We are impressed. Beautiful solutions, new, efficient, creative and brilliant players, GM Sahaj Grover from India and Levon Hambardzumyan from Armenia. Yet, the tournament was won by the old players.The new ones could not understand the meaning of victory.It is explained in multiple locations on our website, so it was not our fault.But let me provide some additional explanation.A victory is a win where the computer surrenders and displays a –resign- message after the last move of the white.A winning position is not enough.
To make things absolutely clear: it can happen that, let’s say, the computer surrenders one move before a checkmate to a player playing a variant other than the one required by the author, which is, for example, a checkmate in the 30th move.If that is the case, even though the checkmate is imminent, the computer has not been actually checkmated and the solution cannot be counted as a checkmate.A checkmate is a must.
Let me also remind you that as a maximum a half of the prize is awarded for solutions other than the author’s one.
Now, let’s discuss the fourth in this year edition of the Non Stop 4 Tournament.
Problem 1 – only four moves to make. No correct solution was provided.
Problem 2.
In the previous edition of the Tournament there were 3 problems to solve: capture the queen in the 20th move and, starting from that position, achieve a victory in the 29th move and a mate in the 33th move.Nobody managed to find out how to capture the queen in the 20th move, so today we’ve shown the solution and continued with the v29 and m33 problems.
v29 – Problem 2.
Sahaj was the first to submit a solution. Unfortunately, it was an incorrect one, a certain position with no –resign- message displayed.
Manukyan from Armenia submitted a solution as the second player. Nevertheless, it was an irrelevant one – a mate in the 29th move.But it was a good solution to Problem 3.
Only the third solution was correct. It was submitted by a brilliant player from Poland, Krystian Jacek, who is the winner.
Problem 3. A difficult choice amongst many nice solutions. However, only 2 of them fulfilled the prerequisite of capturing the queen in the 20th move.And it was so simple.Just 2 moves… The undisputable winner would be Łukasz Luba, as he had the best, unbelievable time of one minute and six seconds. But he captured the queen in the 21st move, so no prize could be awarded.The authors of the 2 solutions in which the queen was captured as required are the winners.
1. Krystian Jacek – the most beautiful game, a forcing mate in 8 moves.
2. GM Gianni – a mate with a knight in 32 moves.
An honorable mention went to Sargis Manukyan, who was the fifth player to submit a solution. His solution was the quickest one, with a mate in the 28th move, but he captured the queen only in the 26th move.
Problem 4-v27, a position from the Wojtaszek-Caruana game. Nobody managed to solve it.We received two incorrect solutions. But we would like to mention Levon Hambardzumyan, whose solution included a mate in the 29th move, last 5 moves are forced. A nice solution.
And the hit of the Non Stop Tournament – Problem No. 5.With a prize of $1,000 for a solution identical with the author’s one.Nobody submitted such a solution, but we chose two solutions and awarded prizes for their beauty. You must see them! Medal Winners-Non4-5.
As an exception, we would like to show also an unsolved author’s problem, as the two rewarded solutions impressedus very much and we would like to show that we can play chess, too.
It’s amazing that nobody managed to solve Problem 1, which required only 4 moves.So, we leave the Problem available for solving. The person who is the first to submit a correct solution will be awarded the full price.New players can try to solve Problem 1 as well. Entry fee: $2.
Feel invited to play.