Endgame Study made from trash

I'm always grateful for the trash on chess.com. All the puzzles that fail in one aspect or another. But they give me ideas and this sometimes leads to something nice.

Here is one made from recycled pieces of plastic joined by a few nuts and bolts.

Aweome study! The 5th move really is a kicker! You do gotta love a rambler.  

Thanks! I kept it relatively simple to retain it as a miniature. It's one of the dividing lines in composition which adds some value to the product. Just like the Meredith line as you know!

Simple for you maybe. I think I would probably have given up if it hadn't been for your strictures about duals and RewanDemontay's hint in post #2. Brilliant study!

Thanks! Sam Loyd won a bet with a friend that he could create problems faster than his friend could solve them. That was an enormous achievement at that time. Today the gap between composer and solver has diminished a lot. Testing of a new idea would commonly consume 98% of the R&D time, especially for positions in the endgame twilight zone. Now the workload has shifted to the solver who must decide which pieces of complex analysis to skip in order to find the remaining lines which represent the core content of the problem. In solving contests, it is considered unfair to present compositions which require EGTB knowledge in the thematic main lines. It is only in the sidelines you may ignore but exist by necessity for the correctness of the composition. Just as in this study!

This is not about rules for compositions - it is about rules for solving tournaments. You can't require a group of problem solvers to sweat for hours in a room while analyzing one hard Q+P vs Q ending and writing down all the variations on a small piece of paper. That is how these tournaments are run. No computers, no engines, no EGTBs only brains, pen and paper. So it is a practical rule.

Still, some of the problems contain difficult EGTB-lines which you must be able to recognize in order to know they require no analysis. Understand that those who participate in such tournaments all have good knowledge of standard endgames and of most general EGTB results as well. For instance, they all know that 2 bishops beat one knight. So when the composition ends with such material, they are permiitted to write down "and white wins" even when they have no clue how to exactly get there. All endgame compositions that aren't easily decidable by these criteria may be great endgames but they won't be used in a solving tournament.

Nobody is categorizing anything except that the assignments for an endgame solving tournament must be endgames. The tournament selection committee selects the endgame compositions at its own discretion which they believe the solver can decently solve and the solver solves them decently if he can. Everything related to EGTB content is judged under the "decently solvable" standard just as many other composition features. Occasionally there is a protest and it is discussed and resolved in good spirit.

Though this may look very amateurishly, it is infinitely more advanced than what is done by digital puzzle interfaces such as in chess.com. Humans are less formal but at the same time far more refined in their judgement. Until AI arrives that is.

Good, we are converging. Think of it as quiz. Somebody gets to select the questions. Then he will discuss with his team whether they are "good" or "bad" questions and some questions will be replaced. Then the quiz is held and somebody wins. And then 7 billion ants will start discussing the event on social media and threaten the members of the selection team. And the next week there is a new show and everybody forgets about the last one.

Thematic lines are an essential ingredient of chess compositions. A good chess composition is not a correct set of moves leading to the desired result but an idea presented in a coherent and efficient fashion by the composer. Some themes have names, others have just structure but they always stand out from the senseless, boring series of Stockfish moves reproduced so often on the chess,com puzzle forums these days. The purpose of the solving tournament is to challenge the solvers to discover the ideas of the composers and how they were implemented in the problems. Beautiful ideas give joy to solvers, not correct moves!

But given that the mission is to demonstrate only a draw, I don't think your study requires any EGTB access (though it's quite possible I've missed something). I would have preferred the insertion of some sidelines (necessarily comments according to your rules for endgame studies) on the following lines

Interestingly, this is one of the few studies where I omitted many lines because I had to enter it quite quickly. It was late at night or something and I didn't bother to complete it later because there was only 1 reaction. I will add some lines now.

Like ThinkFoistSoitenly you misunderstood this particular EGTB comment. It only applies to (formal) solving tournaments where experienced solvers meet and try to attain titles like world solving champion or gain rating points on the official solver rating list. There is no limitation to EGTB content in endgame studies in general as they are simply legal chess moves. But in a solving contest you cannot stop in a Q+P vs Q position when nobody knows by heart whether it wins or draws. Such compositions are OK by themselves but not in a formal solving contest. Note: all solving tournaments require physical presence of the solvers; none are online. Many problemist magazines also have solving contests for their published problems but they have no formal status since nobody controls what the solvers are doing at home!

