Themed tournament

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As a theme tournament is known in chess a competition in which some features of the opening are predetermined as a theme. In chess composition , the content of the composition is given as a theme at a themed tournament.

Chess game

Tournament chess

At the beginning of each game, the predefined opening position is set up, from which the game then continues.

Themed tournaments are particularly interesting for lovers of the gambit game and certain rarely played openings. Especially at the amateur level, the topic of the tournament is kept secret until shortly before the start. Many players then appreciate the fact that there is no advantage to be gained through intensive preparations for the opening, but all moves have to be calculated from the beginning so that all players start with the same conditions. In order to compensate for differences in the level of play between the participants, it is also possible to announce the openings beforehand in order to enable the weaker players to prepare well. This method was used, for example, at the CAP Gemini tournament in Utrecht in 1986, in which six professional players competed against twelve Dutch amateurs.

Correspondence chess

In contrast, in order to examine certain, mostly complicated and sharp opening variants more closely, themed tournaments in correspondence chess are widespread due to the long reflection time and the associated analysis options .

Computer chess

Themed tournaments are also held in computer chess to test the skill level of chess programs regardless of their opening books. For this purpose, several balanced positions are specified, which cover the widest possible range of different types of positions. A well-known test set comes from John Nunn .

history

The first themed tournaments were the gambit tournaments, which were experimented with at the beginning of the 20th century. Certain gambit openings were prescribed. At the very well-attended Viennese gambit tournament in 1903 (winner Michail Tschigorin ahead of Frank Marshall and Georg Marco ), the accepted king's gambit (1. e2 – e4 e7 – e5 2. f2 – f4 e5xf4) was fixed for all games . Other important gambit tournaments took place in Abbazia in 1912 and in Baden near Vienna in 1914 .

Grandmasters were rarely involved in later themed tournaments. Meanwhile, fans of the gambit openings retained interest in themed tournaments. In the case of the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit , special correspondence chess world tournaments were held between 1968 and 1975 or 1979 to 1983.

Theme tournaments can also be held in honor of well-known players, with preferred openings given by them. The best- known example is the Polugajewski tournament in Buenos Aires in 1994, in which all games had to begin with the Sicilian defense .

Chess composition

Strictly speaking, the subject of a chess composition is its main content , similar to that in art , for example in music . Formally, all compositions that show the content specified for the tournament as a minimum requirement are admitted to a themed tournament. It is common practice to enrich this topic with further content. An accumulation of the given topic is desirable, for example in several phases (variants in the solution, multiples, inclusion of seductions , sentence play, etc.).

Occasionally, as in conventional composition tournaments, additional restrictions are imposed on the form of chess composition (genre, restrictions on certain piece material or exclusion of certain conditions such as zero position, fairytale chess, etc.).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ CAP Gemini Thematoernooi Utrecht 1986 . Variant, Nederhorst den Berg 1988, ISBN 90-6448-522-4 .
  2. ^ Georg Marco: The International Gambit Tournament in the Vienna Chess Club in 1903 and in Baden near Vienna in 1914 . Reprint of the edition Vienna, Verlag der Wiener Schachzeitung, 1903 and Vienna, Verlag der Wiener Schachzeitung, 1916. Edition Olms, Zurich 1983, ISBN 3-283-00128-6 .
  3. ↑ Sicilian love. Lev Polugaevsky Chess tournament Buenos Aires 1994 . Interchess, Alkmaar 1995, ISBN 90-71689-99-9 .

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