Risto Pohjonen, the composer of our cover problem, was an enthusiastic problemist
interested in composing, solving and organising solving competitions. His two-mover
shows a cycle of error motives, see solution on p. 261. On the same page there
are two further examples of his composing ability in an obituary by Veikko Valo.
A large part of this issue is devoted to the Eretria WCCC, which was held in
the beginning of September. The congress of 2004 took also place in Greece,
and was organised in an excellent fashion. The same is true for this year's
meeting, and the weather was much better than in 2004!
In the banquet Harry Fougiaxis received the Finlandia Award, a well-deserved
recognition for the successful efforts of Harry and his team in organising this
event.
Kari Karhunen describes the congress on pp. 236-237, Pauli Perkonoja reports
of the solving competitions on pp. 245-246 and Hannu Harkola informs on the
48th Meeting of the Permanent Commission of the FIDE for Chess Compositions
on p. 248.
In solving competitions, the Finnish team succeeded in continuing our medal-winning
streak, but with a very narrow margin ahead of Poland. Individually the team
solvers cannot be very happy with their results, but the team's medal is a good
compensation for the lack of individual success.
The composing competitions are briefly reported on pp. 249-251. There were,
as usual, many competitions with interesting themes and entries of very high
level.
Kari Valtonen's series of articles continues with a discussion on Mihail Mihailovitš
Barulin - plenty of food for thought on pp. 252-260!
French IM Alex Casa passed away on July 28, 2005. Casa composed elegant two-
and threemovers, two examples of those are on p. 262, as well as the announcement
of Alex Casa MT.
On p. 263 there is the announcement of a national composing competition to honour
Raimo Sailas, who turned 60 in the beginning of September. He is primarily known
as a helpmate composer, therefore it is no surprise that this competition is
for helpmates in three. On the same page we announce another national composing
competition.
The originals section covers the pages 264-272. Please note that Mikael Grönroos
is the new editor of direct mates and Hannu Sokka of helpmates.
On the next ten pages we publish the awards of three composing competitions.
The award of Toma Garai 70 JT by grandmaster Garai is on 273-277. The competition
attracted 86 entries. This is followed by two ST competitions, ST 2002-03 n#
award on pp. 278-280 and ST 2002-03 3# award on pp. 281-283. The level of these
two competitions left room for improvement in the future!
In ST 4/2005, problem E in Richard Stanley's article on Queue Problems Revisited
was incorrect, the corrected version is published on p. 283.
Two regular columns, the reconstruction column and Paha Pähkinä are
on pp. 284-285, and Selected Helpmates, a pick of the best helpmates from the
recent FIDE-Album closes this issue.
The next ST is due to appear in December.
Published 14th October 2005