| Jan-23-25 | | Petrosianic: Charosh was a problemist, who lived in Brooklyn in the 70's, and who specialized in what used to be called Fairy Chess, but today would be considered "variants", particularly variants that used non-standard pieces (such as Gothic Chess). There actually used to be a magazine called Fairy Chess Review. I can't think of him without thinking of an incident in a game club called Hexworld in the 80's. I had a copy of Chess Life with me. While I was playing another game, a non-chessplaying friend named Jay started thumbing through it and came across a letter from him. (Charosh wrote several letters to Chess Life over the years). Jay thought the name was hysterical, because it sounded like the name of a holiday. For the rest of the afternoon he was going around to other players saying "I'll never forget winters in de old country when we used to spend Mannis Charosh eating bagels and reading from the Talmud." |
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| Jan-24-25 | | Petrosianic: THE REVENGE OF MANNIS CHAROSH: In the 1950's, to get even with those who dared make fun of his name, Charosh invented a game he called U-Chess (Unambiguous 3-Symbol Chess). Fortunately, it only works with Descriptive Notation, which is one of the best arguments for algebraic I've heard. Here's how he described it: <CHAROSH: "The basic rule is that a move may be made only if it can be expressed unambiguously with not more than three symbols. A hyphen does not count; but "x" for "takes" does.The first move for each player can only be by a KP or QP, since such moves as P-B4, N-B3, etc., are ambiguous. A King may move to a square attacked by two like opposing pieces. For example, with W: Kb2; B: Ra3, Rc1 - the King may move K-R1 or K-B3 because RxK is ambiguous. Also KxR may not be played because it is ambiguous. Castling and en passant captures are permissible. Promotion (e.g. P=Q) is permissible without capture (PxB=Q has too many symbols). In the position, W: Ba4; B: Ke8, Pc7, Pf7, Black may not get out of check by PB3 which is ambiguous. In the position, W: Bc1, Bf1, Ke1: B:Ra1, B-B4 is illegal, even though one of the Bishops is pinned. Try this teaser: W: Ke1, Ne8, Ng8, Rh1; B: Kf8, Nb2, Nd1. White to play and mate in 2. (1. 0-0 is wrong. Why?) Try it; you'll like it."> |
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Kibitzing
