The Hidden World Of Chess Composition
Have you heard of chess compositions?The World Of Chess
In today's time, the avarage chess player's attention revolves around three things. Game strategy, tactics and, perpaps the most important in today's computer era, opening theory. It makes sense, that's what makes a player good at chess so why not work on those three areas. However, there is one part of chess that I believe hasn't received too much attention in the last decade, and that is the fantasy-like world of chess composition.
Chess Composition
How many of us have dreamt of sacrificing all the pieces and delivering a pawn checkmate in order to win a tournament while people clap for such an amazing combination, leading to an instant ego boost together with success and good reputation.
The closest I've heard of this happening is Marshall's legendary queen sacrifice. Apparently, the people where so amazed that they started throwing coins to him. Here's the game:
That game is amazing, Marshall really demonstrated tactical awareness in move 23. However, even though Marshall's queen sacrifice is spectacular, human's tend to always want more. I am a human, that's why I wanted more and found it in this position.
White to play and win:
I was a kid when my chess teacher showed me this position. I struggled to solve it, but with some help in the first two moves I saw the idea of checkmating with the last and only pawn and that's when I fell in love.
ANSWER: 1. f4+ Kd5 2. f5 Bxf5 3. Nf4+ Ke5 4. Rd1 c6 5. Rd5+ cxd5 6. Nd3+ exd3 7. f4#
It was an amazing feeling, what a beautiful sequence of forced moves. What an absurd final position too, it's both amazing and ridiculous. From that moment on, I started solving more and more of them to the point where I stopped liking normal chess because of it's lack of spectacularity (which is of course not true, there is beauty in normal chess too).
If you found that first composition boring (which I highly doubt), I've brought one of the most famous ones to you too.
White to play and checkmate in 2:
ANSWER: 1. Ra6 bxa6 2. b7#
Once again, spectacular and disgusting. Maybe what I'm really passionate about is pawn checkmates now that I think about it.
I've made a video on how passionate I am of chess compositions, check it out in your spare time!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sdldw_99QM&t=370s
Summary
In my respectful opinion, chess compositions deserve more attention. It's the true beauty of chess, and it reminds us that not everything is memorising opening theory until move 34.
Thanks for reading! Learn for free on my YouTube: youtube.com/@RespectfulDave?sub_confirmation=1
