Unbelievable to me

I've been looking at #134 for quite a while but haven't been able to solve it yet. I'll keep trying though.

I'm hitting quad-digits with this post! 

Yeah, the only trick is to correctly identify Black's 2nd move, which requires refutation of two general schemes that don't quite work. The rest is just a matter of counting moves and verifying uniqueness of the moves' order.

Have you looked at post #134 yet?

Thank you, but you might be giving me a little too much credit... I can count only 15 unique half-moves. 

You're welcome to, but (if possible) no CG problems, please. And if they're all CG, then please no wipeouts!!   I've already seen the following comment snippit of yours, so you'll have to forgive my apprehension:

You're back! I think anselan and sameez1 were worried about you. Personally, I thought it was a bit soon for that - I've frequently gone a week or more without posting in these forums, and [I'd imagine] many others have as well.

If you haven't found a solution yet, then I am basically 99.999...% confident at this point that it has to be sound. Unlike my lengthy free-form SPGs, miniatures are only challenging when they're entirely unique.

When you find it, I want to know what you think! 

@Cobra: I don't do wipe-outs. What I am saying is that my style of composing is to know where I am trying to arrive at and to find a route to get there, checking frequently that the position is sound. I also like simplest examples of things. I am always conscious that I want to make it accessible for newcomers if possible. Mine tend to be shorter as a result.

Okay, sorry - I did not mean to prejudge anything. 

I was only saying that certain SPGs (wipeouts especially) have a distinctive silicon "flavor" which I can sense very quickly and intuitively, and I always lose interest immediately after picking up on it. I recall seeing a comment by Arisktotle where he said something similar about endgame studies - one can often just "tell" what parts of the solution were composed, and what parts were CG.

However, if your own SPGs do not have this quality, then I'm happy to look at them. 

OK, I'll start a new thread to post one.

People who compose "wipe-outs" aka massacre proof games normally write their own software for exhaustive search, so one has to respect that effort. But they aren't really intended for human consumption these days. The undisputed king of wipeouts is Francois Labelle. See http://chessproblems.ca/pdf/StrateGems/SG58.pdf, page 66. Stunning! Will I ever try and solve it? Never!

There are other tools for *checking* if a candidate proof game is indeed sound: Popeye & Euclide are the main two, and are widely used in our small community. I think most problems which can be checked are capable of human solution. Some compositions are just too long for full automatic validation though.

So the difference between a searcher and a checker is a *bit* like the difference between a tablebase and a chess engine. It's the searchers and the tablebases which can give compositions with the "flavour" that your spidey sense detects. I use checkers only when composing proof games.

My account was closed for days without anybody noticing!  I should really learn to "take the hint" when everyone just wants to abandon a topic and forget about it, but until I've learned how to do that, I'll simply have to continue being a pest as usual. I've got one more problem to share from last year; it's the last one I'll post from the archive. There's another pure retro I'm currently working on, and after that, I may try composing a few more if there are requests or suggestions for a specific problem type.

@cobra91: you're not being a pest - never feel that. I think the 10 last single moves are determined in this one.

In fact, with the nice spring weather I am outside a lot. I am much more active on this site in the wintertime. Also, I am not in the best of conditions and let the heavy stuff pass me by. I'll come back to it later. Nothing related to my interest in the subject or the content of your posts!

@Ari: enjoy the sunshine!

Yep! Not hard, but I'm reasonably happy with the way it fits together. How the pros actually manage to make their retros difficult, I haven't the faintest idea.

Finally got it to work... well, sort of:

 

Also, I've decided it's probably time to post the solution to the problem in post #134, so here it is:

Heavy stuff? Then ditch the CG endgame studies, and focus on what must surely be the lightest content that can be found anywhere (namely, retro problems that weren't professionally composed). 

Also, despite how greatly I value anselan's feedback and input on these things, I really want more than one person besides myself to have a look at the above problem. It's not bad as is, but also falls well short of tapping into the full possibilities of the framework it's based on.

Yes need to get more feedback from people. If you can't get feedback here then try retro mailing list and say you are unpublished dude who wants feedback. Or post in France-echecs which is a good way to learn French.

Also be explicit about the theme and try to put more concrete objectives to push your composition and wow the solvers. Even for the humble problems I make, I wish it was easier to compose worthwhile stuff but at least for me it seems to take a long time to find the right matrix and get the pieces really working as hard as they can. Satisfying unity though when the pieces that have move are all serving the thematic goal.

Finally I would say study prior art. There are some ridiculously powerful brains who have over the years put some awesome content into the retro space and it's amazing to see what they've achieved. The potential issue with this of course is that you lose confidence. Don't: I have seen someone come from less competent than you to being one of the top composers in the world.

The final thing I would say is remember Sir Jeremy Morse's words that I posted earlier today in another thread. He said words to the effect that the important thing is the art: tasks or records are just a canvas over which to stretch the artistic materials. I consider that it's only recently that I understood that remark, and I am still trying to develop an artistic sensibility. How can there be art in chess composition? I guess in the same way that different players have different styles, or the way that backgammon is a game of skill and the better player will quickly show himself. If every decision, big and small, is informed by a thought of beauty then this will enable great things. Actually you already know this better than I.

 @Cobra91  I think you have made this thread too long and no one is coming back to it,thinking that there is nothing new.Post your puzzles individually on this site and find out what happens.I think there are a few retro guys on here that will work them and comment,don't worry it might be negative.Sorry I can't get them or I would.

Despite others' criticism and lack of interest, I refuse to permanently give up on this thread. I'll continue to compose problems, and will always post them here whenever I'm satisfied with what I've got. Comments on any and all compositions I choose to share are welcome... however few and far between they may be. 

Next up is a proof game which I can only hope is sound; guarantees of soundness are well beyond my power for this one!   In my defense, the problem took days to refine yet can probably be solved in just a few minutes, so even if it turns out to be cooked, one can't easily accuse me of wasting people's time. 

Love the missing king at #5 - was wondering for ages how the white king could have ever blocked the 'impossible' check on the Black king from the a4 bishop while never being in an 'impossible' double check at b3 before it clicked

It's not so much lack of interest as lack of time in my case - problems are a real timesink to look at, composing or solving. But for what it's worth, know that another pair of eyes are looking at your work.

The fixed versions of your 2011 problems look sound to me, for a start. :-)

It's worth A LOT, believe me!  With anselan and Arisktotle absent, the thread has really gone pitch black, although I don't intend to abandon it any time soon.

Ever since discovering the original version of the 2011 problem was cooked, my gut feeling was that it couldn't be saved, because the logic suddenly seemed much too delicate to hold up under scrutiny. I was unable to bust the modified version, but did not fully trust my own [likely biased] analysis. If there were still alternate solutions, though, something tells me you'd have found them.