ARVES 25 AT 2014

ARVES- 25 Anniversary Tourney - award by Yochanan Afek To celebrate a quarter of a century of activity to promote the art of the endgame study ARVES announced a formal tourney which I was honoured to be appointed as its judge. I received 55 entries on anonymous diagrams from the tournament director Luc Palmans to whom I am grateful for smoothly running the event and efficiently editing the material for the judging process. Many thanks are due to Harold Van der Heijden for his dedicated and professional hard work to check the award candidates for soundness and originality. The general standard of the entries was more than satisfactory and I was delighted to receive and award an unusual number of game-like daring and combative ideas and almost no computer productsof the kind that only the silicon monster can comprehend and appreciate. Is it indeed a refreshing return to the genuine roots of our art?

Let's hope so! As usual I have tried to put originality and the general impression at the top of my criteria. Not less than four entries displayed the difficult multi-pinning stalemate, probably inspired by the recent Michal Hlinka-60 JT.

I was hesitating a bit but eventually decided that they all have a place in the award. It is also not common to have almost half of the award prize-winners yet I believe all six deserve it. Here is then my selection: