The Chess Mind

Upon downloading the latest issue of TWIC (the games download for Issue 733 is about a third of the way down the page), I decided to look for won games of no more than 15 moves. There were 10-15 in all, and most of them were pretty bad and accounted for by players who made the Olympiad on account of belonging to countries with a nascent chess tradition. A few games featured reasonable players, and the one I present here even stars a grandmaster. It's a strange and surprising example, but it just goes to show once again what a fragile being man is. Have a look.

The U.S. Chess Federation's monthly catalog magazine, Chess Life, seems to have less content every year, but I'm glad that Soltis's and Benko's columns have survived to the present time. Benko's endgame columns are consistently solid, and he also offers a showcase for established and aspiring study composers in his "Benko's Baffler" sub-column. This month, he presents two that were composed in honor of his 80th birthday; one from Israeli composer Yochanan Afek (whose work recently appeared on this blog) and one from Georgian composer Velimir Kalandadze. Here it is:


White to play and draw

Studies, as opposed to problems, are supposed to be "gamelike", and speaking for myself I see interlocking tripled g-pawns in my games all the time. (Or not.) The queen on h4 is also rather suspicious, which suggests that this is a study that will have a humorous payoff. The drawing motif isn't especially original (if I'm familiar with the idea as a casual fan of endgame studies, it can't be very original) and the intro is also familiar from some old rook vs. two pawn studies, but maybe the originality lies in the conjunction. (The solution isn't unique, either - White has a transpositional choice at one moment; this too is an aesthetic blemish.) In any case it's entertaining, accessible, and eminently solvable.

The solution is here, but if you'd like a hint or two, click below.