The EGTB is just as necessary in a draw as in a win study. Note that complete solutions consist of white solution moves, white try moves, black defensive choices, black refutations and failed black refutations and even more than that. Anything that is not obvious and apparently part of the composers ideas is part of the content. Solving tournaments will only require a main line and possibly a variation which limits the acceptable composition candidates. The official databases (like Harold van der Heijdens) request all content in PGN-format and authors are happy to provide it because it shows off their creative skills. All other publications wll pick their own selection of variants depending on the audience addressed. A saturday newspaper will not make space for 5 pages analysis but a professional endgame magazine might. On chess.com it depends on the mindset of the poster. I usually present a lot of content but I am quite solitary in that approach!

As said, I will add some lines to my original diagram and look at you suggestions as well!

That is correct, but the phrase I was questioning was "Just as in this study!". I think the study would have been regarded as perfectly good before EGTBs had even been thought of.

The same would apply to @Turkishchessone's study in post #27 here https://www.chess.com/forum/view/endgames/pawn-promotion-to-bishop-np-vs-n-my-puzzle?page=2 (in which thread I found the link here) but not to the initial position in that thread, at least not without an awful lot of supporting analysis. In fact until the final position in the solution to the study in post #27 (which is obviously won) you wouldn't have any EGTB to refer to.

(Actually after the first couple of moves in post #27 the king side and queen side can be played in either order, so there are apparently duals. For me that doesn't spoil the study much.) 

The status of no study has changed by the EGTBs other than when they proved that the former analysis was incorrect!

All studies (un)suitable for a solving contest before the EGTBs are (un)suitable after it - provided they are still correect.

What has changed since the coming of the EGTBs is that more studies are produced unsuitable for a formal solving contest. That is because studies involving intricate EGTB positions are not solvable in a decent time span without access to an EGTB.

My study is a borderline case, like probably many new studies. A good, experienced solver can solve it using the biased meta-knowledge that EGTB-complications are no part of the solution. Plus some more meta-bits like knowing that a solution exists and only one solution exists.

The story goes like this. Having tried a considerable number of lines (but missing Nd5!) the solver starts looking at some "grey" options. What if I simply eliminate one of the advanced black pawns and then fight the newly promoted queen with my rook and knight? Do I have a chance? Of course there is the black a6 pawn as well but the wK is near and I might be able to eliminate or block it in some way. Now we enter the twilight zone. There might be a simple refutation of that line. Or there might be a 77 move DTZ thread which the composition author casually found on his laptop. Or it might be the right path to quickly set up an impenetrable defensive line. How long should I try? There is more than one line leading to this type of endgame and I must distribute my time. And then at some point I must forget about the Q+P vs R+N struggle and return to another journey through the alternatives. What he is facing is not just a chess challenge but a logical challenge. One of the most powerful tools for problem solving is elimination. If you can eliminate the impossible, then whatever remains - unlikely as it may be - must be the truth - or the solution in this case. But unanalyzable variations are undecidable and cannot be rejected.

It all sounds theoretical but it is a very exact description of the solving trip under duress. As a solver you start developing a different approach. Instead of thinking "Is this a strong move?" you think "does this move look like part of an idea that will keep me out of a technical mess?" I would gamble that Q+P beat R+N in this problem unless I see a trivial draw line. And I could be totally wrong. I am sure there are interesting studies with Q+P vs R+N material accompanied by infinitely boring DTMs and DTZs.

In my study it al depends on the evaluation of the tempting Q+P vs R+N endgames. Is it fair to expect that some solvers will lose themselves in endless complications? Or do we believe that an experienced solver avoids them intuitively. Or turn they out to be so simple that they can be quickly arbitrated?

As the author of the endgame, I wasn't sure of the outcomes and checked them by EGTB. It tells me that there is at least a risk that some solvers may be sidetracked by irrelevant opague variations.

I'm afraid you do not understand what's going on in a solving event and what I write about it. For instance, there are no theme titles, there are no hints. Of course themes exist - just as shoe brands exist. But nobody will tell a 100 meter runner what shoe brands his opponents are wearing - only who they are and that he must run 100 meters against them. Nevertheless there are specifications for running shoes; the ones with engines are banned.

