Tuesday, October 25, 2016

(283) The run up Calvary and then San Julián later that week

On the evening of March 28th 2016 I remarked to my wife that as part of my training for the upcoming Ruta de Las Fortelezas I was intending that week to do something that I had never done before, i.e. run up not just one of the nearby hills of San Julián or Calvary but first Calvary and then without pause, San Julián.
I had only begun running up the Calvary hill a few weeks before and had made hardly any such runs, in contrast with the dozens of ascents I had made of San Julián over the previous few years, although I had many times driven to the spring atop Calvary to stock up on water.
Fiona then said that there was such a dual ascent being run that very week. for a local charity: pay 10 Euro entry, run up Calvary, then San Julián and then enjoy a paella lunch in the village that lay closest to the base of each hill, Lo Campano. (One also got to keep the T shirt.)
The charity was for residents of Lo Campano threatened with social exclusion.

She had discovered this fact only seconds before when looking at a page, still open on her computer, of  http://www.cartagena.es/detalle_noticias.asp?id=195480 where the lead item announced the dual ascent for charity.

This was only the second year when such a mini run had been organised.
And many people were of like mind to myself and planned to use it as a useful part of their training for the Ruta de Las Fortelezas.
But unlike me, their announcement of intent had not coincided exactly with their learning of the charity run, for Fiona, who was wont to consult the Cartagena Town Hall site on some three occasions per week, or perhaps  just a few more, had only just then read of it.
The front page piece only went up that day; March 28th 2016.

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

(282) The Réti study of Rook against a Pawn.

On October 22nd 2015 I found myself studying Reti´s famous study: 
This was from page 14 of Dvoretsky and Yusupov´s Technique for the Tournament Player.

White wins with 1 Rd1!! Kd5 2 Kd7! and thus catches the pawn.

Although over previous decades I had many, many times seen this thing, it was only that evening that I was intrigued enough to figure out precisely just WHY 1 Rd1! is the, clever, way to win.
(After all, as so many indolent players think: how often do you truly require arcane endgame knowledge?)
And in over thirty-one years as a Grandmaster I could not recall ever coming across an instance of that theme.

The very next evening I looked at Alex Baburin´s Chess Today newspaper in my e mail box and saw this -
Brodowski (2452) Vs Leniart,(2480) European Universities Championship, Yerevan, 2015.

They reached this ending -


Here black chose 80...Kg2? and drew after 81 Kg4! "Mutual zugzwang" 81...Kf2 82 Kf4! Rf8+ 83 Ke5, etc.

As Baburin commented - ""He had to play 80...Kf2! 81 Kg4 Kg2 - this idea was used in one of Reti´s studies."

Well waddyaknow...?!