191016T160417Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20211009T100528Z
UID:1562-1602201600-1602287999@britishchessnews.com
SUMMARY:Death Anniversary of Norman Gibbins (15-x-1882 09-x-1956)
DESCRIPTION:Death Anniversary of Norman Martin Gibbins (15-x-1882 09-x-1956) \nSee http://davidgibbins.com/journal/2013/5/28/war-in-another-dimension \n Save as PDF
URL:http://britishchessnews.com/event/death-anniversary-of-norman-martin-gibbins/
CATEGORIES:Composer,Death Anniversary,History
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20201109
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20201110
DTSTAMP:20201030T105554Z
CREATED:20190823T175611Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201030T105554Z
UID:1086-1604880000-1604966399@britishchessnews.com
SUMMARY:Death Anniversary of Charles Edward Kemp (09-xi-1986)
DESCRIPTION:Death Anniversary of Charles Edward Kemp (09-xi-1986) \n Save as PDF
URL:http://britishchessnews.com/event/death-anniversary-of-charles-edward-kemp/
CATEGORIES:Composer,Death Anniversary,History,Problemist
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20201125
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20201126
DTSTAMP:20201123T173527Z
CREATED:20190823T110243Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201123T173527Z
UID:1078-1606262400-1606348799@britishchessnews.com
SUMMARY:Death Anniversary for Anthony Dickins (01-xi-1914 25-xi-1987)
DESCRIPTION:We remember Anthony Dickins who passed away this day (Wednesday\, November 25th) in 1987. \nAnthony Stewart Mackay Dickins was born at 1 Rivers Street\, Bath\, Somerset on Sunday\, November 1st\, 1914. On this day was the Battle of Coronel — The Royal Navy suffered its first defeat of World War I\, after a British squadron commanded by Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock met and was defeated by superior German forces led by Vice-Admiral Maximilian von Spee in the eastern Pacific. \n1\, Rivers Street\, Bath\, Somerset\, BA1 2QA\nAnthony’s parents were Frederick and Florence Dickins (née Mackay) Frederick was a Captain in the Royal Artillery and was born on 25th November 1879\, commissioned on May 26th 1900. He became a Colonel on 26th May 1930 and retired November 25th 1936. He was alive in 1972 (aged 92) and living in Bexhill passing away aged 101/102. He was awarded the CIE which is “Companion\, Order of the Indian Empire in 1914”. \nAnthony was baptised on December 29th in Seend\, Wiltshire. Anthony had a brother Frederick James Douglas born in 1907 who married Nellie or Peggie Moist (records are unclear). \nIt would appear that Florence and Anthony (aged 5) travelled to Bombay from Plymouth on board the SS City of York (Ellerman Lines) departing December 26th\, 1919 presumably to visit his father in India. The ships master was J. McKellan. \nAt the time of the 1939 Census Anthony was residing in the Tavistock Hotel in Tavistock Square. His occupation was given as journalist and editor and described as single. \nFrom the Hull Daily Mail (extant and renamed Hull Live) of March 4th\, 1939 we have this part review of a magazine called The Joys of Poetry. Anthony was the editor : \nHull Daily Mail\, 4th March 1939\nHe died in Lambeth Wednesday\, November 25th) in 1987. We have yet to determine where he was buried or cremated. \nFrom http://chesscomposers.blogspot.com/2012/10/november-1st.html : \n“Anthony Dickins wrote A Guide to Fairy Chess (1967) and other books about fairy chess. He edited the column of non-original fairy problems for “The Problemist”. He was specialized in constructional problems and was also an International Judge.” \nAnthony Stewart Mackay Dickins\nFrom British Chess (Pergamon Press\, 1984)\, Botterill\, Levy\, Rice and Richardson : \n(article by JM Rice) \n“Chess first entered my life seriously about 1950 at the well-known Mandrake Social and Chess Club in Meard Street\, Soho\, run by Harold Lommer and Boris Watson. Purely literary connections took me there in the first place\, as it was a rendezvous for the literary fraternity\, such as Dylan Thomas\, David Gascoyne and others. \nAfter the war Harold converted a small wine-vault into a tiny cramped chess-room\, with some dozen tables and boards. Many well-known\npersonalities in the world of Chess were occasional visitors\, such as Grandmasters Ossip Bernstein\, Paul Keres\, Jacques Mieses and Friedrich