Alexey Alexeyevich Troitsky (russian: Алексе́й Алексе́евич Тро́ицкий; March 14, 1866 – August 1942; also ''Alexei'', ''Troitzky'', ''Troitzki'') was a Russian chess theoretician. He is widely considered to have been one of the greatest

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

s of

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

endgame studies In the game of chess, an endgame study, or just study, is a composed position—that is, one that has been made up rather than played in an actual game—presented as a sort of puzzle, in which the aim of the solver is to find the essentially uniqu ...

.In the introduction to ''Collection of Chess Studies'', Sam Sloan writes "... Trotzky is considered to have been the greatest composer of chess endgame studies ever." He is widely regarded as the founder of the modern art of composing chess studies . Troitsky died of

starvation Starvation is a severe deficiency in caloric energy intake, below the level needed to maintain an organism's life. It is the most extreme form of malnutrition. In humans, prolonged starvation can cause permanent organ damage and eventually, dea ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

at the

siege of Leningrad The siege of Leningrad (russian: links=no, translit=Blokada Leningrada, Блокада Ленинграда; german: links=no, Leningrader Blockade; ) was a prolonged military blockade undertaken by the Axis powers against the Soviet city of L ...

, where his notes were destroyed. One of his most famous works involves analyzing the

endgame Endgame, Endgames, End Game, End Games, or similar variations may refer to: Film * ''The End of the Game'' (1919 film) * ''The End of the Game'' (1975 film), short documentary U.S. film * ''Endgame'' (1983 film), 1983 Italian post-apocalyptic f ...

with two knights versus a pawn, see Troitsky line. John Nunn analyzed this endgame with an endgame tablebase and stated that "the analysis of Troitsky ... is astonishingly accurate" .

Compositions

Troitsky was a prolific composer of endgame studies.

Irving Chernev Irving Chernev (January 29, 1900 – September 29, 1981) was a chess player and prolific Russian-American chess author. He was born in Pryluky in the Russian Empire (now in Ukraine) and emigrated to the United States in 1905. Chernev was a nati ...

included nine of them in his book ''200 Brilliant Endgames''. The diagram shows one of them. The main line goes: :1. Nb6! Qe8 :2. Nd7! Kc4 :3. Qxc7+ Kb4 :4. Qc5+ Kb3 :5. Qc3+ Ka4 :6. Qd4+ Ka3 :7. Nc5 Qb8 :8. Qa1+ Kb4 :9. Na6+ and White wins .

Books

* Troitzky, A. (1924), ''500 Endspielstudien'', Verlag Kagan Berlin * * Troitzky, A. (1992), ''Collection of Studies'', Tschaturanga Ed. Olms, . Reprinted in 2006 by Ishi Press, . The 360 studies above plus a supplement on the theory of the endgame of two knights against pawns.

Notes

References

* * *

External links

Troitzky Chess, invented by Paul Byway
a chess variant where checkmate by two knights can be forced. 1866 births 1942 deaths Deaths by starvation Chess composers Chess theoreticians Russian chess writers Victims of the Siege of Leningrad {{Russia-chess-bio-stub

Compositions

Books

See also

Notes

References

External links