A Prince Among Composers

 I first saw an endgame study by Leonid Kubbel in a book on combinations by Irving Chernev during my student days.I still remember my sense of awe and wonder at the way in which the Black monarch was chased and how he was mated with a lone knight.Ever since I became an ardent  fan of this composer. But then Kubbel’s admirers are legion. Great players like Vassily Smyslov, Jan Timman and John Nunn have been connoisseurs of his art.In his brief life (1892-1942) Kubbel is said to have composed more than 1500 endgame studies and problems. The Russian edition of his work (1984) lists more than 400 problems. Besides, there are 466 published studies.

Kubbel’s personal life was marked by tragedy.His brothers Arvid and Yevgeny were also composers. Arvid, the elder brother was also a strong chess player, having played in four Soviet Championships. Besides, he composed hundreds of problems, mainly three- movers. He was an accountant by profession, and a harmless citizen.

Yet on the evening of 21^st November, he was picked at his home and taken away by the Soviet secret police, the NKVD. According to his nephew, his only crime consisted of the publication of several of his studies in a German magazine, Die Schwalbe. But chess historian Grodzensky suspects the reason was a false accusation-“ or still simpler, the local organs had to fulfil the ‘plan in liquidating the counterrevolutionaries. Twenty years later his widow was told that he died of nephritis while serving the prison term. It is as likely that he was executed by the NKVD in 1938 during the Great Terror. But the public could not be told. So far another thirty years the fiction was maintained that he died in the Nazi attack on Leningrad.(Soviet Chess by Soltis)

Leonid hid his grief and the sad part was that he could not even mention him in his book on the Soviet composers. His own end was also sad. He was trapped in Leningrad during the Nazi siege of the city in the Second World War. Death and disease were rampant in the beleaguered place. He died of dysentery during this terrible period. His brother also perished along with him.In this article I shall present four of his studies.

The first is a delectable draw.

 

 

 

 

 

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Now that was a pure composition. The second presents a more serious problem.How do you stop those terrible Black pawns?

White to move and draw

 

 

 

 

 

 

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"But I do not like to draw. I want to win." Sure, why not? Here we go!

White to play and win.

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That was a poetic finish from a prosaic setting. Here is the last of the problems.In the following position Black appears to have some terrible threats like...Qxf2+ and...gxf6. Shouldn't White be thinking of a draw? No,it's the other way round.

White to play and win

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This Study deservedly won the First Prize.

The best work on this great artist is Leonid Kubbel: Chess Endgame Studies by Timothy G.Whitworth.Do not miss the book.

(Available from ARVES: http://www.arves.org/Boeken.htm )

Courtesy:This article first appeared in September 2009 issue of Chess Mate India

 

 

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