Designing fair competitions is complicated in any sports activity. Solving contests are organized in the world every week and a small circus of solvers travels around the world to attend them selectively. Just as in tennis and many sports. These events work well and are in no need of the sort of improvements you suggest.

Most solving tournaments are announced on websites of local problemist communities and are not easy to find. Chess compositions are a very small sport.

Indeed, most problems are 2- and 3-movers and unusual types like helpmates and selfmates. Endgame studies are a small section and some countries have separate societies for endgame lovers. The most famous one is in my own country, named Arves. You will meet it in many links.

Participants in a solving contest have a physical chess set and can play around with the pieces as much and as long as they like, Most challenges are much too difficult to solve in your head. Hopefully somebody will design a realistic puzzle interface where you solve in that manner and simultaneously check the correctness of your solution as in the current interface. Existing puzzle interfaces are not just primitive; they are in the Ice Age.

Note that you will not participate in the tournament you suggest - you will be that tournament. Nobody else there. People assemble to share something. You suggest we all travel to Tokyo and run our privately preferred distances (I will go for the 66.331 meters) and then return home with our private golden medals. I predict that everybody will stay at home instead and do his thing there.

All chess games start in the same position. The opening is an intrinsic part of the game unlike "the right to choose your own problems". The point is that you introduce a complication where none is called for. The aim in allmost all competitions I know of is to create equal starting conditions - or as close to it as possible. We all know that there are things that cannot be controlled like environmental and weather conditions. The snow at the start of a ski race is different from that at the end. Even then the organization has the top participants start in the same group to keep the range of conditions as narrow as possible. The uniform conditions for a chess solving competition can be perfectly realized by the organization and everyone is happy with that.

Note that a solving tournament is just a single instance of solving. There are thousands of different ways to look at compositions and solving. Did you know that the attendees of endgame society meetings much prefer to look at the presentation of solutions over solving endgames? Compositions are not primarily for solving but for enjoying their creative content. Solving is only for the fanatics!

My mind has an infinite space for new ideas but it also has a profound understanding of why people want to change to rules. The number 1 reason is that they can't excel in the existing competitive environment and therefore escape to a niche place of their own and their inner circle of friends. Very, very, very few have innovative concepts that really move the activity forward.

In my dictionary a red herring point would be a bad point, not a good point .

For the rest when we rise to this level of abstraction the debate becomes philosophical rather than practical. There is enough space and time in the universe for all ideas and all events to take place and I will not argue with that. That something is right or wrong or non-optimal should only be judged within a particular space/time box or an instance. As a (former) participant of solving events I know this formula works and is very much alive. It will not change until many feel the need for change (which always happens at some point) and then it will be changed in accordance with the feelings of the community and the archetypal formulas of the universe. The EGTB issue came up as both an opportunity for the composers and an irritant for the solvers and has to be dealt with in a practical manner. It is only one of the millions of changes that awaits us with the rise of AI. Before long there will be"implantable chips" capable of playing chess and communicating moves with their hosts through biological signals. We need to have ideas for handling it by the time it happens but we need not worry about it now. Humans never change anything before the 1st disaster occurs.

The problem I have with your ideas is that you do not seem to have any actual experience with the solving environments and the structure of compositions. You state that you will not like an existing formula without ever having done it. The arguments you give indicate you do not quite understand the issues and that you do not like hard challenges - unlike solving fanatics. You will have to work hard to find supporters for your ideas.

... said the one day old baby member.

@MARattigan:

I updated the orginal diagram with a few variations especially those leading to theoretical endings! I didn't include the rook underpromotion because there are too many ways to refute it besides Rc7+, most notably ... Nxc3 attacking the newcomer.

I hope this clarifies the difficulty of solving such an endgame under time pressure. Unless you find the right plan straight away you might find yourself caught up in a difficult piece of endgame analysis. I don't think that disqualifies my study for a solving tournament because (a) one will rate the black chances of winning intuitively at about 90% as desired (b) you know the tournament directors won't let you find a difficult EGTB draw.

There are all kinds of borderline studies. I saw one a few years where white checkmated black by a knight promotion after he evaded another line where he would end up with a Q vs 2N+P. That's one to really scratch your head over. Turns out it was only an EGTB draw, jusitfying the author's road to victory.

That's why studies in a solving contest are always selected by top problemists. An average one wouldn't be capable of appreciating the experiences a solver would have to go through!

Very interesting study. 

Good work!