Cooks/Duals/Busts

In this post I'll put up some cooks, duals, and Busts in studies that I know of.

A Cook is A second solution, unintended by the composer.

A Dual is A white alternative not intended by the composer but not amounting to a cook. A dual is a flaw, and the degree of seriousness depends on where it occurs. A dual destroys the artistic value of the variation in which it is found. The more important that variation is in relation to the whole composition the more serious the flaw. A dual cannot therefore be assessed in isolation. A' waste of time' is not a dual and a transposition is not usually regarded as of great importance.

A partial side solution, i.e. a way to solve the study that begins after the first move in a way different from the author's solution. There may be acceptable or unacceptable duals in endgame studies, even though there's no consensus on that. Duals are allowed in non-thematic side-lines.

Bust. A black defense that defeats the stipulation, that is, the composer's intention, rendering the study unsound.
Used as a verb it may have the more general sense of to demolish.

The first example is a dual on a mate in 292 by Otto Blathy:

At move #11 Stockfish finds a much faster FORCED MATE.

This is another dual by Otto Blathy, the problem here is supposed to be a mate in either 104 or 105 depending on what source you use, but it actually has a dual mate in 21 solution from the 2nd move and several duals follow in the main line which I won't point out because they are repetitive:

Here is a link to the problem

Here is a dual of a long mate in 97 by William Shinkman that has a daul which is a mate in 32, a contemporary of the great Sam Loyd, Shinkman was also a giant in the U.S. with a highly prolific output of chess compositions numbering over 3500 in all.

Note that most of the duals found by modern engines are fatal. Composers do not really distinguish cooks from fatal duals as they both dismiss the composition. Minor duals are common but usually already detected by the author during the composition process. They are the "little" bugs he can't get rid of and we have agreed to tolerate, sometimes at a price.

And there is a special type known as illegal positions - which are in the same "criminal" category as cooks and fatal duals. Blathy made a number. However, in his and other cases there is the issue that rules have changed over time and were not fixed worldwide. The oldest set of FIDE game rules I've seen stems from 1931 (if my memory does not fail me). Composition rules are probably even younger.

Here is another dual by Otto Blathy, however IN MY OPINION this one isn't so bad as it looks like the spirit of the composition still is there but it is in a shorter version of the intended solution, however some may disagree with me and insist that this mate in x is destroyed by the dual. I'll let you be the judge of that as the dual results in a mate in 25 that is similar to the intended solution rather than a mate in 30. I know I risk being called a heretic who should be tried at the TOOTHLESS International Criminal Court in The Hague for "crimes against humanity" for the unspeakable heresy that I have indulged in here, and after found guilty I should be drawn and quartered, but I could care less .

The first question for a composition from a different era is always "what would the author himself have said?". My prediction is that he wouldn't have liked it as he was a very bright engineer and mostly worked with precise numbers for his checkmate problems. So what would he then do as a composer? What composers always do - compose their way out of trouble! Just to say, I think he would have come up with another version.

I tend to look at these things from modern standards, (1) because it's fair in comparisons; Blathy didn't have to work so hard for his illegal #290; and I can easily turn it into a #>300 by permitting more illegalities like 10 black pawns on the board (2) because it leaves us a job; what's the best we can do with his structure and ideas? That's how I turned his illegal #102 into a legal #100.

Btw, Blathy might have simply adopted the #25 had he found it; repairs aren't always complicatied

Here is a "Bust" of a white to play and win endgame study by the great Oleg Pervakov. The bust occurs on Black's first move which draws...rather than playing 1...Bxd3 in the main line Black plays 1...Re1!:

That's amazing! You don't get to beat Oleg "Perfectov" every day! Did you know that chess.com offers a complete endgame study course featuring only Oleg's work?

I'll take a look for a fix but obviously without hope if mr. Endgame Study himself failed to come up with the goods

Indeed, Pervakov is an outstanding composer and certainly one of the best in World right now if he isn't the best!

