[Retros] Fairy Retros

[Thomas Brand]

Since in the initial thread "Die Schwalbe" was mentioned, I think I should 
briefly tell you my view of "fairy retros" and their relationship with 
orthodox ones.

My first point is, that it is not a matter of (my) taste to publish quite a 
lot of fairy retros in Die Schwalbe: The ratio of orthodox to fairy retros I 
receive is anywhere between 1:2 and 1:3 in the last months. (Yes, this is an 
invitation to send good orthodox retros to Die Schwalbe!!)

On the other hand I'm very happy to be able to publish six orthodox retros out 
of nine in the next (October) issue of Die Schwalbe (plus three math problems) 
- including a series of three related problems by Andrey.

I totally agree with Andrey, if he says, that it does not make sense to 
compare "orthodox" retro tasks or records with fairy ones. For example, in 
orthodox retros there is a natural limit of 30 uncaptures. With very simple 
mechanisms in Circe you easily can "break" this limit - and if a judge will 
rank such a problem quite high just for this reason, this might be not an 
argument against fairy retros - but an argument against this judge...

On the other hand I strongly believe that fairy conditions can be very 
fruitful in retro - if these conditions are not used as a kind of "doping" 
just to vaporize orthodox records, but to demonstrate original retro ideas 
based on this condition. "Schoebelen-Queen" was mentioned before.

To give another quite simple example: In Die Schalbe 14065 (April 09) Bernd 
Gräfrath showed a proof game with black pseudo castling. In orthodox  proof 
games not so original, but here the fairy condition is maximummer. And here it 
seems quite surprising, paradox, that Black does NOT castle, although castling 
is such a "quite long" move, but has to do single steps with the King. 
Obviously the fairy condition is not "simple help" for the composer, but 
inherently linked with the contents and the "theme" of this quite paradox 
problem.

Just another point: What is "fairy", what is "orthodox"? It's well known, that 
some 400 years ago Alfils etc were used: fairy pieces!? Or "very orthodox" ones?

In the October issue of Die Schwalbe you will find a 960chess retro (Fischer 
Random Chess). In June 2009 it clearly was a fairy retro, but in July 2009 new 
FIDE rules appeared - containig an annex dealing with 960chess. So due to 
these official rules this problem is orthodox now? In this case the October 
ratio will be 7:2 instead of 6:3...

Best regards,

Thomas