Merry Christmas!

Dear composers, solvers, judges, organizers, volunteers, and all lovers of chess composition, have a Merry Christmas!
For those of you who are not putting aside chess thoughts during winter holidays, we offered a chance to compose, solve, analyze and judge some original helpmates, inspired by different Christmas joys and symbols.

Our friendly Christmas Gallery Contest has attracted not less than 43 entries in less than 2 weeks – hopefully a sign of your good mood!

The next phase will be judging, and you will be the judges, if you want it.

The contest for the most popular compositions will be held in 3 sections, separated according to the length:

We invite everybody to take the roles of judges, by ranking these anonymous entries and marking them. The scales for marking will be from 12 (the best) to 1 inside the Groups A & C, and from 16 (the best) to 1 inside the Group B. The same mark may be given to more than one entry.

All composers who sent their original entries are invited to mark the problems in the group(s) where they didn’t take part!

The marks should be sent by 29th December at latest, to the email address webmaster@wfcc.ch.

As you could see in the WFCC Composing Calendar, this event was announced in Section E, for orthodox helpmates only. The entries D1, D2 & D3 use unorthodox elements and will not take part in the contest, but that will not deprive you from solving and enjoying them here, in the section D.


Invitation to Jurmala: 66. WCCC & 47. WCSC

Latvian Chess Problem Society has the honor to invite all delegates of the World Federation for Chess Composition (WFCC), national teams and individual solvers, chess composers and all those interested in problem chess, to attend the
66. World Congress of Chess Composition and
47. World Chess Solving Championship.

Week of: 27.07.2024 – 03.08.2024 | Place: Jurmala, Beach resort of Latvia

The WCCC venue – Hotel Jūrmala SPA – a 4 star hotel, one of the largest spa hotels in the Baltics. The hotel has a perfect location right in the heart of the resort town Jūrmala – on pedestrian Street Jomas and just a few hundred meters from the golden beach.

Contact: wccc2024@wfcc.ch | INVITATION in PDF | Official website of the WCCC 2024


WFCC Christmas Gallery Contest

Here is a friendly contest for everybody: join the WFCC Xmas Gallery Contest with your original helpmate problems inspired by Christmas!

You may send up to two original helpmates to the Gallery Director Kenneth Solja (kenneth.solja@gmail.com) till 22nd December.

All received problems, with hidden solutions, and without the names of the composers, will be published on 24th December 2023 on the WFCC website. All visitors will have time till 29th December 2023 to send their marks (the system of marking will depend on the number of entries) to the entries that give them the most pleasure and good spirit.

Examples: You may find some examples shaped as Christmas trees in the YACPDB (open database created by Dmitri Turevski). Most of them are marked with the keyword Christmas tree, but some may be found with the keyword Scaccografia, too (together, not more than 20 helpmates). Christmas shapes could be presented in mating positions, too, but they are harder to find.

->Show the solution to example problem

Composing Calendar

The first version of the online Composing Calendar has been published on the WFCC website (Competitions -> Composing -> Calendar).
It presents the formal tournaments (A-H sections) and the informal ones (I section), in chronological order of their deadlines, with columns reporting possible themes, judges and directors, as well as links to the announcements and awards (when available).

The Calendar contains not only current tournaments, but also those whose deadline has expired (see “All tournaments”). Info about the already closed tournaments will be extended in the future with links to the awards, once they are reported by the involved persons. Some of them you may already see in the Awards column, with the mark “published”.

This draft version will be under construction for a longer time, and will continue with a permanent development. The quality of the Calendar will depend on all interested parties and whoever wants to help.

The work on Calendar started a year ago, with the draft templates created by Ilija Serafimović, and later sent to the delegates. During the Batumi WCCC Kenneth Solja offered to volunteer in contacting the organizers and compiling material. He has largely enriched the content, and has been passionately continuing the same process ever since. During the previous month Julia Vysotska spent many hours organizing and adjusting the content of the excel tables to become a part of the WFCC website. The next steps will depend on the enthusiasm of delegates, organizers, editors, judges, directors, and other individuals.

Please, send your contributions to the Calendar Coordinator Kenneth Solja.
The first step will be to compile all possible corrections (names, dates, themes, links …) and all missing info (new tourneys, announcements, awards …). It’s desirable to have texts in English, and instead of pdf documents to send only the adequate links.

