Paul Stedman Valois

Paul Stedman Valois (06-03-1946 - 15-05-2014) British chess composer and significant writer of excellent articels about endgame studies

Paul Valois is better known as an excellent writer in The Problemist, where he skillfully managed several columns. His intense activity in former PCCC, supporting John Rice, did not leave him too much time for composing.

"Paul Valois died, suddenly, in May 2014. He was only 68, but if you live alone, and something happens, there may be nobody to go for help. Paul was a lifelong enthusiast and worker for chess composition. Apart from a few early two-movers, one of which gained third prize in one of the British Chess Problem Society’s McWilliam Tourneys (sponsored by the late Bob McWilliam to encourage young composers, and restricted to those below the age of 21), he first came into prominence during 1965-68, when he was General Editor of the first thirteen issues of the then newly founded endgame study magazine EG. He also did translations from Russian for the benefit of EG, in particular of an important article “The technique of study composition” by G. M. Kasparyan which appeared in EG 6. I don’t think he ever composed a study - there appears to be nothing by him in Harold van der Heijden’s “Endgame study database IV” - but they remained a strong interest, and for many years up to his death he presented a regular selection of recent studies in the BCPS’s magazine The Problemist. These selections show his tastes to have been quite different from mine, but there was plenty of room for both of us.* In the problem field, his main loves were the selfmate and the reflexmate. Again, he was primarily a connoisseur and collector and not a composer, but he ran the “Selfmates” column in The Problemist for perhaps thirty years, and when he visited the BCPS Library, which he regularly did on his way to London to attend an exhibition (he was a man of wide intellectual interests), his primary purpose always appeared to be to add new reflexmates and perhaps selfmates to his collections. But above all, he was a massive worker. In the 1980s, he took on both the treasurership of the BCPS and the even more demanding task of editing The Problemist, all this on top of a full-time job in the Brotherton Library of Leeds University. Such a pace could not be maintained, and even though he passed on the treasurership in the early 1990s the workload finally overwhelmed him. More recently, now in retirement and no longer editing The Problemist, he again took on the treasurership. And during the most recent ten or a dozen years he did a significant part of the work involved in running the annual British Chess Solving Championship: sending out the starter announcement, fielding the replies, banking the entry cheques, and sending out the postal rounds. When this championship started, it was sponsored by Lloyds Bank, who provided not just cash but also someone to do the administrative work. Since the sponsorship by Lloyds ceased, the BCPS has had to provide this administrative effort itself. One particular incident sticks in the mind. In 1989, the annual international problemists’ meeting was held in Bournemouth, and Paul did much of the behind-the-scenes administrative work. Typically, he did more than just meet the bare bones of the requirement (one characteristically imaginative touch was to hire a couple of beach huts for the week so that the ladies had somewhere to go while their men were struggling with the competitions), and when he was called up at the prize-giving to receive a token of appreciation for his hard work, the applause was long, loud, and richly deserved. He will be greatly missed." 

Article by John Beasley

Tournament in memory

"PAUL VALOIS MT

The Alexander Rueb Vereniging voor Schaakeindspelstudie (ARVES) and the British Chess Problem Society organize an endgame study tourney to commemorate Paul Valois (6iii1946 – 15v2014) who contributed significantly to the furtherance of our art"