The composer of our cover problem, Henry Tanner, is a well-known Finnish problemist. Henry has been recognised as a strong solver since his first appearances in international solving competitions in the 1970´s. Since that, he has been active as a composer, editor of ST, author of articles etc.
In the spring of 2002, Henry was appointed a National Master of Chess Composition. The title is difficult to achieve, because it requires a long-term dedication to chess problem art.
Henry is known to be fond of long helpmates, as many of his recent successes illustrate. Considering this, it was no mean feat to score 10,5 FIDE Album points with the orthodox cover problem! Henry has selected nine problems from years 1978-2001 to be enjoyed, pp. 71-73.
The annual meeting of ST took place in the end of February. No major changes took place, the activity continues in the same fashion as before. Foreign subscribers, please note that the subscription fee for 2002 is 20 EUR.
In the Finnish Quick Solving Championship GM Kari Valtonen proved his skills, once again, against a strong opposition. The top places went, once again, to familiar names. Neal Turner directed the competition, once again. You can test your skills with these problems by turning to pp. 57-59.
The invitation for Portoroz PCCC, to be arranged in the beginning of September, has arrived. Another interesting event, the spring meeting of ST, will take place in the beginning of May. See pp. 60-61.
Many eminent Finnish problemists have commented the translation of Codex into Finnish. Now the time is ripe for a publication in ST, pp. 62-70.
The originals columns on pp. 74-84 offer various problem types for every taste. Please remember that your originals are most welcome and we can promise reasonably short delays before publication.
The previous ST included many diagrams, almost 200, and inevitably also diagram errors. Two problems showing Alice Chess by Timo Aitta were incorrectly diagrammed: in diagram 3/B, the bishop on a5 should be black; in diagram 4/B, a black Pawn on c4 is missing.
The Selected Helpmates column by Marko Ylijoki is strongly influenced by recent books including helpmates. First of all, Early Helpmates by Hilmar Ebert and Hans Gruber is a comprehensible documentation of the history of helpmates, see A-D. The book on GM Petko Petkov, Petkov - Selected Compositions by Mike Prcic includes great modern helpmates, E-G. Finally, the latest book in the series dealing with h#2s by Michal Dragoun concentrates on move cycles, two examples of those finish this column.
Timo Koistinen and Marko Ylijoki continue their corrections to incorrect FIDE Album helpmates. Timo notes that present Album editors have announced their intention to publish updated error lists and ask therefore proposals for incorrect problems. This time, the corrections are published without the names of the people who have made the corrections. The reason for this lies in the way the problems have been corrected: they are rather simple technical corrections. These problems are in incorrect form also in PDB, though sometimes in different form than in the FIDE Albums.
ST3/2002 is due to appear in within a few months.
Published 20th April 2002