THE MYSTIC OF LENDER COMBINATIONS
Mysticism in Chess Created by Baruch Lender: The Single Idea That Changed Chess Composition Forever.
This is a blog post about the great mind behind the Lender Combinations.
One of the most interesting combinations in chess composition is the one with reversed key.
The idea of reversing a key is simple: instead of moving a piece to attack or to cover a square, we can move it away from the square.
The novelty was introduced by the now famous Israeli chess composer Baruch Lender, (1913-1994). It was published in1979 as a two-mover showing, for the first time, a combination of exchanged key and threat with mates in both passes.
According to the definition this is actually the combination of themes: Reversal and le Grand.
Despite the originality of thematic paradox, his composition was not adequately rewarded in tourney, and therefore this new combination remained unnoticed for a while.
The only consolation for the inventor is if the invention becomes recognizable by his or her name as was the case with the “Reversal+le Grand” blend which is nowadays known as the Lender Combinations.
The recognition and the glory came many years later by many other chess problems.
Discussion:
The question posited: is it a Combination or a Paradox?
One answer was: Reverser Grand Contradiction. This blog points to - around the rare but amusing and fascinating series of moves that surprisingly looks like they shouldn't work.
Is the idea of exchanging the key in chess a combination or a paradox? In my opinion, it is an innovative combination. How did I reach this conclusion? A key's objective of duties is to defend a specific square. The key moves with the intent to attack and/or defend a receiver of threat from an enemy piece positioned on a particular square. If we move the key away from that original square leaving an exposed square, thus creating a threatening mate if we don’t.
In the a publication (On the Threshold of a New Era in Chess Composition), we discovered that there are only 9 key-definitions.
We have shown that by combining these keys with different threats, it is possible to build many new types of combinations. In fact, all of the chess combination themes are based on this idea.
In future blogs we will explain this point by showing how a specific key-definition may be combined with a threat to create new types of combinations. We will show that only one or two themes are needed to create all other types of combinations.
The Original Lender Combination
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