WFCC – World Federation for Chess Composition

18.ISC: first results

By admin January 27, 2022 January 27, 2022 Category: ISC

The preliminary results of the 18th ISC: We had 44 tournaments in 20 countries. In Category-1 94 solvers ; Category-2 166 solvers ; Category-3 323 solvers (+14 unofficial because solvers were too old for cat-3) – together 583 solvers.

In Category-1 already nearly 90% of the results are confirmed. Still the scanned sheets from several countries are missing.

All results will be updated in MatPlus every evening – see http://www.matplus.net/start.php

Best wishes,
Axel Steinbrink, Luc Palmans
Central controllers ISC 2022

WCCI 2019-2021: Entries completed

By admin January 24, 2022 January 25, 2022 Category: WCCI

WCCI 2019-21 attracted a bit more than 250 composers with 2600+ compositions. Participants should check the list of entries on the Entries page and report comments to the director, Valery Kopyl (email: v.kopyl@i.ua) and to the webmaster (email: webmaster@wfcc.ch).

The Entries to the 2019-21 WCCI can be temporary found from the TOP EVENTS menu on the right and on the Competitions/Composing page, WCCI section:

2019-2021: Announcement | Entries | Results

Director of WCCI greets all participants and expresses his gratitude for the entries presented and proper reaction and assistance in working process.

FIDE Album 2019-2021 announcement

By admin January 13, 2022 January 14, 2022 Category: FIDE Albums

The World Federation for Chess Composition (WFCC) invites composers to submit their highest-quality compositions for selection in the 2019-21 FIDE Album.

See the announcement and the instructions to directors and judges.

15th European Chess Solving Championship

By admin January 2, 2022 January 2, 2022 Category: ECSC

Latvian Chess Problem Society, in co-operation with the Latvian Chess Federation, has the honor of inviting the European national teams and individual solvers to participate in the 15^th European Chess Solving Championship. The event will be held from Friday, May 13^thto Sunday May 15^th, 2022, at the Islande Hotel, in Riga.

Directors of the competitions: ECSC: Ivan Denkovski (North Macedonia), Open solving: Antons Gajevskis (Latvia), Solving-Composing tournament: Marjan Kovačević (SRB).

Please, register by 15^th April 2022 at the ECSC 2022 Official website. See you in Riga!

WCCI 2019-2021: Entries

By admin January 2, 2022 January 2, 2022 Category: WCCI

The Entries to the 2019-21 WCCI can be found from the Competitions/Composing page, WCCI section:

2019-2021: Announcement | Entries | Results

The update is planned to happen weekly. Please, be patient, we have a lot of manual work here, and if any links are broken, write directly to webmaster@wfcc.ch. The questions about the content of the entries or any other questions related to the current WCCI should be sent to the tourney director, Valery Kopyl (email: v.kopyl@i.ua).

Solvers’ ratings January 1^st 2022

By admin January 2, 2022 January 2, 2022 Category: Other

Solvers’ ratings as of January 1^st 2022 produced by the Solving Tournament Manager are published! 16 tournaments of the 4^th quarter 2021 are included: Open of Championship of Tula Region 2021, Championship of Tula Region 2021, WCCC Open Solving 2021, 44th World Chess Solving Championship 2021, 2^nd Branko Babic Memorial 2021, Tula Championship for boys and girls 2021, 26^th Dutch Solving Championship 2021, Solving Championship of CFO 2021 U15+U17+U19, Open Solving Tula Region, 36^th Swiss Solving Championship 2021, 3^rd Pavle Orlov Memorial, 42^nd Finnish Championship 2021, Solving tournament of CFD Team Championship, Moscow Youth Championship 2021 U15-19. Brazilian Christmas Solving Tournament, Solving Cup of Tula region.
The top ten remain the same solvers as in the previous quarter. But World Champion 2021 Danila Pavlov has surpassed Piotr Murdzia from place 4 to 3 and Eddy Van Beers has gained two places from 9 to 7.
The largest two gains have again been achieved by juniors: Andrii Sergiienko (UKR / +121.74) and Ilija Serafimović (SRB / +98.15). They are followed by David Hodge (GBR / +96.54), Aleksey Kainov (RUS / +82.40) and Bogdan Zolotov (RUS / +74.29).

11^th WCCT: Claims

By admin December 29, 2021 January 14, 2022 Category: WCCT

Important notes:
1. The claims concern only formal soundness, comparison problems and misprints. Claims regarding thematic contents and quality of expression or construction were not allowed in this phase of the tournament. After consultation with the spokesman of the WCCT committee, matters related to conventions were also left to the opinion and evaluation of the judging countries.
2. Replies to claims should be sent to the tournament director Harry Fougiaxis by March 1st, 2022.
3. Only the appointed national team leaders may send replies.
4. The judging countries should start the judgment process immediately, in order to save time. The judgments should be received no later than June 1st, 2022.
My warm wishes for 2022, hopefully free of viruses and restrictions! – Harry Fougiaxis

Update of 06.01.2022: The PDF files of the introduction, section D, section E and of the whole document have been updated with a few additional comments. Please download the files again!

Update of 14.01.2022: The PDF files of section H and of the whole document have been updated with the notification that H29 is cooked. Please download the files again!

Limontas Online Solving Tournaments (LOST)

By admin December 29, 2021 December 29, 2021 Category: Other

Arvydas Mockus has announced a new series including 6 rounds of Limontas Online Solving Tournaments called “L.O.S.T.” with the first round on 9 January 2022. Each round will start on a Sunday at 10:00 CET and will last 108 minutes. Rounds will have one solving category only – each round with one of the 6 categories of the WCSC.
Like the previous ones the tournament will be directed by Arvydas Mockus and it is mainly organised for strong solvers with a rating of more than 2200. More information including the registration’s procedure -> see the invitation in PDF.

