B. G. Laws (page 2 of 3)
I was introduced to Frank Healey at Simpsons' Divan by the late Sir John Thursby and Wilhelm Steinitz about 1881. I thought it was a great privilege to be allowed to enjoy the personal acquaintance of the man who had up to that time stood in the foreground of the English School. He took a genuine interest in me and I received much encouragement from him. I fear I pestered him with many questions which with dry humour he satisfied. He explained that in his young days he studied the long drawn out problems which came his way, checks sacrifice, sacrifice checks were ubiquitous, and saw that many of the strategems could be condensed by quiet moves. He admitted many of his problems were not only inspired by but actually based upon the works of contemporaries and predecessors showing however no traces of their origin.
On seeking information regarding the famous “Bristol” problem, he told me that the idea occurred to him that as solvers were getting so alive to sacrificial devices, it might prove puzzling if instead of placing an important piece at the mercy of the defence and getting rid of it as a superfluity in this way, it was removed to the remotest square available and there remained dead. Of course the moves of the attack which followed the key move had to dovetail with the far away exile. This explanation rather tends to support A. C. White's term “passive sacrifice” as applied to the “Bristol” and other clearance schemes.
One Saturday afternoon at Simpsons' I set up a little three-mover, quite a bagatelle, just composed; it pleased him.
(10) B. G. Laws
Chess Player’s Chronicle, 1880
Mate in 3
I often saw Horwitz about this period and as the question regarding the origin of the term “Cook” was then being discussed in problem circles, I asked him if he could throw any light on the subject. He corroborated the statement which had been made that Kling (who had frequently collaborated with him in end-game and problem study) would on Horwitz greeting him with: “I have a raw idea,” ironically reply “Well, I will cook your raw idea.” If Horwitz's account can be relied upon, this should settle a debated point.
One evening in 1883 I dropped into Gatti’s for refreshment before going to Toole's Theatre which was hard by. I had just composed this two-mover, and so set it up and left it for the entertainment of the few solvers present.
(11) B. G. Laws
Croydon Guardian, 24th November 1883
(published without bPb6)
Mate in 2
One Saturday afternoon I strolled into Gatti’s and found a few enthusiasts studying a three-mover by Walter Grimshaw from the current issue of the Illustrated London News, among them being the late J. Graham Campbell, one of the finest composers and players of his time. I had not met him before.
(12) W. Grimshaw
Illustrated London News
Mate in 3
For reasons which I do not now remember, the problem habitués of Gatti’s changed their rendezvous to Café Monico. We certainly were more secluded, but the chess room was not too well ventilated; still this was compensated for by our ventilation of ideas! I look back with pleasure on those evenings and recall many of the old frequenters who were ardent composers and keen solvers. A few come to mind: Barbier, Bedell, Brockelbank, Coster, Enderle, Geary, Guest, Piercher, Planck, Reyner and Rosenbaum. Sometimes Blackburne and Zukertort would honour us by their presence both at Café Monico and Gatti’s. This arrangement of meeting at a convenient resort was the best which could be suggested. Friday and Saturday were the most popular evenings. Chess, literature, drama, music, mathematics, athletics and politics were among the subjects discussed, and when the party dispersed it was with feelings that the time had not been ill-spent. On one of these occasions Brockelbank was challenged to compose a three-mover without the sight of board and men. He was known to enjoy the uncommon facility of playing the game sans voir. Before our usual hour for breaking up was reached, he produced this problem, explaining he had built around a powerful threat on a constrained king, the better to control things and thus render the task lighter. Seeing the peculiar subtleness of the play after the two principal defences of the black queen it was a notable accomplishment.
(13) C. H. Brockelbank
Mate in 3
Brockelbank had a remarkable memory for positions. One evening (in his absence) we were endeavouring to set up a three-mover of Barbier's, which he had shown some weeks before. Whilst we were casting about for clues, Brockelbank walked in when one of the party cried: “Here's Brockelbank, he'll remember it.” He at once maintained his reputation by setting it up without hesitation.
Among the names in the Gatti and Café Monico coterie I mentioned Enderle. As a composer he did little, but what he turned his hand to was in correct style. He enjoyed solving, but if it was made known to him beforehand that a three or four-mover had not an economically pure mate (the term “model mate” afterwards coined by H. D'O. Bernard not being in the problemist's glossary), he would be disinclined to take any interest in it. He was a stickler for model mates and much admired those where no men were in the king's field, which he called “mirrors”. He struck this word to convey his meaning that a mirror mate must also be a model mate. Some modern writers have lost sight of this essential characteristic and count as mirror mates those which are neither pure nor strictly economical. I asked Enderle why he termed such a mate a mirror and received some such reply as, “Can't you see the black king reflected in the frame of the opposing forces?”
During the preparation of The Chess Problem Text Book in 1885, Andrews, Frankenstein and myself had many conferences at Frankenstein's home. He had conceived the idea and financed the undertaking. Andrews was invited to join after the project was well under way. His inclusion was not altogether fortunate, as though a man of experience, he was a little out of date and was not quite in harmony with the modern code of construction which was supplanting that of the period during which he was a prominent figure. He gave me the impression that he felt slighted at the suggestion that Planck should write the treatise, but Frankenstein and I appreciated the latter's ability to do credit to the subject. The outcome was that The Chess Problem Text Book contained the finest essay on the chess problem that had been written in the English language, and probably in any other.
I have one feeling of regret concerning this work, and that is that I did not exercise restraint in the case of a number of my selected problems which might well have been omitted on account of their very indifferent merits.
