The cover problem is a classic piece of art by one of the most famous composers
ever. The reason for presenting this problem once again is the striking resemblance
with a recent game, which has been dubbed “the blunder of the century”.
The game was played on November 27, 2006 in Bonn, Germany, between World Champion
Vladimir Kramnik and Deep Fritz. The second game of a six-game match was a closely
fought contest, in which Kramnik as Black was trying to find a way to win against
the silicon monster. The position after White’s 34th move is on p. 170,
and Kramnik’s move 34.-Qe3 allowed a mate in one: 35.Qh7#. Later this blunder
has been explained by, for example, the rarity of this kind of mating pattern.
If Kramnik had been familiar with Loyd’s problem, the game and the whole
match could have developed quite differently.
The first pages of this issue are devoted to the second ECSC, European Chess
Solving Championship, held in Warsaw in November. Serbia won the team competition
in a convincing fashion, and same can be said of Piotr Murdzia’s impressive
100% result in the individual competition! The Finnish team had to manage with
only three solvers instead of the allowed four, thus our 5h place was not a
bad result at all.
Joose Norri presents the new book by Wolfgang Dittmann, Der Blick zurück,
on the next pages. Joose considers this book to be the most important chess
problem book published in 2006.
Neal Turner continues his set of problems which have proved difficult for solvers
in Paha pähkinä, roughly translated as A Hard Nut to Crack. This is
followed by dedication problems to Kauko Virtanen and Unto Heinonen, who celebrate
their anniversaries on Christmas Day. Kauko turns 75 and GM Unto Heinonen 60.
Both are still very active, Unto especially as a composer and Kauko as organiser
and writer. Both celebrate also with a composing competition, for Kauko a national
one and for Unto an international competition. The announcement for the latter
is in English on p. 184 and you can also find it on the web page of ST. Please
publish this announcement and participate!
Kari Valtonen 50 JT required for twomovers with multiple threats. The lucid
award by Kari covers several pages and is worthwhile reading to anyone interested
in modern twomovers.
A report on the autumn meeting of Finnish problemists is on the following pages.
The meeting was held near Tampere, included composing and solving competitions,
general discussion and plenty of social activities. The spring meeting of 2007
will be held in March-April in Espoo.
The originals columns offer opportunities to test your solving and analytical
skills, though this time there are no studies, selfmates nor fairies available.
The Selected Helpmates, selected and commented by Marko Ylijoki, deal with Hungarian
helpmates and a competition which Marko has recently judged with Fadil Abdurahmanovic.
Hungary has a strong tradition in helpmates, names such as Paros, Bakcsi and
Molnár, to name just a few,need no introduction. Composers of our time
continue this tradition, as you may see also from this article.
Marko has also judged the long helpmates of 2004-05. The winning problem is
the runner-up in the competition for the longest helpmate, close but not close
enough for the top spot...
On the last pages we have top 100 of the recent solvers’ rating list.
This is the last ST issue of 2006, we wish you Merry Christmas and a Happy New
Year!
Published 13th December 2006