Sämisch; British Champions Willy Winter\, Bob Wade and Dr. Fazekas; M. J. Franklin\, now a British Master\, and the Problemists\, Dr. E. T. O. Slater and B. J. da C. Andrade. Mieses was then in his late eighties and charged a fee of half-a-crown (12.5 pence) for a game. When his name was mispronounced ‘Mister My-ziz’ he would say ‘I am Meister Mieses\, not Mister My-ziz’. \nSämisch once played fourteen of us blindfold\, defeating all except one\, a very strong Indian player\, Atta\, who obtained a draw. My regular ‘partners’ were Vicki Weiss\, the famous cartoonist\, his brother Oscar\, Richard Crewdson\, Mr Keller (a professional who played sharply for a shifty shilling)\, Brian Mason\, Colin ‘Puffer’ Evans\, (whose strategy was to puff cigarette ash and smoke all over the board to bemuse the opponent) and Bob Troy (who always fell fast asleep immediately after making each move and had to be wakened on his next turn to play). There was a juke-box in the next room constantly blaring forth pop and bop. Most of all I played with Alex Distler\, and with him always’variants of the game’ like Cylindrical Chess\, Rifle Chess\, Progressive Chess\, or the Losing Game. \nIn this colourful and inspiring\, if rather smoky and noisy\, atmosphere I composed my first six chess problems\, helpmates and cylindricals\, though I did not then know of the existence of Problem books or magazines\, nor had I heard of Sam Loyd\, Max Lange\, or T. R. Dawson when the Mandrake closed in the late fifties and Harold Lommer retired to Spain to write his two monumental works on Endgame Studies. \nFor the next 10 years or so I played at the West London and Athenaeum Chess Clubs\, for Middlesex County and at Hastings congresses\, meanwhile regularly solving the problems in the two evening newspapers for practice. \nIn 1965\, in my 51st year\, I discovered chess-problem magazines and the British Chess Problem Society\, and was soon asked by John Rice to join the Fairy\nChess Correspondence Circle\, whose director\, W. Cross\, perhaps the greatest solver of all time\, guided my early footsteps in fairyland. At this point I compiled for my own use a summary of all the usual rules and conventions in Fairy Chess\, as these were numerous and complicated. It occurred to me that a few other people might also welcome such a summary\, so I put it into book form as A Guide to Fairy Chess\, which I published by myself in 1967 under the imprint ‘The O Press’\, a pun on the name ‘Kew’ where I was then living. \nA Guide to Fairy Chess\nTo my amazement it had rave reviews (‘the comprehensive work\, so long awaited’\, ‘more like an encyclopaedia’\, ‘the bible of Fairy Chess’) and sold like hot cakes\, going into three editions\, each one enlarged and revised\, the third produced by Dover Publications\, New York\, in 1971. Two years later I edited Dover’s publication of T. R. Dawson’s Five Classics of Fairy Chess. \nFive Classics of Fairy Chess\, TR Dawson\nIn 1970 I flew to the States to spend a few days in the J. G. White collection in Cleveland\, Ohio\, researching historical material on Fairy Chess. This Ohio collection has the largest chess library in the world\, and to my surprise I found that it contains also ‘every book or article ever written on or about ‘Omar Khayyam and Alice in Wonderland . To find oneself suddenly and unexpectedly transported\, as if by magic carpet\, into a superbly organised library with the most complete collections in the world of the three subjects that happen to be one’s own three principal literary interests is an experience that must approach closely to entering Nirvana\, and I am happy to have had it. This visit enabled me to write A Short History of Fairy Chess (1975) and to give the lecture Alice in Fairyland to the Lewis Carroll Society in London\, published in their journal Jabberwocky and reprinted by myself in 1976 (2nd edn 1978) . \nA Short History of Fairy Chess\, ASM Dickins\nIn 1972 I decided to present my (by then) extensive collection of Fairy Chess books and magazines to my old university library at Cambridge to prevent the possible break-up of the collection as a single unit\, and to ensure that at least one fairly complete Fairy Chess collection was retained in Britain. \nIn 1968 I was invited to open a Fairy Chess section in The Problemist\, organ of the BCPS\, which I handed over to Dr. C. C. L. Sells