Yes, looking back, I agree that the Bg7 problem was quite terrible - I often see these things better in hindsight. I think the next time I have a large block of free time, I'll sit down and try to compose a good one. I've got a few other #2s I've posted on the main forum, but they all have things that are wrong with them (in one of them, I was so brutish as to include two Queens for one side!) I'm a little proud of one where the Queen visited all four corners in various lines, but it's very easy to solve.
By the way, do you have any problems you could post here that you created? As you can probably tell, we don't have a lot of content yet, and you seem like an experienced composer.
On sort of a side note, do you know what limits are on posting studies from study tournaments? I'd like to get a little more content up by posting a study I submitted to a competition (my first time trying that, and it may be premature for me but I think the study is well above anything else I've created), but I'm not sure when I'm allowed to do so. I know I can't do it before March 21 (when all the studies are due), and I think preliminary results come out April 21 (along with the publishing of all the entries). Then there's that period of time when you have to wait to see if anyone finds an anticipation or cook. Do you know if I can post after preliminary results are posted, or do I have to wait until all the official awards go through to those geniuses that are good enough to win them?
Hey
That probably means you are new to solving chess problems as well. Be sure to start solving composed problems yourself on a regular basis.
There are many Internet sites that offer collections of composed problems for free. I'm not sure if I am allowed to link to them here.
You should also consider subscribing to a problem magazine -- eventually, you should be sending in your own good compositions to them anyway. Solve the published compositions there and try to see "what's going on". They're always happy with more people (just like your local chess club)
If you are composing selfmates, it may be a good idea to look at many selfmate problems first, to see what ingredients make a selfmate interesting for problemists, and what makes them interesting for you.
I'm not sure if I phrased that well, so I'll refer to SirDavid's #2 with 1. Bg7. It is sound, but it seems to me that David himself hasn't solved all too many #2s. In some way... the problem lacks content. It's not that a composed problem should be extremely difficult to solve by definition; it should just be constructed properly and display some nice idea.
(no offense intended; by making sound #2s you are already proving yourself a better composer than 99,99 % (9,999 out of 10,000 indeed) of the chess playing population. ;-)
It is difficult to start off indeed, the required level is quite high.
The most important thing when composing is that you have a clear idea of what (piece movements) you want to show, then pour it in the right mould.... if the idea is good, the problem eventually should become good as well.
Heinzie (who isn't too hot a problemist either)