Composing event in the Australian Junior Chess Championships 2015

The national Junior Chess Championships, to be held in Canberra early next year, include a new problem composing event which has just been launched. This competition, an initiative of Nigel Nettheim, is conducted online and open to everyone, not only juniors. Entrants can download the paper from the AJCC site now and work on the questions at their leisure. There are four composing tasks, which I have arranged at Nigel’s request. For each task, you are given an incomplete (or incorrect) position of a mate-in-two problem (or mate-in-three in one case), and your aim is to finish its construction. Since hints are provided and you don’t start the composing process from scratch, we have called this a Guided Chess Problem Composing Competition.

To illustrate, here’s the position for one of the slightly harder tasks. It’s a three-mover that is solved by 1.Qg4!, with the threat of 2.Qe4. Black has three defences, 1…c4, 1…Kc6 and 1…Ke5, but one results in a flawed variation. 1…Ke5 produces a dual in that White can continue with 2.Sc8+, 2.Kg6, or 2.Kg7, any of which would force mate on the third move. How could you modify the position to remove the dual, so that only one of these white second moves works? The rest of the problem’s play must be preserved. Further details about this task, including the full solution of the diagrammed three-mover, are provided in the paper.

The closing date for entries to this event is the 7th December 2014. For more information, go to the Guided Problem Composing page of the AJCC site, where you will also find a link to a useful article by Nigel, “A Quick Introduction to Chess Problem Composition”.