Judge A.Avni: 35 composers submitted 50 entries to my JT. The quality was very good, with some outstanding works. Consequently, I included almost half of the entries in the award. In the absence of established criteria for judgement of studies, the award reflects my own opinion and taste, and nothing more. All participants get a copy of my new free book “Exploration of Study-Composition”.
Amatzia Avni-70
Well, in case the judge wants to learn established criteria for judgements of studies he has to read some books, not only write them.
Congratulations to Oleg for a well-deserved first prize! Are there any preceding studies where two rooks are forked by three different pieces in the main line?
I am not convinced of the second prize, to say the least. The author is clearly inexperienced and in need of some lessons with Martin. Moreover, I am not a fan of taskish studies and when I see three white pawns on the seventh rank, I have to convince myself to actually play through the study. However, when doing so I noticed that the second part of the study, from 6. Bd6 onward and with the g3/g4 difference, actually has potential. It should not be too difficult to make an attractive study out of this idea, make the wNb2 move, and so on.
Michael’s third prize has an excellent implementation and attractive sacrifices, but the main idea (a positional draw with two connected pawns against rook and two minor pieces) is less impressive than the preceding tactical flow.
Oleg’s special prize also leaves a strong and original impression, but the introductory play has some rough edges and the initial position is very chaotic.
Among the honorable mentions, I noted Tarasiuk’s study with a very economic implementation of the corner-to-corner theme.
Regarding my own contribution (4th prize), I have mixed feelings. If 5. Rg3 were pure in purpose, the study would have been excluded from the tournament, but it would have been much better. Pity for the secondary refutation 5… Rd8+.
Here is a possible starting position for the second prize. I have not yet been able to solve the problem of wNb2 without technical pawns, but at least the all the minor promotion carnival is gone. 1. a7 Ra8 2. Bc5 Re8 3. Bb4 Kc2 4. h6! (4. g4? is a good secondary line) 4… Rh8 5. g3! etc.
One can also add a black pawn on c5 and start 1. Na4-b2 Rb4-b8 2. a7 Ra8 3. Bxc5 etc. Not 100% convinced, though.
Only one promotion survived…
HHdbVI has 1464 studies with one B-promotion, only 10 correct studies with promotion to a light-squared B and a dark-squared B in the main line. The third pawn promotes to B only in this study:
https://eg.org.ua/chessgame/ostmoeg-0310-65a2b4/
Thanks for pointing out the Ostmoe study.
Of course there are hundreds, if not thousands of single bishop promotions in a study. What is interesting here is that the bishop promotion is not the final pointe that disables the stalemate defense. Instead, what matters is how to promote to bishop: in choosing between g2-g3 and g2-g4, White must anticipate the Black domination counterplay after bishop promotion. g2-g4 looks more natural but blocks the escape for the bishop.
To me this looks like a fresh and interesting idea which is obscured by the preceding play in the author’s version. I would classify the study as logical, and in the words of a certain SD, “logic tastes better in natural positions”. 😉 Therefore I tried to remove as much material as possible.
Flashbacks:
1st prize – 1/2.p Victory AT 2015
2nd prize – 1.p Tel-Aviv-100 AT 2009
4th prize – 1/2.p Nadaresihvili MT 2021
That’s a compliment!
Many good studies. No crisis for our art at all!