I did not know that chess.com offers a complete endgame study course featuring only Pervakov's work, they certainly chose wisely. Hopefully the course is as good as FIDE GM of chess composition Pervakov's work is.

Here is an endgame study composed in 2007 by the American FIDE GM of composition Richard Becker that I found a Bust in. This time the bust occurs in the 3...Ne2 sideline at Black's 4th move. Instead of Black playing 4...Nc3+ as in the sideline, he instead plays the winning 4...Ke3!

Here is an excellent example of a "cook", some people confuse cooks and duals, but a cook occurs when a alternate solution other than the intended one starts at the first move, whereas a dual occurs when an alternate solution is found after first move.

This is supposed to be a Mate in 35 problem, however I found a Mate in 12 that has a different first move than the intended solution:

Here is a link to the original problem with the intended solution

Here is another Bust, this time it's a white to play and draw endgame study by a composer that no one would argue was one the best ever...Genrikh Kasparyan, I'm sure that anyone who knows anything about endgame studies will be familiar with this legendary GM of composition. In this composition the bust occurs on Black's 6th move in the main line, Black can win by playing 6...Be3+! instead of playing the drawing 6...Bg7?

Here is a link to this study including the original solution

I'm not so surprised about the last one. When I tested over 100 studies for lodrac91 I found many busts/cooks/fatal_duals especially once arriving in the tablebase range. And especially before the year 2000 when the digital toolkit was less sophisticated. It's very hard to find flaws in endings of the last decade. Btw, my chess.com SF saw the move 6. ... Be3! straight away as the most promising.

A lot of these errors are already known and often corrected in Harold van der Heijden's study database to which I have no access. If you have, you can of course check the status of Kasparyan's study.

In my view, composing endgame studies is the hardest of the standard composition types. I had a few endgames which I started on in my youth but which I only completed when the aid of the engines became available. I was patient, sat on my hands for 40 years and completed without prior failure! Endgames are hard for computers too as there is no limitation to the number of moves!

Note on the subject of this topic "Cooks Duals Busts". Rocky64 has written extensively on them in his articles and he emphasizes the missing element here which is Soundness. The Cooks, Duals and Busts actually refer to the analytical play lines reflecting these categories. "this line is a dual", "that one is a cook" and "yet another one demonstrates the bust". However, these are really diagnostic sub-categories of the primary distinction between "sound" and "unsound" which is not a rating of lines but of the validity of the whole composition. Fundamentally, all the 3 items disqualify a composition as "unsound" - but an exception is made for "minor duals" which only lead (at worst) to point deductions in competitions. The 4th subcategory is obviously "blue skies" with only the intended solution line and no flawed lines and the only sub-category rated as "sound". That is the reason why composers often do not care to distinguish the 3 bad guys and may say that "it is cooked" or "it is bust"when it is anyone of the 3. What they really mean is that it is unsound but the other terms sound more powerful

Obviously there is more to this subject but I'll place that in a different topic - later.

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CODEX:

The only legitimate source for composition conventions is the Codex of the WFCC https://www.janko.at/Retros/Glossary/Codex2015.htm#14b . I looked up the things I wrote before and they are basically confirmed. With some notes:

1. The term "bust" which may have been used in the past is now simply renamed into "no solution"
2. "unsound" is used alongside "incorrect" for compositions which are disqualified in competitions
3. "Short" solutions are obviously "duals" by some interpretation but they are specifically categorized by the Codex as "unsound" taking away the option to approve them in a composition. Of course, that cannot apply to endgame studies as these have no length requirements. But all "mate-in-n" compositions with a shorter mate are dismissed.
4. Serious duals are dismissed as "unsound". That in itself would disqualify all "shorts" if not by specific mention. There is no list of "minor duals" or "point deductions" as that is left to the judges. I have a rather good overview though in one of the classical books on endgame studies, Roycroft's "Test Tube Chess".

Generally speaking these are conventions for the standard composition types. In the fairy domain is infinite space for non-standard rules and conventions for composition authors and solvers - but you do need to define them in detail!