Unofficial World Championship Checker Problem Composing Contest #33
2017-05-20 through 2017-06-30
So far 318 visitors have viewed this contest 737 times.
The ACF Website wishes a big congratulations to Ed Atkinson, Harrisburg, PA, the composer of Rare Encounter, which was voted the winner of Unofficial World Championship Checker Problem Composing Contest #33.
The short, but mystifying Rare Encounter, by Ed Atkinson, utilized a Double Breeches escape to attract 5 votes and break Roy Little's winning streak. Jim Somers, Liam Stephens and Brian Hinkle gave up anonymity to announce their votes for it. That puts them at the coveted top of a new ladder of astute problem evaluators. How long can they stay there?
Roy Little took 3 votes and 2nd place with his Technique, the only win and the largest setting with the most moves to reach the Breeches. It corrected a 125-year old published game with a single, late, extremely unnatural move. George Hay publicly cast his vote for it, which places him near the top of the voting ladder.
Tied for 3rd place with 2 votes each were Peachy, a tough Double Breeches draw, by Louis Cowie, and Big Brother, the only 2x2 known to end in an escape via Breeches. The latter was composed by the venerable George Slocum, who published it in the Chicago Inter Ocean on 3/19/1895, thereby disqualifying himself again. Gene Ellison voted for it.
Tied for 4th and last with 1 anonymous vote each were Decent, a clever Breeches escape, by Lim Loy, correcting Master Play; and Draw Breeches, a snoozer by Bill Salot.
The contest site had 318 visitors, 14 of whom voted.
Here is how the contest was introduced:
This contest is the 1st ever to feature the rare Deferred Breeches theme. You may not see that far ahead, but in all 6 problems here, White surprisingly forces or lures Red into eventually forming the Breeches; and then White Kings use those Breeches to execute 1 victory and 5 escapes.
The settings are presented in reverse alphabetical order. Three of them corrected published play. Which of them do you deem best of the lot? Please respond by voting for it after seeing them all animated.
The number of voters in the last six contests, stretching over the past year, has consistently been in the 13 to 20 range. This suggests that many of them are repeat voters loyally returning to participate in each new contest. We would like to thank them, but we don't know who they are.
We want to keep the voting anonymous for those who do not want to be identified. But a suggestion has been made for others to let me know who they are and how they voted. If at least a few will do so over multiple contests, we will be able to determine who among them correctly identified the most winning problems. We could then crown him or her the Unofficial World Champion Judge of Checker Problems. Wouldn't you like to know who that person is? Perhaps this new World Championship would even lead to an increase in future contest voting.
So please vote in the current contest, and when you do, consider sending your comments to my e-mail address shown just under the diagrams on this voting page.
If 16-11 (1-6, *22 17, 16-19 or 16-11, *17 13, 6-1 *14 9 Draws), *14 9 (corrects 22 17, RW, W. Campbell v H. Freedman, Scottish Open, 1898), 1-5 (11-15, *9 5, Draws), *9 6, 5-1, *6 2, 11-15, *2 7, 1-5, *22 26, 15-18, *7 10, 5-1, *26 30,
Draw
C
Not 22 18, *1-6, Red Wins; also not 22 17, *19-15,
Red Wins
D
If 19-15, *9 5,
Draw
E
If 5-9 or 19-15 or 19-23, *6 1,
Draw
Please enter your original, unpublished, dual-free problems in future contests by sending them at anytime to: Bill Salot
1006 Elmwood Drive
Colonial Heights, VA 23834-2905
or at wjsalot@comcast.net.
