First Signs of Spring in the Park

I took a walk via Flag Lane and the Valley brook to Queens Park this sunny morning and took a few photos to cheer me up.

 

Circulating Chess Tours

I seem to have forgotten about this diary page for a while. Probably I've been too distracted with hospital check-ups and appointments. 

It was my 85th birthday early in February. It may be noted that 85 is a sum of two squares in two ways. It also has an interesting pattern in binary notation.

I've had one of the infrequent exchanges of messages with Prof Donald Knuth. He was interested in the E. W. Bennett problem of a circulating knight tour, which I solved with four symmetric tours, back in 1995. The tours are shown on the Knight's Tour Notes PDF #6 page 32.

Thanks to research by Arnaud Lefebvre (Rouen) it was possible to establish some biographical details: The original author was Edward William Bennett (1899 - 1979) who was President of the Otago Chess Club (New Zealand) in 1938 and champion there 1941, moving to Australia in 1945. 

I've been trying to convert material on my website into books of some kind, possibly a series of "Guides" on various subjects. The problem with making a Guide to Knight Tours is editing down the material to a manageable form. It would be necessary to keep referring to the website for more extensive details.

 

Chess Activities

 Since November last year I have resumed submitting some chess problem compositions to the BCPS for The Problemist and its Supplement. These revisit old pieces like Moose, Eagle and Equihopper where I think I should have done more work years ago. I have now found out how to use the computer program Popeye to test compositions in these pieces. Though there are still pieces that it does not test such as Ski-Pieces or L-hoppers where I have some unpublished ideas. Also it seems single-line compositions such as Helpmates in three are out of fashion and need to be enhanced with a second solution or twin to merit publication.

I've also been debating with myself as to whether to carry on playing over the board chess, since my health problems have been preventing my playing regularly. I think I will carry on after all.

Here are my two most recent wins, with interesting checkmate endings.

Crewe Chess Congress 2024

White G. Jelliss Black O. Bell

1.Nf3 Nc6 2.d4 Nf6 3.c3 h6 4.Bf4 d5 5.Nbd2 Bf5 6.e3 Qd7 7.Nb3 Ne4 8.Bd3 e7 9.OO OOO 10.Qe2 Re8 11.Ne5 NxNe5 12.BxNe5 f6 13.Bg3 a6 14.Na5 NxBg3 15.fxNg3 BxBd3 16.QxBd3 c6 17.b4 r5 18.a4 e4 19.Qe2 h5 20.h3 Rh6 21.Rab1 f5 22.b5 cxb5 23.axb5 Qc7 24.Qa2 Ree6 25.Rxf5 Be7 26.Rxd5 Bd8 27.Rc5 Kb8 28.RxQc7 KxRc7 29.Qd5 Rb6 30.Qc5+ Kb8 31.Rb4 Rbe6 32.c4 BxNa5 33.Qf8+ Ka7 34.Ra4 Bd2 35.Ra3 a5 36.c5 g5 37.b6+ Ka6 38.Qf1#

Wallasy v Crewe Match 2024

White M. Cockerill Black G. Jelliss

1.d4 e6 2.c4 b6 3.Bf4 Bb7 4.Nc3 d6 5.e3 Nbd7 6.Nf3 Be7 7.Be2 c5 8.OO h5 9.Rc1 g5 10.Nxg5 BxNg5 11.Bxd6 N2f6 12.dxc5 bxc5 13.Bxc5 Qc7 14.Ba3 Ne7 15.Qc2 Ng4 16.BxNg4 hxBg4 17.g3 f5 18.Nb5 Qc6 19.Nd6+ Kf8 20.NxBb7 QxNb7 21.Rcd1 Kf7 22.Qd4 Rxh2 23.f3 Rah8 24.Rd7 Bxe3+ 25.Rf2 Rh1+ 26.Kg2 R8h2#

This last was quite an aggressive game on my part with a nice forced mate at the end.

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Is there an Election on?

 I bought a local paper today thinking it might have details of the candidates in the General Election on 4th July, but there is no mention of anything there! Aren't local "hustings" held here?

The BBC website has a list of eight candidates standing here, in Crewe and Nantwich, but so far I have only had one leaflet from the Labour Party candidate Connor Naismith. 

I suppose people are expected to vote on Party lines rather than by assessing the virtues of the individual candidates.  

Visit from Ayliean

 On 3 June I had a visit from Ayliean MacDonald, who publishes a number of videos on YiuTube and in Numberphile on knight's tours and other mathematical topics. 

Ayliean was interested in acquiring my "Archive on Knight's Tours", consisting mainly of photocopies of old documents and correspondence relating to the subject, accumulated over fifty years or more. 

We loaded them into her Renault for the long journey to Inverness. 

This video in her series includes my results on magic knight tours on the 16x16 board with biaxial symmetry using my "split and fix method".

More Magic Knight’s Tours, Hidden Inside Magic Knight’s Tours (youtube.com)    

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Photo added to post 25 August

Crewe Bus Station

 The Crewe Bus Station and multi-storey car park now appear to be completed. 

Though the area all round is still just wasteland. 

Presumably that area will be landscaped. I've not seen any plans to do more building there.

8x12 Symmetric Magic Knight Tour

 Guenter Stertenbrink reports that after a computer search 

there are no symmetric magic knight tours on the 8x10 rectangle.

 8x10 magic knight tours - ChessProblem.net

He provides this example of a rotationally symmetric magic tour 8x12.

First half numbered 1 to 48 (instead of 0 to 47).

Rank sum 582 (6x97). File sum 388 (4x97).