68th WCCC – Highlights and Decisions

68^th World Congress of Chess Composition

Magdeburg, Germany
August 8 – 15, 2026

Representatives of 29 member countries participated in the Congress, six of them via Zoom.

The new format and rules for the World Championship in Composing for Individuals (WCCI) will be introduced with the 2025–27 cycle. Of the two options presented for voting (see WCCC 2026 Agenda, Point 6.1), the Assembly supported Option 2 by 14 votes to 7, with 4 abstentions.

As before, participants will submit 4–6 selected entries per section. However, the number of judges will be reduced from five to three, and the same group of judges will serve for the corresponding FIDE Album cycle. This decision follows the WCCC 2025 conclusion that the previous system was increasingly affected by a shortage of qualified judges.

The titles of FIDE Solving Trainer and Honorary FIDE Solving Judge were established, and the first titleholders were announced (Agenda Points 6.2 and 6.3).

The WFCC Dawson–White Award was established to recognize outstanding contributions to the world of chess composition. The first awards were presented to:

• Thomas Maeder — for his outstanding contribution as a member of the Popeye Team, which develops open-source software supporting multiple chess-composition genres;
• Dmitri Turevski — for his work on the open-source programs Olive and Py2Web, as well as the YACPDB database;
• Axel Steinbrink — for his long-standing service as Director of the WCSC, ECSC, ISC and other solving events.

The Assembly approved the proposal allowing cash prizes of up to €300 at the local level of the International Solving Contest (ISC) (Agenda Point 6.4).

The International Solving Master (ISM) title for Taras Rudenko was approved by the Assembly (Agenda Point 6.10).

Following her victory in the World Championship, Ekaterina Shestakova became the first solver to hold both the FIDE Solving Master and Women International Solving Master titles. The Solving Committee will further consider whether two titles based on exactly the same criteria should remain applicable simultaneously.

The following provision was added to Point 2 of the World Solving Cup Rules:

In the case of tournaments with multiple locations, only the tournament in the country and place of the central controller counts for the WSC, and at least 10 rated solvers must have attended there.

The Committee thanked Roland Ott, Director, and Axel Steinbrink and Marek Kolčák, Assistant Directors, for their willingness to continue running the World Solving Cup.

The Committee also discussed a case in which a solver received zero points solely because the solver’s name was missing. It concluded that such a penalty would be excessively harsh and contrary to the spirit of the sport. Following a request from Marjan Kovačević, the Committee decided to review statistics concerning zero scores in ISC Categories 2 and 3.

The current WCCT-12 has attracted 488 entries from 35 countries, slightly fewer than in the previous cycle. The entries are expected to be published in September 2026, judging is scheduled to be completed by June 2027, and the final results are expected by the end of October 2027.

In view of the overlap in committee membership and the need for closer coordination between the WCCI and FIDE Album processes, a joint WCCI–FIDE Album Committees meeting was held.

The WCCI 2025–27 will be announced in September 2027, together with the FIDE Album 2025–27. The deadline for submitting entries to the Directors of both WCCI and FIDE Album sections will be 20 January 2028. The final WCCI 2025–27 results are planned for 30 June 2028.

Work on the FIDE Album 2022–24 is proceeding according to schedule, with results expected to be published by 1 December 2026.

Of the €6,000 FIDE-supported budget for the Album 2022–24, FIDE Album Committee spokesman Harry Fougiaxis has distributed stipends to 45 judges and directors involved in the project. The remaining funds will be used for indexing and related work.

The proposal by Polish problemists concerning the electronic publication of the FIDE Album (Agenda, Point 6.12) was discussed in conjunction with concerns about the increasing size of the printed volume. Harry Fougiaxis proposed publishing the indexes in PDF format only, initially for older Albums and subsequently for future editions. This could save approximately 100 pages and reduce publication costs. Initial steps in this direction have already been taken.

The 10th Youth Chess Composing Challenge attracted 32 participants aged 8–22 from 12 countries, submitting a total of 58 entries in three standard sections. The overall quality was exceptionally high, with new leaders emerging in both the general standings and the U13 category, introduced for the first time.

The continued expansion of chess composition beyond Europe was particularly evident in the growing participation of young composers from China.

Solving events held in conjunction with the FIDE Youth & Cadet Championships continued in Kazakhstan, Serbia, Italy and Georgia. A record participation was recorded in Batumi, where David Gurgenidze directed competitions for 236 cadets from 48 countries.

This year also saw the launch of activities by the Chess Composers Club, a new online platform created and administered by Nikola Petković. Among the latest additions to the CCC content is the Solve a Study project, created by Gady Costeff, featuring more than 1,000 selected and commented endgames to be solved move by move.

All these projects of the Youth Committee members—including the Online Solving Challenge for Youth, directed by Brian Cook—deserve substantially wider promotion and support, both within and beyond the WFCC.

Various possibilities for investing in software tools for directors of composing tournaments were discussed, but no decision was taken.

The Committee also concluded that its current name, which dates back to 1988, should be changed to reflect contemporary terminology and its present scope.

The Committee considered several proposals submitted by Maryan Kerhuel (Agenda, Point 6.13). Two proposed amendments to the Codex were accepted, with 20 votes in favour and 3 abstentions.

Concerning last year’s proposal about the time limit for information from the tourney organizer to the composers, the Committee will deal with the question next year.

Several well-known chess players took part in the Congress competitions. German prodigy Christian Gloeckler (15) participated in the record-breaking World Chess Solving Championship, which had 99 solvers. Meanwhile, World Championship Candidate Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa (21) took part as a composer in one of the parallel events.

• International Solving Grandmaster of the FIDE: Tomaš Peitl (SVK), Bilguun Sumiya (MGL)
• International Solving Master of the FIDE: Taras Rudenko (UKR)
• FIDE Solving Master: Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis (GRE), Joost Michielsen (NED), Anton Nasyrov (RUS), Ekaterina Shestakova (RUS)
• Women International Solving Master of the FIDE: Ekaterina Shestakova (RUS)
• International Judge of the FIDE for Chess Compositions: Oleksandr Derevchuk (UKR) — twomovers; Narayan Shankar Ram (IND) — fairies; Elmar Abdullayev (AZE) — extension to twomovers
• FIDE Solving Trainer: Vlaicu Crișan (ROU), Andrey Selivanov (RUS)
• Honorary FIDE Solving Judge: Brian Cook (GBR), Bohumil Moravčik (SVK)

The WFCC Presidium for 2027–2030 will be:

• President: Marjan Kovačević (Serbia)
• 1st Vice-President: Dr Abdulla Ali Aal Barket (United Arab Emirates)
• 2nd Vice-President: Marco Guida (Italy)
• 3rd Vice-President: Julia Vysotska (Latvia)

• 23rd International Solving Contest (ISC): 24 January 2027; Central Controller — Arvydas Mockus
• 20th European Chess Solving Championship (ECSC): 28–30 May 2027, Alba Iulia, Romania
• 69th World Congress of Chess Composition (WCCC) and 50th World Chess Solving Championship (WCSC): 23–30 October 2027, Heraklion–Hersonissos, Crete, Greece