Technically, the task can be regarded as a form of Allumwandlung with corresponding promotions by black and white (an Allumwandlung is a problem which contains, at some point in the solution, promotions to each of the four possible pieces - such problems had already been composed before Babson devised his task).
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2 Selfmate Babsons 3 Directmate Babsons 4 The cyclic Babson 5 Further reading 6 External links |
This 1912 problem by Wolfgang Pauly is, as it were, a three-quarter Babson task - three of black's promotions are matched by white. White to move and mate in four:
Forerunners of the Babson task
The key is b3 (see algebraic notation for an explanation of the notation used), after which there are the following lines:
The earliest Babson tasks are all in the form of a selfmate - this is where white, moving first, must force black to mate him against his will within a specified number of moves. In 1914, Babson himself published a selfmate which achieved the task, although three different white pawns shared the promotions. The first problem in which a single black and single white pawn were involved in the promotions was by Henry William Bettmann, and won 1st prize in the Babson Task Tourney 1925-26.
Composing a Babson task problem in directmate form (where white moves first, and must checkmate black against any defence within a stipulated number of moves) was thought so difficult that very little effort was put into solving it until the 1960s, when Pierre Drumare began his work on the problem which would occupy him for the next twenty years or so. He managed to compose a Babson task problem using nightriders (a fairy piece which moves like a knight, but can make any number of knight-like moves in the same direction in one go) instead of knights, but found it hard to devise one using normal pieces - because of their limited range, it is difficult to justify white promoting to a knight because of black promoting to one way over the other side of the board.
When Drumare did eventually succeed using conventional pieces in 1980, the result was regarded as highly unsatisfactory, even by Drumare himself. It is a mate in five (first published Memorial Seneca, 1980):
Efficiency in chess problems is considered a great boon, but Drumare's attempt is very inefficient - no less than 31 men are on the board. It also has six promoted pieces in the initial position (even a single promoted piece is considered something of a "cheat" in chess problems), which is in any case illegal - it could not be reached in the course of a game. Despite all these flaws, it is the first complete Babson task.
In 1982, two years after composing this problem, Drumare gave up, saying that the Babson task would never be satisfactorily solved.
The following year, Leonid Yarosh, a football coach from Kazan then virtually unknown as a problem composer, came up with a much better Babson task problem than Drumare's - the position is legal, it is much simpler than Drumare's problem, and there are no promoted pieces on board. First published in March 1983 in the famous Russian chess magazine Shakhmaty v SSSR, this is generally thought of as the first satisfactory solution of the Babson task. Drumare himself had high praise for the problem. It is a mate in four:
In the August 2003 issue of the German problem magazine Die Schwalbe, the problem to the right, a mate in four by Peter Hoffmann appeared. Hoffmann had previously published a number of conventional directmate Babsons, but this one is significant as it is the first cyclic Babson: rather than black promotions being matched by white, they are related in cyclic form: black promoting to a queen means white must promote to a bishop, black promoting to a bishop means white must promote to a rook, black promoting to a rook means white must promote to a knight, and black promoting to a knight means white must promote to a queen.
The key is 1.Nxe6, threatening 2.hxg8Q and 3.Qf7#. The thematic defences are:
As with Drumare's original Babson task, the problem uses promoted pieces and has a capturing key, but it is nontheless remarkable for being the first published cyclic Babson.
Selfmate Babsons
A number of other selfmate Babson tasks with one pawn of each colour doing all the promotions followed this one.Directmate Babsons
The key is Rf2, after which black captures on b1 are answered by white captures on g8.
The key is 1.Rxh4, and the main lines are:
However, Yarosh's problem has a small flaw - the key is a capture, something which is generally frowned upon in problems. Yarosh worked on the problem, and in August 1983 an improved version of it with a non-capturing key appeared in Shakhmaty v SSSR. It is generally considered one of the greatest chess problems ever composed. Again, mate in four:
The key here is non-capturing and also thematic (it is logically related to the rest of the solution): 1.a7. The variations are largely the same as in the original:
Yarosh composed a completely different Babson task problem in 1983 and another in 1986. Several other Babsons have since been composed by other authors.The cyclic Babson
There are also a number of sidelines.Further reading
External links