Chess Composers: February 2nd

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

February 2nd

Nicolae A. Drăgan (02-02-1941) Romanian composer

Nicky Drăgan composed direct mates, helpmates, fairy problems and retro problems.

Here is an example of his art:

Drăgan, Nicolae A.
Romanian Championship 1969- 1970
1^st Place

10 + 9

Show Solution

And one example of miniature helpmate, simple and cute:

Drăgan, Nicolae A.
Ajedrez Mágico, Jun 1971 (27/996)
Comm.

h#2

2 solutions

2 + 1

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Andrew Kalotay (02-02-1941) Hungarian-American composer and o.t.b. master

Andrew Kalotay was successful as a chess player but seems to have abandoned o.t.b. competitions for composition (biographical information can be found on Wikipedia - Thank you Dr. Dowd!) He mostly composes helpmates concluded in an ideal mate.
One of his best works was composed in collaboration with GM Pál Benkö:

Benkö, Pál & Kalotay, Andrew
The Problemist, 1989
4^th Prize

h#3.5

b) Move b8 a7
c) Move b3 c2

3 + 1

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Slobodan Šaletić (02-02-1944) Serbian composer

Slobodan Šaletić
[Thanks to Александр Никитин]

Slobodan Šaletić was a member of the editing team of "Šahovska kompozicija", together with Radivoje Urošević and Ljubiša Papić. He composes heterodox problems, sometimes in collaboration:

Šaletić, Slobodan
Euxinus Pontus, 2008
3^rd Comm.

h#2

b) Move a1 c7

6 + 7

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Henrik Juel (02-02-1945) Danish composer

Henrik Juel
[Problemskak.dk]

Henrik Juel composes all genres of problems, but lately mostly retro compositions (proof games, illegal clusters, etc). Here is a proof game in 8 moves (2 solutions):

Juel, Henrik
R0103 StrateGems 19 2002
Special Comm.

SPG 8.0		13 + 14
2 solutions

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Сергей Владимирович Радченко (02-02-1950) Russian composer (Sergey Vladimirovich Radchenko)

Composes miniatures, generally with ideal mates.

Радченко, Сергей Владимирович
Мат (Черкаси) 1991

3 + 4

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Ivan Skoba (02-02-1950) Czech composer

Ivan Skoba was recently noticed for his successes with long series problems that competed in the tourneys organized by Itamar Faybish. But here is something completely different from series problems:

Skoba, Ivan
Šachová skladba, 1999
1^st HM

7 + 8

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Horst Bäcker (Deichelbohrer) (02-02-1952) German composer

Horst Bäcker seems to publish his problems exclusively in German magazines (Problemkiste, die Schwalbe) and to have a soft spot for promotions, but the quality of his works is noteworthy. He composes in many genres.
Horst was born Deichelbohrer (source: Die Schwalbe Inhaltsverzeichnis, Band XXI, 1992–1994, page III; thanks to Peter Hoffmann for bringing this up). Horst Deichelbohrer published good problems including selfmate Babsons (such as this one).

Bäcker, Horst
Problemkiste, 1989