ISC 2023 – FINAL results

19th International Solving Contest (ISC) 29th January 2023

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


Happy New Year 2023!

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


Invitation to the 19th ISC

The International Solving Contest next year will take place on Sunday 29.01.2023. The event is happening simultaneously in all participating countries.
There will be three categories: one for experienced solvers. The second category is intended for weaker, inexperienced solvers. This second category is not open for solvers with a rating (or half-rating or non-active-rating) of more than 2000. The third category is intended for youngsters born after 31.12.2009.

The name of the locally appointed controller must reach the central controllers by email not later than 31.12.2022:  axel.steinbrink@gmx.de  / palmans.luc@skynet.be

Announcement of 19th ISCRules of ISC

Axel Steinbrink, 19th ISC Controller

ISC 2022 – FINAL results, Statistics & Galleries

18th International Solving Contest (ISC) 23rd January 2022

Finally we had 44 tournaments in 20 countries and 585 solvers (+15 unofficial solvers in cat-3) – 94 solvers in cat-1, 166 solvers in cat-2 and 325 solvers in cat-3. Thank you to all local controller for their excellent work and good cooperation and congratulation 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.

Results: Category 1 | Category 2 | Category 3 | Statistics ISC 2022 | ISC 2022 Studies-Analysis | ISC 2022 Winners | ISC 2022 TOP 100

Axel Steinbrink, Central Controller of ISC 2022


See the ISC 2022 presentation with a gallery of participants!
The navigation to the ISC main page: Competitions -> Solving -> International Solving Contest


18.ISC: first results

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


Invitation to the 18th ISC

The International Solving Contest (ISC) next year will take place on Sunday 23.01.2022. The event is happening simultaneously in all participating countries. There will be three categories: one for experienced solvers. The second category is intended for weaker, inexperienced solvers. This second category is not open for solvers with a rating (or half-rating or non-active-rating) of more than 2000. The third category is intended for youngsters born after 31.12.2008

The name of the locally appointed controller must reach the central controllers by email not later than 31.12.2021:  axel.steinbrink@gmx.de  / palmans.luc@skynet.be

Announcement of 18th ISCRules of ISC

Axel Steinbrink, 18th ISC Controller

ISC 2021 – FINAL results, Statistics & Galleries

PAvlovDAnila17th International Solving Contest (ISC) 24th January 2021

This year the ISC suffered under the circumstances of the Corona-pandemic. In many countries it was not possible to organize a tournament. But not only the pandemic led to less tournaments and solvers but also very low temperatures in Siberia (-47°C in Nizhnevartovsk) and the consequences of a severe earthquake in Croatia three weeks ago. The results of Nizhnevartovsk (the solvers solved at home) you can find as unofficial solvers at the bottom of the tables.

Finally there were 30 tournaments in 10 countries (20 tournaments in Russia). While in cat-1 it was an international contest (but only 49 solvers compared with 202 solvers last year) the contest in cat-2 and cat-3 could be also called “Russian Solving Contests” with only a few solvers from other countries.

Results: Category 1 | Category 2 | Category 3 | Statistics ISC TOP 100

Because in cat-3 the prizes for the best three solvers in the overall-category were all won by girls (perhaps an influence of the “Queen’s Gambit”?) we decided not to have special prizes for the girls but for the best boys.

At the same date there was also a home-solving tournament organized with the problems of the ISC with some top solvers. You can see the results on www.probleemblad.nl

Congratulations to the winner Danila Pavlov on his first ISC win with full points and nearly the best time.

I want to give a special thank to

  • Ivan Denkovski who selected most of the problems
  • Luc Palmans for preparing the problem and solution sheets
  • Borislav Gadjanski for the daily update of the results on the Mat Plus website
  • All local controllers for their work (most of them used STM for the results)
  • Oleg Efrosinin who coordinated 11 tournaments in Russia with more than 40% of all solvers

Axel Steinbrink, Central Controller of ISC 2021


See more on the presentation page of ISC 2021 Results with a gallery of participants

Invitation to the 17th ISC

The International Solving Contest – ISC – next year will take place on Sunday January 24th 2021. The event is happening simultaneously in all participating countries. The name of the locally appointed controller must reach the central controllers Axel Steinbrink and Luc Palmans by e-mail no later than December 31st 2020:  axel.steinbrink@gmx.de  / palmans.luc@skynet.be

I hope that even more local controllers will use the official WFCC Solving Tournament Manager (STM) for their results.

Until 31.12.2020 please send the following information: 

1. Name of local controller
2. E-Mail address of local controller
3. Location of local tournament
4. Use of STM: yes/no

Announcement of 17th ISCRules of ISC

Axel Steinbrink, 17th ISC Controller

ISC 2020 – FINAL results, Statistics & Galleries

UlrichVoigt-ISC2020The results of ISC 2020 are final as of 25th of February, 2020. 48 tournaments in 31 countries, 885 solvers from 47 countries. The overall winners by category:

Category 1 (202 solvers): Ulrich Voigt, GER (1st place), Kacper Piorun, POL (2nd place), Evgeny Viktorov, RUS (3rd place)

Category 2 (241 solvers): Alexander Smirnov, RUS (1st place), Miķelis Emīls Miķelsons, LAT (2nd place), Bartosz Świątek, POL (3rd place)

Category 3 (442 solvers): Nikita Ushakov, RUS (1st place), Agnesa Stepania Ter-Avetisjana, LAT (2nd place), Daniil Maneluk, RUS (3rd place)

The presentation page of ISC 2020 Results is updated with a gallery of participants and statistics ISC TOP 100 2005-2020 by Axel Steinbrink.

FIDE-FB-profileFIDE – International Chess Federation
24.02.2020

The 16th WFCC International Solving Contest attracted a record number of 885 participants from 47 countries. Chess composition is the art of creating and solving chess problems. Tournaments, both for composers and solvers, are held all over the world and governed by the World Federation for Chess Composition (WFCC). [→more @FaceBook]