In spite of being "old and horribly slow", Pauli still dominates domestic solving competitions, see for example p. 101. With the exception of GM Kari Valtonen and Terho Jaatinen, all top Finnish solvers were present in our society´s spring meeting, which included a solving contest in WCSC style. No need to guess twice who won - once again.
The award of Aki R. Niemelä MT is on pp. 84-85. The competition was for series-movers, Niemelä´s favourite field of composing. The first prize winner is a beautiful piece of art!
Neal Turner continues his series of difficult and interesting problems. This time he presents a h#4 which defeated recently a Finnish GM in a solving contest, p.89.
To our pleasure, GM Toma Garai discusses the names of themes, (fairy) stipulations and pieces. After reading pp. 90-91 you will be assured that the things have indeed changed!
The WCCI announcement was published in Finnish in ST 4-5/2000. To guarantee that the message will be received, the announcement, with the names of the appointed judges, is on p. 92, this time in English.
The final award of the 6th WCCT has recently appeared. We hope to present the awards of each section in ST, starting with sections D and E, studies and helpmates. In his report on pp. 94-97, Pauli Perkonoja is very disappointed at the quality of the study award. Not because of lack of Finnish success, but because of several other reasons. A short summary of his main points is on p. 97. Unfortunately, one has to agree with him. Perkonoja considers this award the worst case of judging he has ever seen.
Hannu Harkola discusses the WCCT helpmate award on pp. 98-100. In his opinion, the problem on the 2nd place is not completely convincing. The tries 1.Qe4 Rb4? 2.Rxf5 Rbg4#? and 1.Qc6 Rb6? 2.Bxf5 Bf6#? fail not only because of interference, but also because of guard. We hope to see further comments on the WCCT award in foreign magazines...
A report of ST spring meeting is on p. 101. The required theme for the quick composing competition was: during the course of the solution, at least three pieces create either an diagonal or orthogonal line. The theme proved to be a success with many good entries, the s#7 by Kari Karhunen as the best according to a democratic voting system.
Originals section starts on p. 102, this time with no studies and selfmates & fairies. The ST 1996 h#2 award by GM Zivko Janevski is on pp. 110-112. Our helpmate editor Marko Ylijoki continues to present selected helpmates on pp. 113-115. Marko criticises some successful helpmates, for example E), which has, in his opinion, too symmetric solutions and a disturbing check in the initial position.
Kari Valtonen presents 22 Finnish helpmates from recent h#2 and h#3 -awards, p. 116-121. The column "Small Is Beautiful" includes 30 lightweight problems of different genres, edited by Henry Tanner, p. 122-126. Finally, on p. 127, there are interesting selfmates from German and Polish solving contests.
The next issue is due to appear in autumn.
Published 19th July 2001