Summary of Tehtäväniekka 3/2021
The composer of our cover problem, Eero Bonsdorff, was born 100 years ago, October 18, 2021. He specialised in mathematical chess problems, for example as one of the three authors of the famous book Schach und Zahl. To honour his memory Hannu Harkola has compiled and edited a book Mielenkiintoinen asema – An interesting position. It contains 49 mathematical chess problems by Eero Bonsdorff, all dealing with the initial setup. The book costs 21 EUR and is both in Finnish and English. For more information and the solution of the 60 years old cover problem, see p. 111.
Veikko Valo (1945–2021) died just before this issue was finished. For many decades, he edited chess columns, which often included compositions and news of our hobby. See p. 92 for an obituary and two compositions for his memory.
Two internationally well-known problemists celebrated their significant birthdays during the past few months. Olli Heimo turned 75 on September 14 and Per Olin 70 on August 10. See pp. 93 and turn to pp. 94–99 for several recent compositions by Per Olin.
On pp. 99–101 Henry Tanner notes the curious case of two Finns with the same surname Niemelä. Ilmari Niemelä (1907–1975) was a strong OTB player. As far as we know, he published only one composition, a helpmate in 1933. On the other hand, Aki R. Niemelä (1909–2000) was an active problemist with a reasonably large output. In publicly available databases many compositions by Aki R. Niemelä have wrongly been attributed to Ilmari Niemelä.
Kari Valtonen continues his research into the secrets of Excelsior, see pp. 102–109. This time we have 28 compositions representing different genres, showing how fruitful the theme is.
The award of Jorma Pitkänen 80 JT has been published and we quote six compositions on pp. 109–110: the winner of each section and three interesting Finnish compositions.
Neal Turner presents us with another tough nut to crack, see p. 110. How do you manage with this one? The autumn meeting of our society takes place at the beginning of November, see the invitation on p. 111. Twelve recently successful Finnish compositions are shown on pp. 112–114.
On pp. 115–117 we are happy to have corrections by Paavo Tikka to two incorrect studies, one by Osmo Kaila and the other one by Heimo Lilja. It is not always easy to find artistically satisfying corrections, but we believe that Tikka has succeeded.
The originals columns are on pp. 118–131. Compositions from home and abroad offer plenty of food for thought. Please, contribute by sending your originals to the editors of the columns. We are happy to receive feedback on previously published compositions, too. The next issue is due to appear before the end of this year.
Published 8th October 2021
