Guided Chess Problem Composing Competition 2016 – results

The second Guided Chess Problem Composing Competition, announced in the Walkabout column of 25 Nov. 2015, has been completed. The results of this open event, aimed at introducing contestants to the practice of problem construction, were again very close. The top prize-winners are:

1st Prize: Ralf Krätschmer (Germany)
2nd Prize: Ilija Serafimović (Serbia)
3rd Prize (equal): Dušan Mijatović (Serbia) and Andy Sag (Australia)

Ralf and Ilija were also the two top-scoring contestants last year but they have swapped their positions. Third place is shared by Andy and a new participant, Dušan. While Ralf and Andy are established problemists, Ilija and Dušan are both juniors who attend the Chess Academy run by the world-renowned composer, Marjan Kovačević. Congratulations to the winners!

Marko Lozajic of Serbia (another student of Marjan Kovačević) and Stefan Felber of Germany also deserve our compliments; both achieved scores very close to the above group. Special mentions go to two young entrants who have not attempted composing before: Danila Pavlov of Russia – a world junior champion in problem solving – who gave consistently good answers, and Erin Dullaway of Australia who is remarkably only seven years of age.

A document that provides the Tasks, Answers, and Results of the competition is now available for download. Although the set questions are generally simpler this time, two of them allow the entrants a lot of leeway in creating correct versions of existing problems. Consequently, a good variety of answers were received for these tasks, and they proved very interesting to compare. Indeed, the outstanding entry for Task 3, submitted by Ralf, is better than my own attempt at repairing the original problem!

The diagram below shows what I consider the best way to correct the unsound two-mover of Task 2 (which was quoted in the earlier column mentioned above). Like a few other entries, this position is economical in using a white knight and a black pawn to confine the black king. However, by rotating the board and placing these units on the d-file (so that the pawn does not prevent either knight mate), Ralf has produced the only setting with an attractive quasi-symmetrical feature.

Nigel Nettheim has prepared an informative account of this event: GCPCC 2016 – Report, in which he shares his insights on the running of such an innovative competition. Note that all documents relating to the guided composing contests (for this year and the previous one) are available from the Events section of this site.

Guided Chess Problem Composing Competition 2016

25 Nov. 2015