Exploring the Watershed Between More-Mover and Study
No. 171 – Vol. XIV – January 2008 Supplement EXPLORING THE WATERSHED BETWEEN MORE-MOVER AND STUDY BY WIELAND BRUCH EXPLORING THE WATERSHED BETWEEN MORE-MOVER AND STUDY WIELAND BRUCH How infinite is the empire of forms; how much remains to be exploited for centuries to come! Robert Schumann, 1854 There are many different ways of looking at the relationship between the study and the chess problem. Specialists hold that studies and problems – including more-movers, the sub-genre lying closest to the study – are fundamentally distinct, that they are practically incompatible, or at best serenely tolerate one another. My view, at least as regards study and more-mover, the pair we shall devote our attention to, is that there is a closer connection than appears at first sight. To me the plain fact is significant that throughout chess composition’s history we find top-class composers who have come to terms with both sub-genres without favouring one over the other. We need name only such outstanding masters of the past and present as J. Kling, J. Berger, L.I. Kubbel, V. Bron, E. Zepler, A. Chéron, V. Pachman, I. Krikheli and J. Rusinek. The reader is invited to take part in a modest preliminary ‘self-test’. The three diagrams A, B and C show either a WTM study to win, or a more-mover. The examples have been deliberately selected to be simple, calling for no electronic adjunct. Please take the plunge after a first glance at the diagram. You can change your mind afterwards, when you have looked at the composers’ own categories.
[Show full text]