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MatPlus.Net Forum Competitions Corus studies day: Twan Burg - A stunning victory
 
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(1) Posted by Yochanan Afek [Monday, Feb 2, 2009 17:22]; edited by Yochanan Afek [09-02-02]

Corus studies day: Twan Burg - A stunning victory


The talk of the day in Wijk aan Zee, was the amazing performance of young Twan Burg in the first Corus solving tourney for endgame studies. The 18 years old HMC Den Bosch player from Schijndel (a small town in the province of Brabant in the Netherlands) emerged a clear victor, ahead of a highly experienced field, including 2 times solving world champion GM John Nunn and members of the Dutch and Belgian national solving teams. 22 solvers worked hard for 3 hours, to crack 9 tough studies especially created for this event by such composers as Jan Timman, Yochanan Afek,Piotr Murdzia,Andjey Jasik, Gady Costeff, Ilham Aliev and Siegfried Hornecker. None of the solvers managed to solve them all but Twan was best to conquer seven of them, scoring 36 points out of the maximum of 45.

The favourite, Englishman John Nunn, ended up second scoring 32 points ahead of the Belgian champion Eddy van Beers 28. Following the money prize winners came Dutch champion solving GM Dolf Wissmann and Martin van Essen 22 each. The event was sponsored by Corus tournament, ARVES (the Dutch-Belgian society for Endgame studies) and Harold van der Heijden .Chief arbiter was Ward Stoffelen from Belgium.Corus officials expressed their wish to host the event also next year as part of the world's most prestigious chess festival.
A special booklet (edited by Luc Pelmans and printed by bernd ellinghoven) was presented with the full award of last year's monumental Corus-70 composing JT for endgame studies and distributed among the players.
This year we have also witnessed an immense growth in the popularity of the daily Corus twomover challengers.An average of 500 daily entries on the official website and dozens of daily visitors as well as players and officials in the tournament venue have regularly handed in the solutions.The chief arbiter asked everyday for copies for all his colleagues using it as an enjoyable pastime during the lengthy playing sessions. Even GM Vassily Ivanchuk was seen solving a challenger while playing against GM Karjakin and smiling when he finally found the key which eventually seemed to inspire his splendid victorious performance in this game.One of the challengers this year was an original composed by Dutchman Henk Prins which was dedicated to all participants.
 
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(2) Posted by Marjan Kovačević [Monday, Feb 2, 2009 18:02]; edited by Marjan Kovačević [09-02-02]

Congratulations to Twan Burg and other solvers, but even more to Yochanan Afek for such a breakthrough of Problem Chess! As far as I know, all mentioned competitions are results of the systematic work Yochanan has been doing for decades to bring Chess and Problem Chess closer.
On the same lines, Andrey Selivanov introduced a strong solving competition in the program of the Moscow Open, with even higher prizes than in Wijk. Congratulation, Andrey! The competition was held on January 31st and February 1st, and won by Georgy Evseev. Results could be found on Andrey’s website: http://www.selivanov.ru/ There is a photo gallery, too, on the official website: http://www.moscowchessopen.ru/rus/index.php
 
 
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(3) Posted by Piotr Murdzia [Wednesday, Feb 4, 2009 20:49]

That's true. Thanks to events in Wijk aan Zee and Moscow, during big chess festivals, Yochanan Afek and Andrey Selivanov have made an important step to promote solving amongst chessplayers. My congratulations to both organizers! I hope both competitions will find in calendar 2010 (wishfully not at the same time!). Unfortunately I couldn't come to take part in at least one of it:-(((
Piotr Murdzia
www.murdzia.com
 
   
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(4) Posted by Michael McDowell [Thursday, Feb 5, 2009 10:00]

The abovementioned events were very successful, as was the ISC, where the easier section has seen the number of entrants rise from 42 to 82 to 141 in the last three years. At the leg run by Brian Stephenson in Sheffield, some local players took part (in the main section) for the second year. It was satisfying to see how pleased they were to have improved on their previous scores.

Clearly solving events are a good way to introduce players to the world of composition, but the aim must be to create a long term interest. We have people who year after year qualify for the Final of the British Solving Championship, yet resist all attempts to entice them to join the BCPS, saying that they like to solve problems once a year but no more. Some join for a year then drop out - one told me there was just too much material to get through in The Problemist!

That's the dilemma - you can grab their attention, but how do you keep them?
 
   
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(5) Posted by Roberto Stelling [Thursday, Feb 5, 2009 13:13]

That's a good question, Michael!
Of course we will not be able to "keep" all the players that ever participate on a ISC or a national championship but on the other hand it feels like their participation is only temporary at best.
The main reason advocated by most amateur players here in Brazil is that the amount of time and effort necessary to become a better solver has to be taken from the already scarce time they have for practical chess. The professional players, on the other hand, almost unanimously say that they only want to participate when they're sure about their performances but they're not prepared to commit time to solving while their careers are progressing: "This may be something interesting when I retire!" is their unisonous reply.
It seems to me that the best approach to catch the interest of the practical player is to focus their attention to studies and natural looking direct mates. If they grab this hook then you can gradually move them into the territory of helpmates, selfmates and "unnatural" looking positions (positions that frequently seem to cause a strange form of phobia on practical players!) and then it is the time to be a bit more technical about compositions.
But educating is a full time job and you must to that consciously and perennially otherwise we will have only visitors, not practitioners.
Best regards,
Roberto
 
   
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(6) Posted by Yochanan Afek [Friday, Feb 6, 2009 21:10]; edited by Yochanan Afek [09-02-06]

Thank you all for your kind words.
Attracting more players to more consistent activity: I see the hope in those who were once exposed to the magic of chess composition and in a later stage discover that for various reasons they have had enough of competitive over the board chess and still would like to keep a more relaxed and less demanding form of chess as pastime hobby. Aren't we all creatures of this trend?
If each and everyone of us will do something in his own territory to promote chess composition ( local solving contests,websites and local newspapers etc.) more potential candidates will give it a go which might increase the chance that more would eventually grab the hook.
 
 
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MatPlus.Net Forum Competitions Corus studies day: Twan Burg - A stunning victory