Saturday, September 2, 2017

More "In Memorium"

Credit: Ha'aretz weekend supplement, June 9th, 2017

As Yochanan Afek reminded us, when Hillel Aloni passed away, Ha'aretz chess editor, Israel Shrenzel (ph. English spelling) had written extensively about him, including a photo (above). The paper notes that Aloni was not only a talented composer -- the father of the Israeli endgame studies -- but also promoted and trained many younger composers, such as Afek himself, Amaztia Avni, Yehuda Hoch, Ofer Komai, and others. Afek adds the AVRES site has a memorial page as well with many studies.

He added one of Aloni's early compositions, from 1959 (annotations by Shrenzel):

White to move and draw
Solution: 1.Bf5+! Kxf5 2.Nh4+! (not 2.Nxe2 fxe2 3. Nh4+ Kxh5 4.Kxa2 e1=N!) Kxe5 3.Nxf3+ Kf4 4.Nxe2+ Kf3 5.Nd4+ Ke3 6.Nc2+ Kd2 7.Na1! (insufficient is 7.Kb2 c3+ 8.Kb3 Kb1 -+) Kc3 8.Kxa2 b4 9.Nb3! cxb3 10.Ka1 (10.Kb1 loses to 10...b2 11.ka2 b1=Q+ 12.Kxb1 Kb3) b2+ 11.Kb1 Drawn.

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