Rainer Ehlers

Rainer Ehlers (*18.09.1963 - † 07.10.2011)

Chess composer and editor (Germain magazine "Die Schwalbe") of moremover chess problems

Rainer Ehlers was a direct mate composer.

Obituary by Carsten Ehlers (born 01.02.1971)- brother of Rainer Ehlers (Braunschweig):
  "On 7 October 2011, as already briefly reported in the October issue, my brother Rainer Ehlers, our acting administrator for moremover chess problems in "Die Schwalbe", passed away as a result of his severe cancer. This had appeared in 1989 during his studies and was initially apparently defeated, albeit at the cost of a radiation-damaged right leg, which caused more and more problems, so that the lower leg had to be amputated in 2007. However, the cancer returned in 2005 in the form of lung metastases, against whose growth there was hardly any remedy.

We came into contact with problem chess at the end of 1986 via the chess corner of the Landeszeitung für die Lüneburger Heide (LZ for short), edited at the time by Godehard Murkisch. We were fascinated by a two-move game by Wichard von Alvensleben with a very hidden solution, after which we often tried to solve the original prints as a team. After two years, the first attempts at composition began, and right from the start Rainer Ehlers showed more talent here than I did. In 1989 his first work, a three-movement piece, appeared in the LZ. When Godehard Murkisch wanted to give up the LZ chess corner after 20 years in 1999 and the newspaper wanted to replace it with a pure reprint corner, Rainer was one of the campaigners in favour of keeping it. On his initiative, the editors-in-chief received letters of protest from a number of well-known chess friends, including grandmasters - with success: they now followed Murkisch's suggestion to transfer the editorship to Hanspeter Suwe.
As a regular participant in the Lüneburg Problem Round, which still takes place every six months and which he organised together with me after the death of Winfried E. Kuhn, who had given us the affectionately ironic name "Ehlers-brothers" in his very own way, Rainer Ehlers also embarked on the rocky road of looking for and cultivating young talent, e.g. by posting notices at the university. Unfortunately, there was little response.

In 2002, Rainer Ehlers organised the Schwalbe meeting in Bad Bevensen with Winfried E. Kuhn and Claus Wedekind, who sadly passed away in 2004. When he was asked shortly afterwards whether he would succeed Gerhard E. Schön as the editor of the multiplication column in Schwalbe, he had long since specialised in orthodox multiplication. Nevertheless, he was surprised that, as a relative newcomer, he was trusted with the expertise. He did so himself and headed the column from June 2003 to October 2011 with great commitment, assisted by me in the last few years. Weak submitted problems (especially those that were not fully composed) put him in a bad mood, while a nice submission could brighten his day. He critically scrutinised the content of the submissions and did not avoid arguments about topic definitions. Although he always endeavoured to get things done, he recently summed up that he had probably put off a handful of composers who did not agree with his assessment of their tasks - not a high number for eight years of column management, as we all know. On the other hand, several tasks appeared to which he had contributed improvements in the background.
However, Rainer always turned down requests to become a judge. Apart from the doubt that he would be able to pull himself together in time, he was never able to predict his state of health for a long time into the future. 

GM Hans Peter Rehm, an expert who could not be more renowned and competent, has now taken over the Schwalbe's moremover chess problem section.

Due to illness (cancer), Rainer Ehlers never completed his studies in business administration or practised a profession.

In addition to problem chess and all branches of the natural sciences, in which he had an outstanding knowledge, he was also interested in rhymes and word games. He contributed a whole series of chess-related rhymes to the booklet Wenn mich der Wecker wachschellt..., published by Andreas Thoma in 2007. In it, he rhymes about Hans Peter Rehm's Siebenzüger (1st prize Die Schwalbe 1993): "Rehm's queens' dances fill halls, even if no covers fall there", and about the Schwalbe promotion tournaments he remembered: "Zipf is having a hard time everywhere: Where do you get young swallows from?"

His complete works, an overview

By the time of his death, Rainer Ehlers had published around 47 works (three of them with Casten Ehlers), of which over 20 were honoured, six of them with awards. Rainer was known and honoured above all for his logical moremovers with intersection combinations, but he also occasionally composed two- and three-moves and retro- and auxiliary mate problems. As he initially did not want to appear in the latter genre under his own name, he developed a pseudonym in the form of an anagram: as Lars Rügenheuer, Berlin = Rainer Ehlers, Lüneburg, he took part in at least one tournament.

The focus of his chess composition

In the moremover chess problem is was always important to him to develop new ideas, themes or at least combinations of themes. As a result, his complete works are not characterised by quantity, but it is often worth studying his exercises in order to discover a new point of view in the field of orthodox moremoves. He thus contradicted the thesis that the orthodox multiplication is exhausted in terms of content, not only in word but also in deed. Compositional obstacles meant that he would leave a task undone and return to it months or years later. Sometimes Rainer Ehlers said that he woke up at night with the decisive trick in mind, or that the optimal position suddenly occurred to him while he was brushing his teeth. Even formally correct tasks were often left undone because he had found that after months he could still think of an improvement or extension. On one occasion he was forced to do so: the adjudicator had mistakenly disqualified an eight-move move, submitted to the NDS Schachbund 75 tournament, as incorrect due to a computer error. After the annoyance had turned into an enthusiasm to continue composing,

 In recent years he worked intensively on a battery theme, which he wanted to establish. A posthumous exercise will be published on this topic, as I have a correct exercise that Rainer was still trying to expand. I hope to be able to publish some of the test setups on the PC and some of the recordings.

His greatest compositional success

Rainer Ehlers celebrated what was probably his greatest success seven years later - the task had grown by two pieces and four moves - with first prize in the Johandl tournament (Die Schwalbe, April 2007).

Ambitious compositional style

Rainer's Ehlers ambitious compositions were often only halted by the available number of figures, although he was very concerned about material economy. In recent years he worked intensively on a battery theme, which he wanted to establish. A posthumous exercise will be published on this topic, as I have a correct exercise that Rainer Ehlers was still trying to expand. I hope to be able to publish some of the test setups on the PC and some of the recordings." 

(translated into English by Peter Krug)

Source: Problem chess magazine "Die Schwalbe" Issue 252, December 2011