Allumwandlung
Peter's Problem World with FIDE Master of Chess
Composition
Peter Wong
Note that Peter's articles, follow a chess problem
convention in using ‘S’ to represent the knight
(from the German word,
Springer). ‘N’ is reserved for a fairy piece called the nightrider.
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Allumwandlung
The
problemist’s vocabulary, like the player’s, includes the occasional
foreign term, and a prominent example is
Allumwandlung. This German word, usually abbreviated as AUW,
means “total promotion”.
It describes a
problem in which the four possible types of promotion – to queen,
rook, bishop, and knight – all take place during the course of the
solution.
The promotions
may be made by a single pawn in different lines of play, or they may
be divided among a number of pawns.
When both white
and black pawns participate in the
thematic promotions, the result is called a mixed AUW. |
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Problem
49 shows an AUW produced by a white pawn. In any white AUW
problem one may ask why White would promote to a rook or a bishop instead of
a queen. In
directmates, the motive for the underpromotions is usually the avoidance
of stalemate.
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49. Werner
Speckmann
Schach
1963
1st Prize
 
 
Mate in 2
(b) Qh7 to a7
(c) Ke6 to c6 in (b)
(d) Ke4 to c4 in (c) |
The
two-move 49 consists of four parts that are generated by
progressive twinning.
In normal
twinning, every change specified to create a new position is made to
the initial diagram, but
progressive twinning differs in that each change is applied to the
starting position of the previous part.
Thus to set up position (b), transfer the
queen to a7 as usual, but to generate part (c), start from position (b)
and make the further change of shifting the king to c6, and so on.
The four
phases are solved by: (a) 1.f8(B)! Kf6 2.Qf5, (b) 1.f8(R)!
Kd6 2.Rf6, (c) 1.f8(Q)! Kb5 2.Qfc5, and (d) 1.f8(S)! Kd6
2.Qc5.
Aggressive
keys that take control of the black king’s
flights are generally frowned upon, but here such unsubtle play is
very much mitigated by the exceptional economy – a record four pieces –
by which the AUW is accomplished. |
Have a go at solving Problem
54. This helpmate has one normal solution plus
set play, a sequence in which White begins and mates on the second move.
54. Zivko
Janevski
Mat 1982
6th Prize
 
   
 
Helpmate in 2
Set play
Solution
to Problem 54 (To display, hold down your mouse button and select the
text below)
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>Set play: 1…e8(Q)
2.e1(R) Qxf7.
Surprisingly, despite
the airy position Black
has no way of preserving
this set line with any
initial move, and the
actual play is 1.Rf8
exf8(B) 2.e1(S) Bxc5.>
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