in 1970\, and from 1974 to 1981 I ran another column in that magazine called ‘Other Types’. This chess journalism has brought me into touch with many problemists\, and made many friends for me\, in foreign countries. \nIn 1967\, on a visit to Mannheim for the Schwalbe annual meeting\, I met Wilhelm Karsch\, then editor of Feenschach\, and in 1968 in Munich I again met Dr. Karl Fabel\, whom I first came to know in London in 1967\, and also Peter Kniest\, one of the two present editors of Feenschach. In 1969\, on a visit to Paris\, a meeting was arranged for me at the late Jean Oudot’s flat\, with Pierre Monr6al\, J. P. Boyer\, F. de Lionnais (author of the Dictionnaire des Echecs) and other French problemists\, and altogether I have attended twenty three major problemist meetings in various countries\, including FIDE meetings in The Hague\, Wiesbaden\, Canterbury and Helsinki. It has been my constant aim to try to encourage and cultivate the practice and study of Fairy Chess and to keep alive the great legacy that T.R. Dawson left to the world when he died in 1951. \nIn recent years I have developed close relations with the younger generation of West German problemists\, who are very active in Fairy Chess\, centred round 29-year-old Bernd Ellinghoven\, who helps Peter Kniest to edit Feenschach and who printed my last booklet\, Fairy Chess Problems (1979)\, containing\npoems as well as problems\, combined in a new kind of fairy technique\, for I believe that Fairy Chess represents in many ways the ‘poetry’ of Chess. \nFAIRY CHESS PrOblems (1979)\nFor\nthe 50th birthday of T. R. Dawson on the 28th November 1939 a certain Dr Lazarus of Budapest wrote in Fairy Chess Review: ‘T. R. D. these three\nletters represent a conception in the Poetry of Chess which is amongst the most ingenious of all its turns\, one of its most strange and interesting phases… Without T.R.D. human culture would lack a factor in its development’. Those people (and there are some) who would banish Fairy Chess altogether from Caissa’s realm resemble the iron-hearted Mr. Gradgrinds who would abolish romance\, mystery\, poetry\, invention\, discovery and imagination from human life. \nFairy Chess Review\nElsewhere I have written: ‘The Game for Murderers\, The Problem for Philosophers\, Fairy Chess for Sufis’\, because the aim of the game-player is to ‘mate’ (kill) the opponent (from Arabic\, mat _ dead)\, while the problemist has no personal opponent to kill\, but merely a philosophical problem to resolve. In Fairy Chess\, however\, the adept is transported to another plane of existence\, to an ‘undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns’\,to new’dimensions’ of thought (as in 3- and 4-dimensional problems) – in short\, to Fairyland\, to Nirvana. \nThe three problems represent my early\, middle and later compositions. The helpmate in three moves (Black plays first in a helpmate) is a miniature culminating in an ideal Mate. C. H. O’D. Alexander was much tickled by what he called ‘the deceptive pawn’ on a2\, which unexpectedly does not promote. \n\n\n \n\n\n    \n        \n            You must activate JavaScript to enhance chess diagram visualization.        \n    \n    \n    \n\n\n \n\nThe Construction Task with 113 White moves\, all ‘maintaining’ the legal stalemate position in which Black finds himself\, is a standing record that defeated the previous record of 112 such moves obtained independently by six problemists in six countries\, one of them an lnternational Master of FIDE. \n\n\n \n\n\n    \n        \n            You must activate JavaScript to enhance chess diagram visualization.        \n    \n    \n    \n\n\n \n\nThe Knight’s Tour is one of the oldest genres of Fairy Chess\, dating from the earliest days of chess\, and in TR Dawson’s Fairy Chess Review he published many of them.