Marjan Kovačević, WFCC president


Awards of Composing tournaments @ WCCC Batumi 2023

The content of the official website of the Batumi WCCC 2023 was removed by the organizer. So, the information published there disappeared. However, thanks to Roland Ott, who has collected all awards of official and unofficial composing tournaments with the help of foreign composers (a special thanks to Jorma Paavilainen!) we have them published in the Batumi page of the MEETINGS section:


Bedrich Formánek (6.6.1933 – 19.11.2023)

Bedrich Formánek passed away on November 19, 2023, at the age of 90. A long-time the President of the Slovak Chess Composition Organization (SOKŠ) and later its Honorary President, a former President of the Permanent Commission for Chess Composition (PCCC) and then the Honorary President of the World Federation for Chess Composition (WFCC), member of the SOKŠ Hall of Fame, chess composer, judge, lecturer, organizer, author of several books on chess composition and its tireless promoter, author of 7,475 chess composition columns in newspapers, chess godfather of many Slovak chess composers, but above all a great person and a good friend.
We will certainly return to his work, life and compositions for a very long time.

Bedrich, rest in peace.

Executive Board of the Slovak Chess Composition Organization


Jurmala will host 66th WCCC and 47th WCSC (27.07 – 03.08.2024)

WFCC online Meeting, 8th November 2023

30 Member Countries took part in the WFCC online Meeting that was mostly devoted to discussion about the future WFCC events and the host of the 66th WCCC and 47th WCSC 2024.

At the beginning, the FIDE Album Committee spokesman Harry Fougiaxis announced the new title-holders in chess composition:

  • Grandmaster: Steffen Slumstrup Nielsen (DEN)
  • International Master: Karen Sumbatyan (RUS)
  • FIDE Masters: Sergiy Didukh (UKR), Daniel Keith (FRA), Jan Sprenger (GER), Aleksandr Stavrietsky (RUS)

Congratulations!!

These norms were fulfilled according to the results of the Section D (endgames) of the FIDE Album 2019-2021, published on 4th November.

→read more: WSC rules and discussion by country…

This long-lasting session was interrupted after speeches of some other delegates, to execute secret voting while all participants were still present. Out of 30 delegates in the Zoom Meeting 21 gave vote to Jurmala, four to Rhodes and three to Rio de Janeiro. One delegate didn’t vote and one was abstained. After adding two more votes sent by email, Jurmala convincingly won straight majority with 23 votes from 32 delegates.

With such a wide support, we will be preparing for a memorable Congress in Latvia, from 27th July to 3rd August 2024!

After the voting some delegates had to leave, while others continued the review by countries.

→read more: discussion by country…

This Zoom Meeting was excellently organized by the secretary Mohammad Alhallak. He also replaced the UAE delegate Abdulla Ali Aal Barket in presenting optimistic plans about development of solving in the UAE, in neighboring countries and in the whole Asia.

Marjan Kovačević, WFCC president


FIDE Album 2019-21 Section D results

The results of the FIDE Album 2019-21 section D are ready!

A reasonably high number of 1015 studies (not counting 13 duplicates) were received. 873 compositions scored at least 4,5 points (86% of the total entries, a very good percentage). 179 studies out of them scored at least 8 points, which represents a good ratio of 20,5% selected compositions. It is a great pity that we present the results with such delay: one of the appointed judges failed repeatedly to meet the schedule requirements, so at the end of September it was decided that another judge should complete the rest of the work (1/3 of the entries). Our compliments to the substitute judge: he managed to finish his part in slightly less than a month!

Many thanks to the director and the judges for their hard and efficient work!

We shall update and issue the overall list of the title points in the coming days.

Update (6.11.2023): A few hours after the results were announced, the director realised that he had accidentally misplaced the PDF file submitted by a composer. The judges reviewed these 8 studies swiftly: 2 of them (joint compositions) are selected in the album! Numbers in the above post and in the page of the results have been properly updated.

Harry Fougiaxis, FIDE Album Committee spokesman


Geel 28.10.2023 – World Solving Cup 2023/2024

28th Open Belgian Solving Championship 2023 | 3rd tournament of World Solving Cup 2023/2024:
Participants: 14 | Winner: Eddy Van Beers (BEL – Belgian Champion) ahead of Roland Ott (SUI) and Nikos Sidiropoulos (GRE).
Average rating of top ten solvers: 2357.56 | WSC category: 6
Top 5 WSC Standings: 1. Eddy Van Beers (BEL) 42 points (+23), 2. Martynas Limontas (LTU) 23 points (unchanged), 3. Roland Ott (SUI) 19 points (+19), 4. Nikos Sidiropoulos (GRE) 16 points (+16), 5. Vidmantas Satkus (LTU) 16 points (unchanged).
More details published in Competitions→Solving→World Solving Cup @ Solving Portal