Extract from the logbook of the "2nd veteran-sic prize".
-- The usual dizzy moment in the 2-moves event. With those 20 minutes ticking away and the panic of... I had only solved one problem out of three in Portoroz 2002. Fortunately, I felt the second one was the easiest, which turned out to be true. As soon as the encouraging mate (on ...Rc4) is seen, I write the key, check afterwards (erasures are allowed, we are not in the madhouse of Saint-Louis). I then make the 3rd, encouraged by the "monkey slide" Qd1. The first one takes a bit more time, but one feels that the prepared mate on ...Ng6 will not be changed, so one can give the bK the e5-square and afterwards, everything goes fast. I even have the luxury of handing in my paper a few minutes before the end, "à la Kovacevic". !
-- After the tension of the first test, the 3-moves test always seems like a relaxation. Just think, a whole hour for 3 problems in what is supposed to be my speciality (well no, the endgames came later; at 14-15 years old, I was stuffing myself with problems in 3, 4, 5 and 6 moves). . That said, you shouldn't exaggerate: sometimes under the beach, the cobbles. This time, I solved all three, the second one taking me the longest, even though it is probably the easiest. But I made a few mistakes with the variants, and did not mention all those of the 2nd problem: it must be said that the scale counted a 0.5 for a dualistic sequence, which is aberrant, and twice 0.5 for sequences with the same 2nd white move
-- The 3 studies are unpublished, hence the decision to keep them secret until publication in the magazine for which they are intended: thus applying the stupid "Phenix" rule of staying in one's rat hole, at the risk of never making them known to anyone. Only the first one is really hard, in my opinion. I lost an outright 2 points by stopping too early in the 2nd study, then 3.5 points by not placing the King in the right place on the 4th move in the 3rd. MVL, even in the catastrophic shape it is currently in, would probably have made 100%. The only question is "what would he have done on the second day?".
-- The 2-moves helpmate has 4 solutions, it is easy to "forget" one of them (I love this term that teased Spassky, the correct expression being "not to see" or "not to think about"! The 3-moves helpmate has a strategic solution and a bohemian solution, it is the latter that escaped me. The 2nd solution of the 5# helpmate was as easy as the first one, but that's far from my main regret.
-- The moremovers were the hardest test because of the 4#, but if you had the strength of character not to touch it, you could score 10 points out of 15. This 4-moves without elegance or theme could have been called "secret passage", à la O'Kelly. Three competitors out of 65 discovered the secret, including the new European champion G. Evseev. As is often the case, this setback created a state of excitement that made it impossible to judge the other problems calmly. The 5#, strategic, was not difficult for those who keep a basic lucidity. The 7# in particular was easy, especially for an old man who has been fed on Johandl, Lepuschütz and others for 55 years, and who knows better than anyone else that you have to give a rook for a tempo or for a square. You quickly see the try 1 Ne1? Qa3! and then you look for something else... I'm angry that I saw quickly enough that after 1 Nd8 Kxd6 2 Nb7+ bK must come back, and yet, afterwards, didn't make the connection by examining the prospects of the Bh1 + Nf3 battery, when in normal circumstances, the interest of evacuating d6 would have jumped out at me. Murdzia was very angry that he skipped too, but he is... more excusable than me! I tried to console him by telling him about the urge to commit suicide when I failed the helpmates test in Turku in 1995, an urge that faded as soon as I learned that the reigning world champion at that moment, A. Zude, had not done better! In any case, it was the first time in my life that I did not score a single point in "moremovers". !
-- The selfmate 3# is also a great disappointment; having come to understand too late that the key had to be ugly, but the only one possible to achieve a slow threat (still a rarity) by eliminating the "strong" move, I had no time left to master the 4 variants. I wanted to play 1 Nd7? just happy to have provided the "strong" move 1...dxe2. The trouble is that there is no threat, as Black plays the famous strong move on the 2nd move !
-- I am not even the first "old wreck", it is a Finn who preferred to run to the airport, and is therefore not on the picture with the Romanian Methuselah. I did receive a cup, though: usually their volume is inversely proportional to the value of the feat they are supposed to honour.
-- The day before the championship was held the open, where I forgot to look for the 2nd solution of Abdu's helpmate (so - 2,5), whereas I had almost found it by looking for the other one. A real oversight this time (see above the remark on Spassky)! I also stupidly missed a variant of Gamage's 3#, which makes - 2 because there were only 3 (that's their way of dividing 5 by 3),
-- There is no succession of French solutionists, we knew that, but as soon as I got back, I notice that people are complaining everywhere that there is also no succession of French players, which I have been saying for ages. And that's by comparing the youth championships with those of the Russians. Ah, the clever ones...
-- Iasi is a curious city, a bit schizophrenic, with sinister suburbs and a sumptuous futuristic city centre. For those who are devoted to the course, all of whom are foodies, there are many good restaurants, some of them outstanding. The price of the bill is between a quarter and a fifth of the French price.
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