MARK RUBERY CHESS

Alexei Troitzky (1866-1942) is regarded as the founder of study composition. He was famed for discovering many unique ideas and implementing them into his studies in a most attractive fashion. Many of his 1000 plus studies are part of the golden treasury of chess, rich in tactical resources and original in their concept.

In the pre-computer age Troitzky made an extensive analysis of the ending 2 N vP which was the basis for a change in the 50 move law many years later. On analysing this ending with an endgame table base, John Nunn declared that the analysis by Troitzky was astonishingly accurate. He worked in the forestry department and the isolation of his vocation made it the ideal situation for him to hone his skills in chess composition. Troitzky was one of many who met their end through starvation during the siege of Leningrad, which incidentally the young Korchnoi managed to survive. One can only wonder how many potential gems were lost to the chess world when his numerous unpublished studies perished with him.

He was prolific, imaginative and entertaining, and the impact of his best studies remains undiminished even today.

Perhaps the most famous study by Troitsky

WHITE TO PLAY AND WIN

‘When I imagine Troitsky in his Siberian forest, surrounded by howling wolves, analysing night after night whether king plus four knights can always beat king plus queen, that to me is great. That is what chess is all about; only you have to be a chess player to appreciate it. How can you explain to a non-chess player that within chess there is a little world of endgame studies within which you have you have the even tinier world of theoretical major minor endgames, within which there is a micro-cosmos populated by utter madmen analysing four knights against a queen?’ –Tim Krabbe