\, including some that showed the ‘square numbers’ (1\,4\,9\,16\,25\,36\,49\,64) all on one rank – in the present example I have added the extra strict condition that as many as possible of the numbers 1 to 16 must be in the SW corner and as many as possible of the numbers 1 to 32 must be in the W half of the board. \nFor two reasons the perfect ideal in this task cannot be attained\, firstly because of the given position of the number 25\, and secondly because it is not possible to make a Knight’s tour on a 4 x 4 board in the SW corner. \nSolutions : \n1. Helpmate\, Evening News\, 20th February 1957 dedicated to Harold Lommer \nHelpmate in 3 moves \n1. Kd5 Nb1\n2. Kc4 e8=Q\n3. Kb3 Qb5 mate \n2. Construction Task Record\, Feenschach 9341 Sep/Oct 1969 dedicated to Karl Fabel \n113 unforced stalemate maintenances with Promotion in Play (Pawn promotions count as 4 moves) unforced as W has some moves that do not maintain stalemate\, so he is not ‘forced’ to maintain it. \n3. Knight’s Tour Chessics 5(180) July\, 1978 dedicated to D. Nixon. \nKnights tour with\na) All square number on 4th rank\nb) maximum of 1-16 in SW quad\nc) maximum of 1-32 in W half \nKnight’s tour solution from ASM Dickins\n100 Classics of the Chessboard\n Save as PDF
URL:http://britishchessnews.com/event/death-anniversary-for-anthony-stewart-mackay-dickens/
CATEGORIES:Composer,Death Anniversary,History,Problemist
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20201203
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20201204
DTSTAMP:20211202T104020Z
CREATED:20200323T140601Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20211202T104020Z
UID:3698-1606953600-1607039999@britishchessnews.com
SUMMARY:Death Anniversary of A(lfred) Christopher Reeves (19-ii-1939 03-xii-2012)
DESCRIPTION:BCN remembers Dr. A(lfred) Christopher Reeves who passed away on Monday\, December 3rd\, 2012 in St. Agnes\, Cornwall. His probate record (#4073868) is dated December 3rd\, 2012 being recorded in the Bristol registry. \nAlfred Christopher Reeves was born in Wharfedale\, Yorkshire on Sunday\, February 19th\, 1939. His mother’s name was Tomlin. \nAlfred detested his first name to the extent that he asked people to call him Christopher and\, when asked\, told them that the A was for Arthur. For this reason much of the chess literature uses Arthur whereas public records use Alfred. \nIn British Chess Magazine\, Volume 133 (2013)\, Number 1 (January)\, page 2 we have this obituary from James Pratt: \n“Alfred Christopher Reeves (Leeds\, 19 ii 1939 – St Agnes?\, 3 xii 2012). Chris Reeves was a FIDE Master of Composition. He toyed with entering the priesthood but became a child psychotherapist. He started composing (“…my solace and diversion …”) in 1960\, largely specialising in the orthodox two move field. Though not a prolific composer\, his work was known worldwide.\nHe was Sub-Editor of The Problemist” \nFrom the The Encyclopaedia of Chess (Batsford\, 1977)\, Harry Golombek OBE\, John Rice writes: \n“British problemist\, output consists of skilfully constructed two-movers in the modern style.” \nFrom The Encyclopedia of Chess (Robert Hale\, 1970 & 1976)\, Anne Sunnucks wrote: : \n“Problem composer. Since 1960 he has composed about 70 modern-style two movers\, and is considered to be one of the most talented British composers. His originality and technique enable him to build into tangible form what would be no more than a passing idea for most composers. He has edited the problem section of Correspondence Chess\, and he controlled BCF tourneys and International Team matches.” \nFrom British Chess (Pergamon Press\, 1983) Botterill\, Levy\, Rice and Richardson we have this: \n“I was born on February 19th\, 1939\, the second son of a doctor who practised in a busy Yorkshire coal-mining town. As a youngster I acquired a taste for chess problems as soon as I learnt the moves of the game. \nI owe my initiation to the admirable column which DM Davey used to run in the weekly review The Tablet and to the enterprise of one of the masters of the boarding school to which I was sent when still quite young. Davey’s column catered for novice chess problemists like myself by conducting graded solving tournaments with modest handicaps. \nThese tournaments ran conveniently the length of the school term\, just long enough to sustain a young person’s enthusiasm\, The teacher in question used to put the week’s problem up on the school noticeboard and dozens of small schoolboys participated as a result. The Tablet column was not only a boon for beginners like me. It had a very discriminating band of solvers who were given ample space to express their views on each week’s problems. This had the additional effect of making it a popular forum for budding composers who need the stimulus and encouragement of audience response in what is\, after all\, a very solitary sort of pastime. \nMy fascination with