WCCI 2019-2021: Announcement

By admin December 3, 2021 December 14, 2021 Category: WCCI

The WFCC is inviting composers of all countries to participate in the 2019-21 WCCI. The tourney director is Valery Kopyl (email: v.kopyl@i.ua). The competition will be held according to the system used in the previous championship, with changes in point 9 of the rules.

WCCI 2016-18	WCCI 2013-15
4. A composer may submit to each section no more than 6 and no less than 4 compositions published in the defined three-year period. For informal tourneys the date of publication of the issue containing the composition is decisive; for formal tourneys the date of appearance of the award is decisive (NB: not the closing date of the tourney). If a composition has been published in a magazine which is labelled 2015 on the front but it appeared in 2016-2018, the composition is eligible for the 2016-18 WCCI. If a composition has been published in a magazine which is labelled 2018 on the front but it appeared in 2019, the composition is eligible for the 2016-18 WCCI provided that the magazine was published before the deadline. If a composition has been published in a magazine which is labelled 2019 on the front but it appeared in 2018, the composition is not eligible for the 2016-18 WCCI. Later corrections or versions could be accepted if they are submitted before the deadline. If the date of publication is in doubt, the director should ask the composer for evidence. Joint compositions and versions created in collaboration with other composer(s) are not allowed. It is not allowed to submit compositions on behalf of someone else without explicit statement of the other person’s consent.	4. A composer may submit to each section no more than 6 and no less than 4 compositions published in the defined three-year period. For informal tourneys the date of publication of the issue containing the composition is decisive; for formal tourneys the date of appearance of the award is decisive (NB: not the closing date of the tourney). Later corrections should normally be accepted. If the date of publication is in doubt, the director should ask the composer for evidence. Joint compositions are not allowed. It is not allowed to submit compositions on behalf of someone else without his written consent.
5. Entries must be sent to the director by email and in PDF format only. In each section composers have to submit one PDF file, which will include all their entries to this section with one composition per page. Composers must have already marked their entries with No. 1 to 6. The compositions should be in diagrams of a uniform size, with the author’s name, publication data, any award, stipulation, full solution and a comment if desired. Algebraic notation is to be used. In section D (endgame studies) composers may alternatively submit a PGN file of their entries or both. In section G (Fairies) composers must provide the definitions for the less common fairy elements.	5. Entries must be sent to the director by email and in PDF format only. In each section composers have to submit one PDF file, which will include all their entries to this section with one composition per page. Composers must have already marked their entries with No. 1 to 6. The compositions should be in diagrams of a uniform size, with the author’s name, email address, publication data, any award, stipulation, full solution and a comment if desired. Algebraic notation is to be used. In section D (endgame studies) composers may alternatively submit a PGN file of their entries.
8. Using a scale of 0 to 4 including half-points, each judge will allocate points to all compositions in the section(s) which he has agreed to judge, except for his own entries and entries that were excluded from the competition on technicalities. Compositions which are sound and not anticipated should receive at least 0.5 points. The judges must explain their reason(s) for giving a score of 0 points to any composition. Judges in section D (endgame studies) are requested to allocate points to the studies as if they had been composed in the traditional manner before the advent of the computer into compositional chess. It should also be noted that studies are not to be regarded as anticipated by any position appearing in a computer-generated database.	8. Using a scale of 0 to 4 including half-points, each judge will allocate points to all compositions in the section(s) which he has agreed to judge, except for his own entries. Compositions which are sound and not anticipated should receive at least 0.5 points. The judges must explain their reason(s) for giving a score of 0 points to any composition. Judges in section D (endgame studies) are requested to allocate points to the studies as if they had been composed in the traditional manner before the advent of the computer into compositional chess. It should also be noted that studies are not to be regarded as anticipated by any position appearing in a computer-generated database.
12. The director will send the tables with the results to the 3 members of the Supervising Panel, who cannot be participating or judging in any section. If he feels it necessary he will point out any potential irregularities, e.g. the average score of any one judge is much higher or much lower than that of the other four, or cases where there is a wide disparity (e.g. more than 1.5) between the judges’ points allocated to a given composition (in such cases the director should email the outliers with the average score of the other judges). The members of the Supervising Panel should also point out irregularities and ask the director for a resolution.	12. The director will send the tables with the results to the 3 members of the Supervising Panel, who cannot be participating or judging in any section. If he feels it necessary he will point out any potential irregularities, e.g. the average score of any one judge is much higher or much lower than that of the other four, or cases where there is a wide disparity (e.g. more than 1.5) between the judges’ points allocated to a given composition. The members of the Supervising Panel should also point out irregularities and ask the director for a resolution.

Update (14.12.2021): The changes in the announcement appear in red colour.

Participants may submit their entries by January 20, 2022. Details can be found in the announcement.

World Solving Cup 2021/2022 – Bern 27.11.2021

By admin November 28, 2021 November 28, 2021 Category: Other

36^th Open Swiss Solving Championship 2021 | 1st tournament of World Solving Cup 2021/2022:
Participants: 15 | Winner: Danila Pavlov (RUS) ahead of Roland Baier (SUI – Swiss Champion) and Vidmantas Satkus (LTU)
Average rating of top ten solvers: 2336.64 | WSC category: 7
Top 5 World Solving Cup: 1. Danila Pavlov (RUS) 19 points, 2. Roland Baier (SUI) 16 points, 3. Vidmantas Satkus (LTU) 13 points, 4. Martynas Limontas (LTU) 10 points, 5. Andrey Selivanov (RUS) 8 points

More details are published in Competitions → Solving → World Solving Cup → 2021/22 Calendar.