Our cover problem is one of the many memorable problems by a great Norwegian composer, Nils G.G. van Dijk. The wK will make the key, but there are many tries...Van Dijk passed away in January 2003, but his problems will continue to delight chess problem enthusiasts all over the world. Also Ivar Godal and Mircea Manolescu have passed away, see p. 61.
The annual meeting of ST took place in the end of February. As usual, no major changes occurred. We hope that this reflects the satisfaction the meeting participants feel for ST as a society, see pp. 41-43.
Traditionally, just before the meeting the Finnish Solving Championship is decided. This year the competition was tougher than usually, almost all of our top solvers competed. The competition was directed smoothly by Neal Turner, assisted by Kenneth Solja. There were 12 problems to be solved within three hours.
Regarding traditions, it was appropriate that Pauli Perkonoja was victorious. All other solvers used the three hours allowed, for Perkonoja it took less than two hours to achieve an almost flawless result. This could be described as amazing domination, had it not happened so often before! See pp. 45-48 for the problems, solutions and results.
It is worth noting that in the main line of the draw study a dual was found by our Belgian friend and study expert Marcel van Herck. See the solution to Championship problem no. 8.
Kari Valtonen presents a selection of successful Finnish 2- and 3-movers from recent years. There are altogether 13 twomovers and 8 threemovers on pp. 49-53. We will probably enjoy successful moremovers in the next issue of ST.
The ST fairy award for the 125 fairy originals, including retros, published during 2000 is on pp. 54-59. The judge Mikael Grönroos included thirteen problems in his award. Proof games scored a double victory, with two leading experts, Unto Heinonen and Michel Caillaud, as composers.
Information on the Moscow PCCC and the preliminary invitation to Greece for 2004 is on p. 60. On the same page, Neal Turner continues to tease unwary solvers with his Hard Nut To Crack -problems. If you are interested in acquiring the complete bound set of the magazine Suomen Shakki, please contact Kenneth Solja, address on p. 60.
Our originals column starts on p. 62. This time there are no studies because of lack of entries.
The Selected Helpmates by Marko Ylijoki deals with the theme of the 7th WCCT helpmate section. Marko has collected interesting problems showing the theme in various ways. We look forward to the publication with all WCCT entries, which should appear in April.
Henry Tanner continues both the Four Corner Project on pp. 75-81 and the column Small Is Beautiful on pp. 82-84.
In the previous issue there were two unfortunate diagram errors. In the 4# by Pauli Perkonoja and Hannu Sokka on p. 6 the bPc7 should be excluded, the number of pieces is thus 8+7. On p. 10, the wSh3 in the 3# by Harri Hurme should be on h2. Luckily, this should be evident when seeing the solution.
ST 3/2003 is due to appear in July.
Published 21st April 2003