chess problems soon diverted my energies away from the game itself. I was eight when I began solving. Another 13 years elapsed before I seriously tried my hand at composing. My immediate inspiration was the example of the then young trio of British composers\, Barry Barnes\, Michael Lipton and John Rice. Their latest work incorporating\, try-play\, and often exploiting complex patterns of relationships between mates\, was regarded as unacceptably\, ultramodern\, in some quarters but found ready appreciation with the solvers of Davey’s column. \nOther sorts of problems I had enjoyed; these I wanted to emulate. The powerful attraction their work had on me has made me chary ever since of the strictures of self-appointed guardians of chess problem ‘taste’\, who suggest that the modern two-mover cannot hold the same interest for the solver as the more traditional type. It certainly did not have a negative effect on me. \nProblem I was one of my earliest compositions\, in fact the first to gain any sort of award. At the time I was a theological student destined for the priesthood. I recall having felt some scruples about indulging in the frivolous pastime of chess problem composition not that it prevented me from becoming thoroughly addicted! \nI have found that a bad conscience makes a good chess problem\, and the greatest spur for composition is the feeling that one should really be busy doing something else. The problem shows a duel between the white queen and the black knight on d5\, each of whose eight possible moves feature as a unique defence against one of the white queen tries. Solvers have often found the key to this problem’ quite elusive. \nProblem I \nThe Tablet\, 30th June\, 1962 \n3rd Honorary Mention BCPS Ring Tournament \n\n\n \n\n\n    \n        \n            You must activate JavaScript to enhance chess diagram visualization.        \n    \n    \n    \n\n\n \n\nWhite to play and mate in 2 \n1.Qa1?…Nc7!\n1.Qa4?…Nb6!\n1.Qb1?…N5b4!\n1.Qc1?…Nc3!\n1.Qe1?…Ne3!\n1.Qf1?…N5f4!\n1.Qg4?…Nf6!\n1.Qg1?…Ne7! \nKey! Qb3! \nThe 1960s were my golden period of problem composition. They were my solace and diversion as I passed by way of theological studies through an Oxford degree to the foothills of a different career from the one I had originally envisaged\, not the ‘cure of souls’ but the management and treatment of emotionally disturbed children and their families. By the end of the decade I was\nalready engaged in working as a Child Psychotherapist. Since then I have found that human problems have tended to displace my former involvement with problems of the chess pieces. Whereas\nbetween 1960 and 1970 I composed seventy problems\, in the subsequent decade I could manage only a dozen more. The reason for this slowing down in production\, however\, has not only been the demands of personal\, family and professional life. \nAs a composer I have concentrated almost exclusively on the orthodox two-move field\, one which if not yet exhausted nevertheless presents a major challenge to the composer to find something new to say or some new way of saying it. It is no accident (though I admit to a slight feeling of regret) of heterodox problems has expanded enormously in the past few years. \nOf my eighty or so problems\, fifty have been honoured in tournaments\, ten with First prizes\, ten with other prizes and the rest with Honourable Mentions and Commendations. My ambition is to\nreach a respectable century of compositions\, though I being to wonder whether I shall ever make the mark. I would also like to reach the FIDE Master norm for problem composition. I have\nhad twenty of my problems included in the triennial FIDE Albums so far\, a few of them joint compositions. Here again\, however\, my productivity (or lack of it) may eventually tell against me. \nStill\, the problemist must always keep the business of honours in perspective. Composing problems is an essentially private business. Your opponent is the power of the pieces\, not a fellow sitting opposite Vou. Unlike the chess player\, one can keep one’s defeats to oneself when one puts the pieces away after a fruitless evening pondering over a board\, so it seems only fair that\none’s successes likewise should be modestly recorded. \nBy a coincidence two of the three problems which I have selected to round off this brief note about myself and my compositions