Our cover problem was published 70 years ago, but still seems fresh after all these years. It is one of the best-known Finnish helpmates, showing both white Bristol in set play and black Bristol in the solution, see p. 123.
The spring meeting for ST members took place in the beginning of May. Altogether 14 participants took part in solving and composing competitions and other programme during one weekend. The solving competition was won by Henry Tanner and composing competition by Neal Turner with his first selfmate ever! The required theme was "at some stage of the solution, an identical position to a previous stage has been reached with the only difference of one or more missing units". In Neal´s problem on p. 96, white would like to force selfmate with Sd2, but in the initial position this would lead to 1.-exd2+ 2.Lxd2#. Therefore white must get rid of Bg5, and as will be seen, of the black Pawn on e4 in the course of the solution. See p. 97 for details.
Reino Heiskanen has been celebrated for his 70th anniversary with a national composing competition for studies with free theme. Six studies from four composers participated, the award by Heiskanen himself is on pp. 98-99. Pauli Perkonoja got another feather to his cap with a study showing two different stalemates.
During the last few years, ST has arranged so called Summer Tourneys, i.e. national composing competitions for almost any kind of problems, excluding fairy problems. In last summer, the theme was "in the course of the solution, at least one piece moves to the corner of the board". The competition was judged by Marjan Kovacevic, the award is on pp. 100-103. We have not translated his award into Finnish and the German piece abbreviations have been used.
The h#3-n award of 1998-1999 by Michael McDowell is on pp. 104-109. Michael was not quite happy with the overall level of the competition. It seems that many contemporary helpmate judges share his feelings. There may be several reasons for this. One is perhaps the use of solving programs, which have greatly increased the output of helpmates, even (or perhaps especially?) mediocre ones.
The originals columns on pp. 111-121 offer plenty of enjoyment for connoisseurs. Please remember that your originals are most welcome and we can promise reasonably short delays before publication.
The Selected Helpmates column, edited by Marko Ylijoki, concentrates on the first known Finnish helpmates. Of the first Finns interested in helpmates, two prominent composers stand out. Pentti Sola, the composer of our cover problem, published more than 60 helpmates before his untimely death in WWII. Osmo Kaila was also active with about 20 published helpmates. Of course, it is not the quantity, but quality that counts, but both composed on a high level, pp.123-125.
Neal Turner organised the solving competition in the above mentioned spring meeting of our society. Of the problems in that competition, the one on p. 125 proved to be the hardest nut to crack.
Henry Tanner has once again compiled the latest development in the genre of four-corner problems, altogether 72 problems with solutions and explanations on pp. 126-134.
The announcement of Portoroz PCCC Internet TT on p. 135 rounds off this issue. ST4-5/2002 is due to appear in within two months of the Portoroz PCCC.
Published 15th July 2002