More On The Babson

[garykevinware]

Last week's post, Down With The Titanic, was partly inspired by another post on this website, Chess Problems Lost With The Titanic,
http://www.chessproblem.net/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=548. In that post, mention was made of a problem by Bo Lindgren. I found the following article, http://www.timkrabbe.minkman.org/babson%20task.htm, and it indicates that the Lindgren problem of 1972, which I haven't found, might have been plagiarized from a Pierre Drumare problem of 1966. That would be the following problem:



Pierre Drumare Themes 64 1966 #4

In Chess Problems: Tasks and Records by Jeremy Morse, it says the following, "In 1965, Pierre Drumare published a position with Black to move, which showed the task, provided Black promoted his pawn, but there was no White key, and no answer to other first moves by Black. The following year, he published a problem with three matching promotions to Q, R and B, but after Black promoted to N, White could make any promotion. In 1972, Bo Lindgren published a five-mover with three WBs and with the WN promotion delayed until the final move, whereas the other three White promotions followed immediately, on Black's."
Last week's problem by Herland was called a 'forerunner of the Cyclic Babson'. In the August 2003 issue of the German problem magazine Die Schwalbe, the problem below, a mate in four by Peter Hoffmann appeared.



Peter Hoffmann Die Schwalbe August 2003 #4

"Hoffmann had previously published a number of conventional directmate Babsons, but this one is significant as it is the first cyclic Babson: rather than black promotions being matched by white, they are related in cyclic form: black promoting to a queen means white must promote to a bishop, black promoting to a bishop means white must promote to a rook, black promoting to a rook means white must promote to a knight, and black promoting to a knight means white must promote to a queen."
8 points for sending me a complete variation to both problems, at garykevinware@yahoo.com , by next Wednesday.

[garykevinware]

Here are the answers to last week's problems:
Drumare #4-
1 Rxf1 gxf1=Q 2 fxg8=Q Qxd3+ 3 Qgc4 Qxc3 4 f5#
1...gxf1=R 2 fxg8=R Rxf4 3 Rg5 Ra4 4 Rg3#
1...gxf1=B 2 fxg8=B Bxd3+ 3 Bc4 Ke4 4 Qxd3#
Hoffmann #4-
"The key is 1 Nxe6, threatening 2 hxg8Q and 3 Qf7#. The thematic defences are:
1...d1=Q 2 hxg8=B (2 hxg8=Q? Qd7+ 3 Bxd7 is stalemate), threatening 3 c4+ Q moves 4 BxQ#. 2...Qd7+ 3 Bxd7 Kxg6 4 Rxh6#, 2...Qxc1 3 Rxg5 (threat: 4 Rf5#) hxg5 4 Qh8#
1...d1=B 2 hxg8=R (2 hxg8=Q? stalemate) Kxe6 3 Rd8 Kf6 4 Rd6#
1...d1=R 2 hxg8=N (2 hxg8=Q? Rd4+ 3 c4 stalemate) Kxe6 3 Qxe2+ K-moves 4 Qe5#
1...d1=N 2 hxg8=Q Nxb2+ 3 Kb5 (Bxb2) and 4 Qf7#
As with Drumare's original Babson task, the problem uses promoted pieces and has a capturing key, but it is nonetheless remarkable for being the first published cyclic Babson.
Composing a Babson task problem in directmate form (where white moves first, and must checkmate black against any defence within a stipulated number of moves) was thought so difficult that very little effort was put into solving it until the 1960s, when Pierre Drumare began his work on the problem which would occupy him for the next twenty years or so. He managed to compose a Babson task problem using nightriders (a Fairy piece which moves like a knight, but can make any number of knight-like moves in the same direction in one go) instead of knights, but found it hard to devise one using normal pieces — because of their limited range, it is difficult to justify white promoting to a knight, because of black promoting to one, way over on the other side of the board.
When Drumare did eventually succeed using conventional pieces in 1980, the result was regarded as highly unsatisfactory, even by Drumare himself. It is a mate in five (first published Memorial Seneca, 1980):"



Pierre Drumare Memorial Camil Seneca 1980 #5

"The key is 1 Rf2, after which black captures on b1 are answered by white captures on g8. Efficiency in chess problems is considered a great boon, but Drumare's attempt is very inefficient — no less than 30 men are on the board. It also has six promoted pieces in the initial position (even a single promoted piece is considered something of a "cheat" in chess problems), which is in any case illegal — it could not be reached in the course of a game (one of the white f pawns must have made a capture, and the white and black b and c pawns must have made two captures between them, making three in total, yet only two units are missing from the board). Despite all these flaws, it is the first complete Babson task. In 1982, two years after composing this problem, Drumare gave up, saying that the Babson task would never be satisfactorily solved."