Summary of Tehtäväniekka 2/2024
Our cover composition is by Kari Valtonen, who turned 70 on 26th of April 2024. See p. 61 for the solution. For several decades, Kari has been active and successful in the field of chess compositions in every imaginable way: as a composer, solver, judge, author and as a writer of series of high-class articles. We pay tribute to our loyal contributor on pp. 60–63.
Paha pähkinä, a Tough Nut to Crack, has reached an important milestone. In the beginning of 2001, Neal Turner started to present one difficult problem in each issue. Now it is time for his 100th selection, see p. 59.
The European Chess Solving Championship took place in Hagen, Germany, in April. See pp. 64–72 for the report, results, problems, and solutions. The most memorable Finnish achievement was by far the 3rd place of Kari Karhunen in the Open solving competition, giving Kari his second Grandmaster norm.
We have three awards in this issue. The first one is for two-movers published in 2003–2004. The reason for the lateness of the award is that there was initially no appointed judge. Mikael Grönroos kindly stepped in, see pp. 73–76. For the award for studies published in this magazine in 2023, see pp. 77–81. The judge Vladislav Tarasiuk is also the editor of study originals, and we are happy to have such an active person in our team. Hopefully his home city of Kharkiv remains safe despite the ongoing military aggression by Russia. The award for three-movers published in 2020–2021 by Janne Syväniemi is on pp. 85–89. For all awards, the claims period is three months from the publication date of this issue.
Joint composing with Paz Einat was recently a rewarding experience for Antonio Tarnawiecki, as you may learn from his article on pp. 81–83. It is interesting to follow how the initial idea was developed into a published composition.
In the end of April eleven problemists gathered for the spring meeting of our society. See pp. 83–84 for a short report on the pleasant weekend consisting of composing, lectures, discussions and solving. On the back page of this issue, we have three photos from the meeting, during which we celebrated the birthday of Kari Valtonen.
The Hungarian theme is the topic of an article by Kari Valtonen, see pp. 90–93. The theme is shown in helpmates and is defined differently in authoritative sources, as Kari explains. The Encyclopedia of Chess Problems – Themes and Terms has a definition originating from Milan Velimirović: one side plays consecutive tempo moves with the same piece. A different definition is given by Josef Breuer: a white tempo move in a helpmate. Gino Mentasti gives a third definition: Black captures two white pieces in succession. Mentasti also mentions a Hungarian theme 2, in which the bK is in check in the initial position of a h#2. Perhaps our readers can unravel the mystery surrounding this theme?
Neal Turner has compiled a set of fourteen recently successful Finnish compositions, see pp. 94–97. Congratulations to the successful composers!
The originals columns start from the page 98. You are encouraged to send your compositions to the editors of the columns.
The next issue is due to appear in autumn after the Jurmala congress.
