[Retros] Probleemblad 1-2009

[pastmaker at aol.com]

The database has the original Breyer as number P0002189, I believe: [KB6/QpN1p2p/rRpkP3/1Rp1p3/bqP5/brP5/pPP5/NB6 (13, 13) Who wins?] 180 Chess Amateur 2/1922.? The great retroanalyst T.R. Dawson had the following comment (copied from the server): 
"The wonderful No. 180, certainly the most glorious retro I have had the privilege of yet printing, is sent me by the Budapest Circle. Composed during the war, it's dedication shows that chess could rise supremely over all the turmoil. Its talented composers's death was announced only a few days ago, at a tragically early age. So that no solver shall miss the idea, I state distinctly that the retro analysis proves the game is DRAWN by virtue of the 50-move Rule! ... This beautiful application of the well-known zig-zag puzzles to a retro study has played havoc with the solving list." 

The problem was unsound in that there were alternatives that came in slightly under? 50 moves, but who cares.? The idea and the execution, presented so early in the history of the discipline, would have been?remarkable even if the stipulation had been "fewest single moves since last P-move or capture" (without 50 move draw implications).

It was corrected by Gerd Wilts (#P0000228 on the server, i think), the correction constituted by adjusting the placement of three of the 26 units: (1) WRb6 to a5, and (2) exchange original positions of WRb5 and BQb4 (so that the BQ is on b5 and the WR on b4).? As corrected, Gerd's stipulation asks for the last 96 single moves.


I have no confidence whatsoever in lists of "best" problems, or "masterworks".? But Breyer's composition seems to me to represent?particularly large leap in the development of retroanalysis.? 

Regards,
Tom



-----Original Message-----
From: Rol, Guus <G.A.Rol at umcutrecht.nl>
To: The Retrograde Analysis Mailing List <retros at janko.at>
Sent: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 5:23 am
Subject: Re: [Retros] Probleemblad 1-2009



The "new beehive" was one of my early attempts and Harry Goldsteen progressed quite a bit from that point. He himself?refers to these heavy?structures unpoetically?as "closets" which he divides into hardware (the unmoving containing structure) and software (the flexible units inside). He has?done extensive?systematic research on different software configurations within almost identical hardware setups. I've seen the stack that overflowed his shoebox and upcoming issues of Probleemblad will present more of this work. I am always in favor of honoring forerunners?so "Breyer patch" seems quite an attractive suggestion to me.

?

Regards,

Guus Rol


Van: retros-bounces at janko.at [mailto:retros-bounces at janko.at] Namens Pastmaker at aol.com
Verzonden: donderdag 2 april 2009 5:40
Aan: retros at janko.at; andrew at anselan.com
CC: thomasv at mosessinger.com
Onderwerp: Re: [Retros] Probleemblad 1-2009





Dear friends,

The progenitor of these compositions, I think, is the extraordianry 1922 Breyer composition (the original 50-move draw composition), a Rubik's Cube-like position of such complexity that it was erroneously thought sound for decades, was recognized to be unsound as a 50-move position in the 1960s, and needed computer work by Gerd Wilts in the 1990s (amended yet again by further computer work by Pascal Wassong, if I remember correctly) to finally be adjusted to soundness, all with only very small modifications to the original presentation.? In other words, the computer-corrected position looks a whole lot like the original 1922 position.

For those even slightlyh familiar with the Uncle Remus stories retold by Joel Chandler Harris, the phrase "Breyer Patch" (from Chandle's "briar patch") is almost irresistible as a description of these problems.

There are wonderful examples by Wassong (the magnificent "Dedicated to Babette" problem, which, with a little modification by Wilts that probably exalts the task to the detriment of artistic merit in the original), represented for some time (and may still represent, I don't know) a record for determined last moves, and by Borodatov (1995, I think, with 50-move draw effect).? Goldsteen's (and Rol's?, forgive me Guus for not remembering clearly) well-known "New Beehive" is a superb example as well. 

Regards to all,
Tom Volet


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