Saturday, March 3, 2012

March 3rd

Александр Иванович Шошин (03-03-1878 - 01-01-1906) Russian composer (Aleksandr Ivanovich Shoshin)

Aleksandr Shoshin

Aleksandr Shoshin was also a draughts (checkers) player.

Шошин, Александр Иванович
Шахматное обозрение 1902
2nd-3rd Prize


#3 10 + 7

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Шошин, Александр Иванович
Шахматное обозрение 1902
3rd Prize


#3 6 + 6

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Alain Campbell White (A.C.White) (03-03-1880 - 23-04-1951) American composer

Alain C. White
Pittsburgh Gazette Times, 30 October 1910
[Chess Notes]


Alain C. White learnt the game of chess at 5 and composed his first problem at 11. In 1914 he founded the Good Companions Club, to which all well-known problemists belonged.
A.C. White collected chess problems: at 12 he had inherited a collection of 5000 threemovers and until the 1930s the collection had expanded to over 250,000 problems and was taken over by George Hume.

He was the initiator of the famous Christmas series, not less than 44 volumes published at the rate of one per Christmas and sent free of charge to problemists worldwide. He also wrote "Les mille et un Mats Inverses"(1907); "The Theory of Pawn Promotion" (1912); "Le problème d’échecs" with Georges Renaud in 1924. With New-York banker Frank Altschul he also published 8 beautiful chess problems books (the "Overbook Press" collection, 1941-1945) in limited editions: for instance, "Mansfield's Adventures In Composition -The Art of the Two Move Chess Problem" at 400 copies.

Most of Alain C. White's books can be downloaded from Vaclav Kotesovec's wonderful website.
The introductions of the some of the books of the Christmas Series have been put online by a French enthusiast.

About Alain C.White's nonprofit Foundation and legacy, you may read in the New York Times.

White, Alain Campbell
200 Bauer schachproblem, 1907


s#2 9 + 8

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White, Alain Campbell
La Stratégie, 1902


s#3 7 + 8

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White, Alain Campbell
Good Companion, Meredith Ty, May 1918
1st Prize


#2 7 + 5

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White, Alain Campbell
Chess Review, 1941
dedicated to V.L.Eaton
1st Prize

#3 16 + 10

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Зиновий Маркович Бирнов (03-03-1911 - 02-05-1967) Russian composer (Zinovi Markovich Birnov)

Zinovi Birnov [Wikipedia]

Birnov was a direct mate and especially endgame studies composer.

Бирнов, Зиновий Маркович
Конкурс Эстонского КФС 1956
1st Prize


#6 6 + 11

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An example of Birnov's talent with a miniature:

Бирнов, Зиновий Маркович
Труд (Москва) 1947
2nd Prize


+ 3 + 4

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Achim Schöneberg (03-03-1955) German composer

Achim Schöneberg is a helpmate and fairy composer. You may remember his Isardam helpmate composed with Manfred Rittirsch - see 1st March or directly on YACPDB.

Schöneberg, Achim
feenschach, 1988
1st Prize


r#2 11 + 14
Reflexmate in two.

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2 comments:

  1. Alan White's dedication problem to Eaton originally had a much better key 1. e6-e7! (so the above is a "v") with the WR already on d2. The task is impressive, but with the key 1. e7! it would have been a phenomenal problem, in my opinion. I tried though, and even with computer help, my limited abilities could not restore that key. Maybe someone else would like to try to restore White's original intent?

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  2. Birnov's study was build on a previous idea shown by Kasparian in 1936.

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