are ones which got no recognition from the tournament judge\nat the time\, although I count them amongst my best works. \nI have chosen a trio of problems all roughly on the same theme\, namely\, the four possible moves of the pawn from its starting square. In chess problem parlance this is called the BP4M* theme when applied to the Black pawn\, and the Albino theme when applied to the White pawn. \nII and III show two ways in which four mates can be provided to meet each of the BP4M moves\, only to be changed in the next phase of play. In II\, the change is between mates set before the key and those operative after it; in III\, the change is more radical\, involving the transfer of the WR from one position to another\, thereby creating two separate but related (or ‘twin’) problems. Incidentally\, a good way to begin to get a taste of what composing involves is to take a problem like III and try to express the theme in full (here the changed BP4M) without resorting to the twinning device. \nMy last example\, IV\, shows a duel between white and black pawns\, with the four Albino tries being met by the four possible BP4M defences. \n(* BP4M is BCNs replacement for a word starting with p now considered by some as offensive.). \nWhilst the player may rejoice in a victory soundly accomplished I can think of few pleasures to compare with the satisfaction which comes from accomplishing the sort of task which IV entails\, especially when one is fairly sure that it has not been successfully achieved before. For me\, at all events\, this is what two-mover chess problem composition is all about: its is the ‘art if the all-but-impossible’!” \nProblem II \nDie Schwalbe August\, 1965 \n\n\n \n\n\n    \n        \n            You must activate JavaScript to enhance chess diagram visualization.        \n    \n    \n    \n\n\n \n\nWhite to play and mate in 2 \n1…dxc6+ 2. Bxc6\n1…d6 2.Nd5\n1…d5 2.Qb4\n1…dxe6 2.Bc8 \nKey 1.Qxe5! (2.exd7) \n1…dxc6 2.Nxc6\n1…d6 2.Qf6\n1…d5 2.Qc7\n1…dxe6 2.Qxe6\n1…Rd5+ 2.Nd5 \nProblem III \n1st Prize  \nProblemist Twin Tournament 1966-67 \n\n\n \n\n\n    \n        \n            You must activate JavaScript to enhance chess diagram visualization.        \n    \n    \n    \n\n\n \n\nWhite to play and mate in 2 \nProblem IV \nProbleemblad\, May\, 1965 \n\n\n \n\n\n    \n        \n            You must activate JavaScript to enhance chess diagram visualization.        \n    \n    \n    \n\n\n \n\nWhite to play and mate in 2 \nClearly Chris was a hugely popular figure in the problem world. Here is a collection of tributes from the BCPS. \n Save as PDF
URL:http://britishchessnews.com/event/death-anniversary-of-alfred-christopher-reeves-19-ii-1939-3-xii-2012/
CATEGORIES:Composer,Death Anniversary,History,Problemist,Remembering
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20201213
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20201214
DTSTAMP:20201212T223944Z
CREATED:20191213T135517Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201212T223944Z
UID:2383-1607817600-1607903999@britishchessnews.com
SUMMARY:Birthday of David Shire (13-xii-1947)
DESCRIPTION:Happy Birthday to David Shire. \nDavid John Shire was born on Saturday\, December 13th 1947. On the same day “Ballerina” by Vaughn Monroe and His Orchestra hit #1 on the Billboard Best Sellers in Stores record chart. \n Save as PDF
URL:http://britishchessnews.com/event/birthday-of-david-j-shire-13-xii-1947/
CATEGORIES:Birthday,Composer,Player,Problemist
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:http://britishchessnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/JUA3089-scaled.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20201213
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20201214
DTSTAMP:20201213T110541Z
CREATED:20191213T140256Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201213T110541Z
UID:2387-1607817600-1607903999@britishchessnews.com
SUMMARY:Birthday of Colin Sydenham (13-xii-1937)
DESCRIPTION:Birthday of Colin Peter Sydenham (13-xii-1937) \n Save as PDF
URL:http://britishchessnews.com/event/birthday-of-colin-peter-sydenham-13-xii-1937/
CATEGORIES:Birthday,Composer,Player,Problemist
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:http://britishchessnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/13.12-colin_sydenham.jpg
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR