Summary of Tehtäväniekka 3/2020
In July, we received sad news of the death of Raimo Sailas. He started his composing career almost 60 years ago and continued until the end of his life. As a composer, Sailas focused on the quality instead of the quantity and was mainly interested in helpmates. He was active in the administration of our society, being the operations inspector from 1980 until his death. The composition on the cover of this issue is typical of his composing: an elegant position and the solution presents an interesting idea. The solution is on p. 106, an obituary and compositions dedicated to his memory on pp. 108–109.
Neal Turner has compiled a set of 11 recently successful Finnish compositions, see pp. 110–112.
Kari Valtonen continues his articles on themes and terminology, see pp. 113–123. The famous Dresden ideas are discussed with 30 examples, their solutions and comments. This offers most enjoyable reading, though requiring knowledge of Finnish. On the following two pages we have comments by Henry Tanner, our loyal proof-reader.
We have the award for fairies and retros published in Tehtäväniekka in 2014 on pp. 125–137. Congratulations to successful composers and thank you to the judge, James Quah, for an extensive award of high quality!
Godfrey Heathcote was born 150 years ago, in 1870. Joose Norri presents the career of this famous composer with 25 carefully selected and commented compositions, see pp. 137–145.
Antti Parkkinen has recently been interested in helpstalemates with mirror stalemate positions, i.e. the neighbouring squares of the stalemated king are not occupied. On pp. 145–149 we are glad to have 22 originals composed by Antti and two compositions by Sébastien Luce, one of them an original. Perhaps this field offers interesting possibilities for our readers?
The originals columns are on pp. 150–163. All main genres of composition are represented, so plenty of food for thought is available! We are happy to note that more than 5000 compositions have been published in our columns for originals. In addition to these numbered originals, there have been many published in articles, as dedications etc. You are encouraged to send your best efforts to the editors of the columns.
Neal Turner continues to tease solvers with his tough nuts to crack, see p. 163. Neal is more than happy to have proposals for his column, so feel free to contribute.
The next issue is due to appear in December.
Published 15th September 2020