28th TT Chess Composition Microweb C 10.10.2010

The judge's report of the Leo tourney will be soon delivered (at least that is the latest information available) and thus it is the right time to announce new tourney. This time I have selected theme well worked at the Marianka 2009 meeting: ecto-battery. Do you know the term? Perhaps not, but possibly you have seen examples of ecto-battery even without knowing it. For more explanation see below, in the Theory section.

Announcement

Chess Composition Microweb announces formal thematical tourney for any type of fairy chess problems showing ecto-battery.

Judge: Juraj Lörinc (Slovakia)

Any stipulations, any fairy conditions and any fairy pieces are allowed. The tourney might be divided to multiple sections if enough problems are received depending on the opinion of the judge.

Entries should be sent by email to juraj.lorinc@bigfoot.com before October 10th, 2010. The award will be published at Chess Composition Microweb.

Please, let know your friends about our competition!

Strucny slovensky preklad temy: Turnaj je vypisany pre akekolvek ulohy s ektobateriou (definicia ektobaterie v anglictine a priklady nizsie). Lubovolne exopodmienky a exokamene su dovolene.

Theory

The first inspiration came from the locust helpmates. Take e.g. the h#2 by Michal Dragoun. The solution of a) runs:

1.Rb5 RL(xb5)-c5 2.L(xe3)-d2 L(xf6)-e7#

Take another look onto the mating move. White locusts arrives on e7, from that square pins Se4. It is important that this move removes Rf6 from the long diagonal, effectively opening white bishop locust directed at bK. This is ecto-battery. Locust start on some square (h4) not on the activated line in question (g7-c3), locust arrive on another square (e7) not on the line in question.

The solution of b) is similar and shows the ecto-battery as well:

1.Rc5 RL(xc5)-d5 2.L(xg7)-f8 L(xe4)-d4#

It is possible to have analyze other similar terms, well known battery and anti-battery.

The battery is characterized by departure of firing piece from the line in question, it needn't check and it arrives not on the line.

The anti-battery is characterized by arrival of the hurdle on the line in question, it needn't check either and it departs from outside the line.

And ecto-battery is characterized by both departure and arrival square not on the line.

The other standard example of ectobattery is Anticirce, e.g. position wRa5, bKh5, bpe5, wSf3 - Sf3xe5(Sg1) is indeed similar in a sense that is a move starting and ending outside of the 5th rank, yet activating that line.

There are many other renderings of ecto-battery possible, in Marianka one awarded problem used Circe Parrain similarly to below given examples. You can find the announcement, examples and award of the Marianka 2009 fairy tourney in bulletin on pages 82-90 (pdf file, cca 3 MB).

By the way, the term "ecto_battery" was coined by Chris J. Feather in 2009, in the correspondence related to his publication series Fairings.

There might be many questions as the explanations above are deliberately written slightly freely, please, let direct them to me at Juraj Lörinc.

Finally we have also further ecto-battery theory - and more comments are welcome even after the tourney would be finished!

Examples

Probably the following list of thematical problems is not complete, nevertheless it shows wide range of possible ecto-batteries.

#2 with locusts by Yves Cheylan - among many mates by locust capture there are two ecto-batteries, after defences 1...Lxe5-e6 and 1...Lxg6-h7.
#2 with lion family in Circe by Juraj Lörinc - ecto-batteries are shown in the mating moves with rebirths of black mao on d1.
#2 with hoppers in Circe Parrain by Reto Aschwanden - complete fourfould Kiss cycle with ecto-battery in all 12 thematical mates.
#2 with lion family in Anticirce by Michael Barth - in the solution there are two Anticirce typical ecto-batteries 2.Rxh3(Rh1)# and 2.Qxh5(Qd1)#.
#2 with lions in Circe Parrain by Reto Aschwanden - another complete fourfold Kiss cycle, this time with some mates using two ecto-batteries.
#2 with leos in Anticirce by Jan Ducak - ecto-batteries in threats of both phases.
#3 with locusts and transmuting king by Juraj Lörinc - ecto-battery checks in 2nd moves send bK to the road.
h#2 with locust family by Michal Dragoun - BLa5 is opened to c3 in a), RLh3 is opened to d3 in b).
h#2 in Anticirce type Cheylan by Yves Cheylan - two different ecto-batteries on the same square b7.
h#2 with locust family by Michal Dragoun - ecto-battery mates in D-O echo.
h#2 with locusts in Symmetry Circe by Juraj Lörinc & Michal Dragoun - D-O echo of ecto-battery mates.
h#2 with grasshoppers and locusts by Chris J. Feather - two different ecto-battery activations of check over immobilized black piece on e6.
h#2 with neutral pieces in Circe by Michal Dragoun & Juraj Lörinc - Circe rebirth caused by very far capture activates line.
h#2,5 with leos in Circe Parrain by Juraj Lörinc - in b) position there are ecto-batteries employing active role of rear piece.
h#4 with paos in Circe by Unto Heinonen - rebirths of black bishops serving as immobilized hurdles for mating paos.
s#4 in Anticirce type Cheylan by Yves Cheylan - only one mate, but very specific - ecto-battery on the arrival square of the checking pawn making virtual capture of wK.
s#2 Circe with Chinese pieces by Emil Klemanic & Ladislav Salai jr. - three different white chinese pieces are reborn on d8, activating PAa8, while also firing diagonal battery. The switching of PA/VA lines leads to changes finished by rebirth of bP.

Special example files:

Ecto-battery 1 - seven problems in Anticirce.
Ecto-battery 2 - seven selfmates.

Results

We had 14 problems competing in the tourney (not counting cooked problems and version later retracted by their authors), submitted by eight authors:

Bojan Basic (Serbia)
Michal Dragoun (Czechia)
Imre Kirchner (Hungary)
Mario Parrinello (Italy)
Manfred Rittirsch (Germany)
Brian Stephenson (Great Britain)
Pierre Tritten (France)
Dmitri Turevski (Russia)

And here are the winners: the award by Juraj Lörinc.

Send any claims against this award to Juraj Lörinc before May 1st, 2011, please.

Comments to Juraj Lörinc.
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