OzProblems
Australian Chess Problem Composition
Welcome to OzProblems.com, a site all about chess problems in Australia and around the world! Whether you are new to chess compositions or an experienced solver, we have something for you. Our aim is to promote the enjoyment of chess problems, which are at once interesting puzzles and the most artistic form of chess.
An in-depth introduction to the art of chess composition, examining various problem types and themes.
The weekly problem’s solution will appear on the following Saturday, when a new work is quoted.
See last week's problem with solution: No.743.
Prominent Australian problemists write about their involvement in the contemporary problem scene, and present some of their best compositions.
A comprehensive collection of Australian chess problem materials, including e-books, articles, magazines and columns (all free downloads).
A chess problem blog by Peter Wong, covering a range of subjects. The main page provides a topic index.
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Walkabout
Who created half of this classic three-move miniature?
10 Feb. 2025
Diagrammed below without attribution is one of the most famous and widely quoted three-move problems ever. While the first position has a clever solution, what makes this miniature a classic is that it contains a twin: by rotating the position 180 degrees, we obtain another three-mover that is solved in a strikingly different way. This two-part problem is most commonly credited to the Russian composer, Aleksandr Galitsky, with the source given as Shakhmatny Journal 1900; but as we shall see, there are good reasons to doubt that he produced the second part. Rare among famous chess compositions, there’s a great deal of uncertainty and conflicting information – in print and online – regarding its provenance. I decided to delve into the mystery and tried to resolve the question of its authorship, by making use of primary sources as much as possible. Fortunately, nowadays many old newspapers and magazines have been digitalised and made accessible online (my large collection of chess problem books in hard/soft copies also helped). Three candidates for creating the second position have been proposed, and we shall look at the evidence for each: (1) Galitsky himself, (2) Frederick Bennett, an Australian problemist and (3) J. R. Venning, an obscure figure.