Now PDF reports from all 11 World Chess Composing Tournaments are available in WCCT Section. Many thanks to Roland Ott who scanned missing booklets and helped completing the WCCT Archive!
PDF Booklets: 1st WCCT Booklet | 2nd WCCT Booklet | 3rd WCCT Booklet | 4th WCCT Booklet | 5th WCCT Booklet | 6th WCCT Booklet |
7th WCCT Booklet | 8th WCCT Booklet | 9th WCCT Booklet |
10th WCCT Booklet | 11th WCCT Booklet
46th International Polish Championship 2023 | 4th tournament of World Solving Cup 2022/2023:
Participants: 28 | Winner: Kacper Piorun (POL – Polish Champion!) ahead of Piotr Murdzia (POL) and junior Kevinas Kuznecovas (LTU – 3rd FM norm and FM title!)
Average rating of top ten solvers: 2424.75 | WSC category: 5
Top 5 World Solving Cup: 1. Martynas Limontas (LTU) 45 points (+16), 2. Kevinas Kuznecovas (LTU) 36 points (+19), 3. Kacper Piorun (POL) 27 points (+27), 4. Piotr Murdzia (POL) 23 points (+23), 5. Nikos Sidiropoulos (GRE) 23 points (unchanged).
More details published in Competitions→Solving→World Solving Cup @ Solving Portal
Photo gallery | Norms and Titles PDF @ Solving Portal
28th Dutch Open Chess Solving Championship 2023 | 3rd tournament of World Solving Cup 2022/2023:
Participants: 19 | Winner: Nikos Sidiropoulos (GRE) ahead of Eddy Van Beers (BEL) and Richard Dobiáš (SVK – 2nd FM norm!)
5th Place Peter van den Heuvel (Dutch Champion)
Average rating of top ten solvers: 2375.81 | WSC category: 6
Top 5 World Solving Cup: 1. Martynas Limontas (LTU) 29 points (unchanged), 2. Nikos Sidiropoulos (GRE) 23 points (+23), 3. Eddy Van Beers (BEL) 19 points (+19), 4. Kevinas Kuznecovas (LTU) 17 points (unchanged), 5. Richard Dobiáš (SVK) 16 points (+16).
More details are published in Competitions→Solving→World Solving Cup @ Solving Portal
44th Finnish Chess Solving Championship 2023 | 2nd tournament of World Solving Cup 2022/2023:
Participants: 18 | Winner: Dolf Wissmann (NED) ahead of Martynas Limontas (LTU) and ex aequo Jorma Paavilainen (FIN – Finnish Champion!)
Average rating of top ten solvers: 2220.50 | WSC category: 9
Top 5 World Solving Cup: 1. Martynas Limontas (LTU) 29 (+10), 2. Kevinas Kuznecovas (LTU) 17 points (+4), 3. Arno Zude (GER) 16 points, 4. Dolf Wissmann (NED) 13 points (+13), 5. Vidmantas Satkus (LTU) 12 points (+2).
More details are published in Competitions→Solving→World Solving Cup (WSC)→2022/23.
We had 38 tournaments in 26 countries and 601 solvers (+15 unofficial solvers in cat-3) – 181 solvers in cat-1, 172 solvers in cat-2 and 248 solvers in cat-3. Thank you to all local controllers for their excellent work and good cooperation and congratulations to the winners. If you find any mistakes in the tables (e.g. wrong written names, wrong gender, …) please let me know. I will correct such mistakes.
Special thanks to Borislav Gadjanski for his daily updates of the results on the MatPlus-website, to Miodrag Mladenovic who entered all results from those local controllers who did not use STM for this and also to Luc Palmans and Ivan Denkovski who helped a lot with the selection of the problems. – Axel Steinbrink, Central Controller of ISC 2023
ISC 2023 Winners | Category 1 (181 solver) | Category 2 (172 solvers) | Category 3 (248 solvers)
Problems CAT1 – CAT2 – CAT3 | Solutions CAT1 – CAT2 – CAT3
See the ISC 2023 presentation and all previous ISC competitions in the section: Competitions -> Solving -> International Solving Contest
Slovak Organisation for Chess Composition is honoured to invite European national teams and individual solvers to attend the 16th European Chess Solving Championship (ECSC).
The ECSC will be held from Friday, June 2nd to Sunday, June 4th at the Falkensteiner Hotel, Pilárikova ulica 5, 811 03 Bratislava.
Activities: ECSC, 1st and 2nd day (director Marko Klasinc, Slovenia) | Open solving tournament (director Valery Krivenko, Ukraine) | Baltic Combined (director Oto Mihalčo, Slovakia) | Blind solving (director Ľubomír Širáň, Slovakia) | ECSC composing TT for helpmate in two (judge Juraj Lörinc, Slovakia) | JT 90 Formánek composing tournament (judge Bedrich Formánek & Ladislav Packa, Slovakia) | Walking tour to the old town (around one hour)
Official website | Invitation in PDF | Please REGISTER by Sunday 30th April
In 2007, our organization accepted the idea of the famous Ukrainian Grandmaster of Chess Composition Valentin Rudenko (1938-2016) to name January 4th as the International Day of Chess Composition. According to the proposal, on January 4th 1869, the Czech (Bohemian at that time) magazine “Svetozor” published an article by Antonín König (1836-1911) where he described chess composition as an independent form of Art.
