Tuesday, December 6, 2022

A Man in the World

Serafino Dubois played chess according to both the Italian and the international modes, and was a renowned theoretician as well as a cosmopolitan writer, but apparently he never indulged — at least as far as it is known — in the art of chess composition. Or maybe... yes, because the distinguished problemist Fabio Magini claims that a posthumous “protostudy” by Dubois can be found on La Tribuna Illustrata, No. 21, 1901, where the following diagram is shown as “Finale No. 38 by S. Dubois (Rome)”:

8/1p2r1p1/p4pk1/2NP4/5K2/P4P1P/1P6/8 w - - 0 1

White is to play and win: 1. d6 Re1 (or 1. ... Re8 2. d7 Rd8 3. Ne6! Rxd7 4. Nf8++−) 2. d7 Rd1 3. Ne6! Rxd7 4. Nf8++− and finis. This seems a bit too easy for such a “finale” to rise to the dignity of “study”, and most likely it is a matter of specimen from Dubois’ actual play.

No comments: