Excelsior

Advance of a pawn from its game-array square to promotion.

Named after problem yacpdb/65844 by Sam Loyd (USA, 1841-1911) 1861. The oldest example is probably yacpdb/207394 by Robert Bownas Wormald (Great Britain, 1834-1876), composed a few years earlier (1857).

⧖ Samuel Loyd was said to have been inspired to name it by a ballad of that name by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), which appeared in Supplement to the Connecticut Courant in 1841. It describes a young man carrying a flag inscribed with "Excelsior" (eng. "Ever upward").

See also: Slow Excelsior; 100 Dollar theme.

Semenenko, Oleksandr

A. Kirichenko-60 JT, 2015

4th-5th Prize