John Selman jr. (* Netherlands, Amsterdam 09.04.1910 - † Monday, South of France 02.01.1978)
Chess player and significant study composer and writer of endgame studies
To avoid confusion with his older brother Jan Selman, John Selman used the suffix junior.
Life
To avoid confusion with his older brother Jan Selman, John Selman used the suffix junior.
Selman worked as an archivist at Royal Dutch Shell in The Hague. He was married and lived in Scheveningen. After suffering an intracerebral hemorrhage in 1968, he moved to the south of France, where he died on Monday in 1978.
"John Selman jr. was born in Amsterdam. He studied chemical engineering and became archivist at Shell in the Hague. He called himself junior because he had an older brother, dr. J.Selman, who ran a chess column in Limburgs Dagblad. He was of great importance for Dutch composing and was study editor of De Schaakwereld from 1940-1942 and Schaakmat from 1947-1949. In 1958 he became FIDE judge of chess composition. Besides composing he also carried out important historical research and he was able to reconstruct the history of Saavedra's move.(Source: Endgame study composing in the Netherlands and Flanders, Jan van Reek and Henk van Donk.)
John Selman jr., look Website arves.org
Harrie Grondijs published a book "No Rook Unturned" about this history.
His most famous study: John Selman jr. 1949: 1.prize 1-0
"John Selman jr. composed one study which was awarded first prize. This chess study is well known"
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His most famous chess study
White to move and win (published 1949) 1. prize
Solution 1. Nf5! Re1 2. Kd2 Ra1 3. f7 Ra2 4. Ke1! Ra1 5. Kf2! g3 6. Ke3! Ra3 7. Kf4 Ra4 8. Kg5 Rg4 9. Kh6! Rg8 10. Ne7 Be6 11. fxg8Q Bxg8 12. Ng6#! 1-0 This is one of the most beautiful studies of all. Unfortunately, however, the study only became known through the Russian study composer Vladimir Korolkov, who published a slightly better version of this study 2 years later in 1951 without the knowledge of his predecessor (1.p Lelo) .
Memories
"With John Selman jr. († Monday 02.01.1978), the 100th birthday of another study specialist can be commemorated. His services to Saavedra research were recently acknowledged in detail in Harrie Grondij's book No Rook Unturned, the second edition of which has just been published." Heft 210, Dezember 2004, Die Schwalbe
"John Selman jr. began composing chess in the late 1930s. After the death of Jan Fischer, Selman took over the chess column in De Schaakwereld in 1939 or 1940 and ran it until the end of the magazine in 1942 or 1943. From 1947 to 1949 he ran a column in Het Limburgs Dagblat. A study by Selman in the Tijdschrift van den KNSB in 1949 became particularly well known, as two years later a similar piece by Vladimir Alexandrovich Korolkov also won first prize in Lelo. In 1939 and 1940, John Selman jr. researched the genesis of the Saavedra study, for which he traveled to Scotland, England and Spain and maintained many correspondence contacts. A large number of Selman's manuscripts were only published posthumously in the 1990s"
Others: 12 endgame studies composd by Selman are selected on Website arves
Works (selection)
John Selman: Reciprocal Stalemate. Margraten 1991
Springerzauber John Selman jr. erweitert von H. Grondijs (1998)
John Selman: De Saavedra study. Margraten 1992.
John Selman: A selection of articles created by John Selman Jr. Margraten 1992
John Selman: Knight magic. Rijswijk 1998
literature
Selman, John. In: Harrie Grondijs: No Rook Unturned. 2nd edition 2004. pp. 101–102
Jan H. Marwitz: John Selman. In: eg, 60, April 1980, pp. 290–292
Source: Website arves.org (edithor Peter Boll)