ChessProblems.ca TT2

Introduction

ChessProblems.ca organizes a 45-days thematic series-movers online tournament, to celebrate Cornel Pacurar's 45^th birthday. There are two sections, one for compositions with normal force and one for compositions with promoted force, with 3 book prizes each. To enter the competition in either section, a series-mover with not less than 45 moves is required. Any series stipulation, as well as either one fairy condition (with some exceptions, as outlined below) or one type of fairy piece, supported by Popeye, is allowed. All compositions should have a unique solution in "n-1" moves, and no solution in "n" moves.

Schedule

The tournament will last for 45 days.

Start date and time: February 20th, 2010, at 00:00 GMT
End date and time: April 5th, 2010, at 23:59:59 GMT

There will be no exceptions, new submissions after the deadline will not be accepted.

Prizes

There will be three book prizes for each section.

The Theme and the Rules

1	The tournament is open for compositions with any series stipulation supported by Popeye v4.55, having a unique solution in "n-1" moves and no solution in "n" moves, where "n" is greater than or equal to 45.
2	There are two sections: Section 1 for compositions with normal force and Section 2 for compositions with promoted force.
3	While not mandatory, in each section either one fairy condition or one type of fairy piece is allowed, but not both (fairy condition and fairy piece). The following fairy conditions are excluded: Grid Chess (all forms: regular and irregular grids, ContactGridChess etc), Edgemover (both Black and White), KoeKo and NewKoeko, Minimummer and Maximummer (both Black and White) and Forced Squares (both Black and White). The following fairy pieces are excluded: Dummy and Edgehog.
4	The criteria used to decide the ranking within each section is as follows: 1) The number of moves: the more, the better! 2) Compositions with king not in check in the initial position are preferred over compositions having the same number of moves, but with king in check (which is allowed). 3) The number of pieces: the less, the better! 4) The date and the time of sending: the earlier, the better! Other aspects of the economy of force (i.e. total number and type of figures, number of promoted figures or number of fairy pieces) are not taken into consideration.
5	There are 3 book prizes for each section, decided entirely by the above criteria.
6	Only compositions with a unique solution in n-1 moves and no duals are accepted. The presence of other shorter solutions (n-2, n-3 etc) is not acceptable.
7	Only normal 8x8 chessboards are allowed.
8	All initial positions must be legal under the rules of chess. While the legality aspect is more relaxed in the fairy realm, please note, however, that in Section 1 the total number of pawns and fairy pieces should not exceed 8, for each side. Similarly, in Section 2, the total number of pawns, promoted units and fairy pieces should not exceed 8, for each side.
9	Promotions during solution are, of course, acceptable.
10	Joint compositions are accepted. This tournament is open for both individuals and for teams. However, a composer can only participate as either part of a team or individually, but not both.

Computers Implications

1	Computers are allowed and encouraged for both validation of the intended solution and for composing!
2	Only Popeye v4.55 compositions are accepted (C+ preferred!). Other solving programs (i.e. WinChloe) may support a wider range of stipulations/aims/fairy conditions/fairy pieces, but those are commercial programs and are not widely used and available.

Submission of entries

Please send your entries to tt2(at)chessproblems.ca (replace (at) with @), in the following format:

Subject:
   TT2 [Section / Number of moves / Total number of pieces]
Body:
   Position: [Forsyth (if possible) or algebraic notation]
   Stipulation:
   Condition: [if any]
   Solution:
   Comments:

Background Information

To the best of our knowledge, the first two series-movers having a unique solution in "n-1" moves and no solution in "n" moves were published by two Canadian composers, François Labelle and Cornel Pacurar, in August 2008, at the end of Itamar Faybish's 3rd series-mover TT:



Obviously, the two problems above (recently republished in feenschach 176!) would have not qualified for this tournament, both having less than 45 moves. As an example, a problem that (barely!) meets the criteria for Section 1 is shown below:

Previous tournament

To see the results of ChessProblems.ca TT1, please click here!

2010 Series-Movers Informal Tourney

ChessProblems.ca also organizes a Series-Movers Informal Tourney, open for series-movers of any type and with any fairy conditions and pieces! Details and first entries at originals.chessproblems.ca!