Alexey Troitsky
Alexey Alexeyevich Troitsky (Russian: Алексе́й Алексе́евич Тро́ицкий; March 14, 1866 – August 1942; also Alexei, Troitzky, Troitzki) was a chess theoretician. He is widely considered to have been one of the greatest composers of chess endgame studies.[1] He is widely regarded as the founder of the modern art of composing chess studies (Seirawan 2003:91). Troitsky died of starvation during World War II at the siege of Leningrad, where his notes were destroyed.
![](../I/m/Troitzky.jpg)
One of his most famous works involves analyzing the endgame 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" (Nunn 1995:265).
Compositions
Troitsky was a prolific composer of endgame studies. Irving Chernev included nine of them in his book 200 Brilliant Endgames. The diagram shows one of them.
a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | ||
8 | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | 8 | |||||||
7 | 7 | ||||||||
6 | 6 | ||||||||
5 | 5 | ||||||||
4 | 4 | ||||||||
3 | 3 | ||||||||
2 | 2 | ||||||||
1 | 1 | ||||||||
a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h |
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 (Chernev 1989:207–8).
Books
- Troitzky, A. (1924), 500 Endspielstudien, Verlag Kagan Berlin
- Troitzky, A. A. (1968), 360 Brilliant and Instructive End Games, Dover Publications (reprint), ISBN 0-486-21959-3
- Troitzky, A. (1992), Collection of Studies, Tschaturanga Ed. Olms, ISBN 3-283-00114-6. Reprinted in 2006 by Ishi Press, ISBN 0-923891-10-2. The 360 studies above plus a supplement on the theory of the endgame of two knights against pawns.
See also
- Two knights endgame (contains Troitsky line)
Notes
- 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."
References
- Chernev, Irving (1989), 200 Brilliant Endgames, Dover, ISBN 0-486-43211-4
- Nunn, John (1995), Secrets of Minor-Piece Endings, Batsford, ISBN 0-8050-4228-8
- Seirawan, Yasser (2003), Winning Chess Endings, Everyman Chess, ISBN 1-85744-348-9
External links
- Troitzky Chess, invented by Paul Byway, a chess variant where checkmate by two knights can be forced.