EG39 - Gady Costeff

4+3I soon realised that wB could notinstead be at h2, because then thekey-move would have to be Bh2from gl. This, however, is not feasiblesince you now have the cook1. Bc5. Similarly, wB could not inM3 have come from el or f2 . Thismakes h4 the only square.(At this point I must explain whyI have used so few pieces. UndoubtallyI could relieve some ofthe difficulties which presentthemselves by having other menon the board. But I never composea study which has more thanseven pieces in the initial position;thus I am a miniature composer.Thus I am against more than oneor two captures in the course ofthe solution. This, of course, restrictsmy field of composition. ButI am a great believer in the simplestpossible setting, combinedwith neat and instructive play.)So now my position is M4.M4(Autumn 1965)4+3But because the forces are nearlyequal, the key is not hard to find.So I now wanted this setting tobe the position after BFs firstmove.How about the first move thenbeing 1. Bh4? This looked promissing.However, since wR isunder attack, the only two possibilitieswere (a) that wB comesfrom the el-h4 diagonal - this isout because of cooks like 1. Bb4or (b) that it comes from f6 or g5.This ties bR down to fl, 2, 3 or 5,otherwise 1. .. RxP straight awayis unavailable, if it were on f4.First I tried g5, with bR on one ofwhite squares fl, 3, 5. If bR is onfl or f3, there is a cook after 1.RxP e.g. 1. .. Rh3f 2. Rh7 Rc3 3.c5! (a move which wins in a lotof situations). With bR f5, thereis nothing more than a draw after1. Bh4 Rc5 because now 2. Re4is the only way to save P, allowing2. .. Rh5 mate. bR thereforemust be on f2. But this tooloses after 1. RxP.So g5 is out. Now with wBf6, 1.RxP is not a cook because wB isen prise. My hopes rise.Eut by this time 1 was beginningto get suspicions about bPa7. Isaw the variation 1. Bh4 Rf4 2.Bg3 Rd4 3. Rc7 and it occurred tome that bPa7 might just allowhim to force a draw. Also, becausethe forces were so nearlyeven, the solution would be moreobvious. Either I could removebP, or I could replace wPc4 bywS or wB. The latter idea allowedmore cooks, and anyway it didn'tlook neat, so I removed bPe7.However, this course of actioncuts out the move .. Rb6 in themain variation, since have bR isnot even temporarily safe. Thiscuts the total of 41 squares downto 36. Also, it allows a dual in themain line, as will be seen latter.With wBf6, now, there is a dualafter 1. Bg5. So I was now backto M4, minus bPa7.What other introduction could Ifind? I tried moving wP back toc3, and bR to f3, with the idea 1.198