A lion's share of this issue is devoted to the Portoroz PCCC. The event was brilliantly organised by the Slovenian problem chess enthusiasts, led by Marko Klasinc. The programme included meetings, solving and composing competitions, excursions etc. Many thanks to Marko and his team! Neal Turner and Henry Tanner tell the story from a Finnish point of view on pp. 140-143. Results from the solving contests are on the next pages, followed by a description of the official decisions.
In the WCSC the Finnish team succeeded in repeating last year's runner-up position, which was perhaps something of a surprise. In the composing competitions the best Finnish effort was - once again - by Harri Hurme with a 3rd Prize in the Quick Composing for 2#s, see the cover problem and pp. 142-143.
The award of ST Summer Tourney 2001 was published in ST 3/2002. Now the time is ripe for the award of Summer Tourney 2000, where any kind of problems with play from indirect battery were required. Only four problems took part, but they were all good enough to be included in the award by Timo Kallio. The winning problem is a complex reflexmate with Grasshoppers, and worth a close look, see pp. 150-152.
Two ST composing competitions have been judged by Kari Valtonen: 2# for 1997-1998 and 3# for 2000-2001. Kari was asked to judge the former competition because no judge had earlier been nominated. See pp. 153-165.
The column edited by Neal Turner, Paha Pähkinä - a tough nut to crack - seems often to be suited for people with masochistic tendencies. This time makes no exception, see p.157 for a difficult solving exercise.
Hannu Lehto delves into the history of retrograde analysis on pp. 166-170. SPGs are not covered, but we hope to have something interesting for proofgame fans in future ST issues.
Mr. Mip entertains us with a romantic story including an interesting symbolic
chess composition. Lovesick Lunarbear is introduced on pp. 171-175.
Alessandro Cuppini continues the discussion on correcting unsound problems on
p. 176. On the following page Per Olin shares his thoughts on ST Summer Tourneys.
He would like to see a more detailed definition of "fairy chess" than,
for example, in the Codex. Perhaps we can expect feedback from our readers?
The originals columns on pp. 178-189 includes problems of various types and for many tastes, beginning with orthodox two-movers and ending with complicated fairy problems.
Please remember that your originals are most welcome and we can promise reasonably short delays before publication. The contact information for sending originals and solutions to published originals can be found on respective originals columns.
The Selected Helpmates by Marko Ylijoki deal with interesting topical helpmates, pp.190-191. The article contains both longer helpmates and helpmates in one (!) from a recent competition.
The last issue of 2002 is due to appear in December.
Published 14th October 2002