It was, in fact, a joint proposal by Ukraine and Russia in 2007. It was accepted, but has never got an essential acceptance by the majority of WFCC member countries. In reality, the International Day of Chess Composition was mostly celebrated in the same two countries, Ukraine and Russia, with lively meeting of problemists, adding sometimes competitions to mark it. Without a wider appreciation, January 4th was gradually losing its importance. To add to the controversy, later research in the archive of “Svetozor” has never proved the existence of that particular article, published on that particular day.
So, what would be the reasons for us to celebrate it today? We do it, not only to respect our own decision, but to glorify the greatest events and personalities from our history. No matter what day we may choose, it is a historical fact that Antonín König – a well known painter, illustrator, and chess player – promoted chess composition as equal to other forms of art, and founded the Bohemian school, the first attempt to define aesthetic models on the chess board.
It’s also well known that magazine “Svetozor” served as a high platform for that. Surfing through its old archive, you may be amazed to see that chess problems were the main, if not the only, content of the Chess column of that magazine. We should proudly recall how it was 150 years ago, and use every possible reason to celebrate our existence and unity.
Marjan Kovačević,
WFCC President
Solvers’ ratings as of January 1st 2023 produced by the Solving Tournament Manager are published on the WFCC Solving Portal.
10 tournaments of the 4th quarter 2022 are included: 31st Kedainiai Cup 2022, 37th Open Swiss Solving Championship 2022, 27th Belgian Championship 2022, 31st Henk Hagedoorn Memorial 2022 Cat A, 3rd Branko Babic Memorial 2022, 4th Ukrainian Cup 2022, Open Solving Tournament of WCCC 2022, 45th World Chess Solving Championship 2022, 4th Pavle Orlov Memorial 2022, 7th Greek Chess Solving Cup 2022.
Ranking of the top ten solvers: World Champion Danila Pavlov has overtaken Georgy Evseev and is now also the leader in the ranking, Eddy Van Beers has overtaken Kacper Piorun to the 6th place; in addition Ural Khasanov and Marko Filipović are new in the top 10 on places 9 and 10.
Largest five gains: women junior Kamila Hryshchenko, (+163.20), junior Kevinas Kuznecovas (+143.61), junior Nikita Ushakov (+95.16), women junior Denisa-Andreea Bucur (+73.70), Bilguun Sumiya (+64.82).
The year behind was crowded with official composing and solving events, thanks to the judges and organizers who worked hard in 2022.
January brought 18th International Solving Contest, another successful edition run by ever passionate Axel Steinbrink.
In March, the Solving Committee has made another step forward, introducing the very informative Solving Portal on our website.
May was the month of 15th European Chess Solving Championship, and Julia Vysotska created and exceptionally friendly atmosphere in Riga to attract solvers to the first ECSC since 2019.
Results of the two longest lasting composing events were completed between August and October. First, Valery Kopyl finalized the 8th World Championship in Composing for Individuals 2019-21, in spite of the most difficult circumstances in his country.
The other hard task was fulfilled by our long standing President Harry Fougiaxis, who took over the duty of the 11th World Chess Composing Tournament director.
During the summer, awards of the 10th FIDE World Cup in Composing were appearing one by one. In October, the director Aleksey Oganesyan ended his job and announced the final results.
World Solving Cup 2021/22, under the firm control of Roland Ott, lasted throughout the year, using the organizing resources of 13 different countries.
The final stage of the WSC was in Fujairah. In November, the United Arab Emirates hosted the 64th World Congress of Chess Composition. The first ever WCCC in Arabian Peninsula was an outstanding event in many ways. Dr. Abdulla Ali Aal Barket assured the memorable conditions for promotion of chess composition, and Mohammad Abdul Ghani was there to execute every single task.
The director of the 45th World Chess Solving Championship was the same as for the 15th ECSC. It was a challenging double task, unmistakably executed by Ivan Denkovski.
Let’s turn to 2023!
The red dates in our calendars will be 29th January (19th ISC), 2nd-4th June (16th ECSC in Bratislava) and 2nd-9th September (65th WCCC in Batumi).
Apart from regular competitions, we will have a joint duty to come closer to a much wider audience. The first steps in this direction were made a week ago, registering the WFCC in different social media (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram), with some introductory posts for each of them.
To find our stable place there we need more contributors from different countries, to “feed” the media with short but attractive and frequent posts. Some longer posts, for instance from national championships, may appear on the FIDE website, as announced by their Marketing and Communications Officer David Llada.
It’s perhaps time to recall words by our Honorary President Dr. Klaus Wenda, dedicated to the Golden Jubilee of our organization, in 2007:
There is no doubt that the status of the contemplative occupation of chess problems among the young is lower nowadays; that is confirmed by an alarming lack of young problemists in virtually all the member countries. It only makes the task of the commission more important, though: creating new incentives and new ways to arouse interest in chess composition. I know that there is no easy answer, but the important thing, in accordance with Herakleitos’s dictum, is to recognise new trends quickly and react to them appropriately.
Happy, healthy, and peaceful 2023!
Marjan Kovačević
WFCC President