In 1885 it was rumoured that Sam Loyd contemplated a visit to Europe. The possible event excited interest, especially to the quartet engaged on The Chess Problem Text Book. We all hoped to have the pleasure of making the personal acquaintance of the eminent American composer who had thrilled the chess world with his spontaneous and daring originality. It is true Frankenstein had met Loyd on several occasions in the States and had formed his own estimate of his skill as a solver. As such he was by many credited with being the world's greatest expert, but this was more speculation than positive knowledge. Frankenstein suggested a solving match over the board with myself if Loyd came to England, adding that he would be prepared to support his confidence in me by staking £100. This sporting suggestion was endorsed by Planck, but Loyd however did not leave the western hemisphere; he certainly never heard of the proposal.
About three years after the launching of The Chess Problem Text Book I was asked by the well known publishers Bell & Co. to write a work on problems uniform with their “Club Series”. I chose for my subject the two-mover, and in 1890 The Two-move Chess Problem was published.p class= That this small book proved spadding-left: 5px;bcpsp class=uccessful goes without saying as Messrs Bell have stated that it has had the largest sale of any of their game books and I understand it is still in steady demand. Towards the end of 1890 they pressed me to write a similar treatise on the three-mover, but I felt then I could not devote the necessary time to another publication which would have involved considerable labour and research. I feel considerable recompense for the labour bestowed on the treatise by the many expressions of appreciation I have received from readers; indeed not a few have stated that they owe their introduction to the art to it, and among the members of our own Society I have had gratifying acknowledgments from P. F. Blake and A. C. Challenger, who have distinguished themselves as adepts.
For many years I was in regular correspondence with the late A.F. Mackenzie of Jamaica, an eminent exponent of the art. The receipt of his letters gave me much pleasure; we rarely missed a mail day. In most matters concerning problem lore we were in agreement. He nevertheless at the time his contemporaries were being enlightened by new ideals, held tenaciously to the style of the Transition period, and viewed “economy of force” from an angle different from which those who embraced modern maxims regarded it. Time works changes and years before his premature death he showed by the majority of his masterly problems that he had become a convert.
I introduce Mackenzie’s name in order to mention a matter which has never been cleared up, that is the origin of the two-mover credited to him and sometimes jointly with myself, with six black king flight squares and altogether seven mating moves, a feat of construction which I believe has never been rivalled.
After I had succeeded in producing the six “flighter” which you have already seen, I worked for better results and communicated the skeleton scheme and my progress to Mackenzie. He was very interested and made suggestions. When completed I despatched the finished article to him.
(14) A. F. Mackenzie & B. G. Laws
HM., Chess Monthly, 1884-1886
Mate in 2
My amazement can be imagined when soon after I received a letter from the late Mrs. T. B. Rowland enclosing in confidence a copy of this two-mover (with a small but fatal difference) which had been entered by Mackenzie in one of the problem tourneys she was conducting. I replied by pointing out a cook, at the same time making a protest. The problem was withdrawn. However Mackenzie seemed to consider he was entitled to it and making the key move to correspond with mine, subsequently entered it in the tourney of the Chess Monthly under the motto “I stand alone!”. It was not included in the judge's “honours list”. (Laws presumably means “honours list“ to refer to prizes)
(Discussing the problem in his book The Two-Move Chess Problem Laws had written “A well-known problemist hit upon precisely the same rendering of an identical idea as the writer, nearly simultaneously. The circumstances under which each position was composed left no room for the suggestion that either had taken advantage of the other. An explanation, however, is afforded by the fact that similar views on problem construction were held, and in the treatment of a popular problematic theme, there was every probability of ‘unconscious imitation’.”)
Prior to the publication by A. C. White of A. F. Mackenzie's Chess Lyrics, 1905, he visited England. This gave me the opportunity of becoming personally acquainted with this brilliant disciple of our cult. Inheriting a love for problems from his father he has devoted many years in fostering their study, classifying the thousands which have come under his notice, has produced about thirty standard books (mostly distributed as Christmas gifts), assisting materially in promoting the biggest chess problem organization of the world: The Good Companion Chess Problem Club (Philadelphia), acting as judge in numerous tourneys and often providing the prizes. In many ways by his articles and influence he easily stands alone as an expert enthusiast, writer and patron. He first consulted me in compiling his first volume Chess Lyrics in the hope I could furnish him with useful information. In that work he acknowledges my help in these words: “Mr. B.G. Laws, the popular problem editor of the British Chess Magazine, has given me extensive assistance notwithstanding the anxieties of a long protracted illness.”
One of the most extraordinary and yet simple cases on record of a composer taking another's problem en bloc, and by shifting the men one file, producing a new one, occurred to me in 1888. The incident has been referred to in chess columns several times, but may be unknown to some of you.
(15) L. K. Jokisch
Nashville American, March 1888
Mate in 3
(16) B. G. Laws
Nashville American, July 1888
Mate in 3
L. J. H. Jokisch's three-mover was given in the Nashville American. The solution is a good one, especially the key move. By the simple change of locale Qa8 cannot be made, but curiously enough in the other position the queen is played in the other direction, as h1 is now available after the queen's pawn advances, resulting in a “model”.
(17) J. Rayner
British Chess Magazine, December, 1893
Selfmate in 10
(18) J. Rayner
British Chess Magazine, December, 1893
Selfmate in 9
In the year 1893 the late James Rayner sent me a ten-move self-mate to solve, examine and comment upon. I had some trouble over it and as his diagram was not too clear I thought possibly the only pawn used might be a black one instead of white. With this change I found a pretty solution in ten. Rayner however confirmed the white pawn and being on sure ground I soon discovered the intention. The interesting part of this is that with the alteration of colour of the pawn, and shifting the position of the queen Rayner brought to light a most ingenious line of play fulfilling the sui-mate stipulation in nine moves. These positions were given in the special Christmas number of the British Chess Magazine 1893.
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