Summary of Tehtäväniekka 4/2025

Our cover celebrates Mikael Grönroos, who turns 70 on 31st of December 2025. He is known as a versatile problemist, as you may see on the selection of his compositions on pp. 172–173.

Most our subscribers home and abroad received a surprise this autumn, the issue 1/2025, dated 21st February 2025. This happened because the Finnish Postal Service had initially lost the magazines, which we had to reprint and mail in the end of March. However, the lost issues were apparently found and delivered more than half a year later. Better late than never, we suppose.

The annual meeting of ST and the Finnish Championship in solving take place on 14th of February 2026. See p. 148 for more information.

The award for fairies and retros for 2018–2019 is on pp. 149–157. The originally appointed judge Peter van den Heuvel unfortunately passed away in 2023, but luckily for us, Vlaicu Crişan kindly agreed to step in. We have another fairy award for 2022 on pp. 158–170 by Eddy Van Beers. He was appointed also for 2023 but understandably decided to split his award into two separate years because of the high number of eligible compositions. The second part will soon be ready. Congratulations to successful composers and thanks to our judges, who have had to work hard on the vast field of fairy chess!

Our society’s autumn meeting was held in the beginning of November, see pp. 170–171 for a report on the event and the results of the competitions. The meeting’s quick composing competition required that at one phase moves are made on squares A and B, and at second phase in reverse order, first to B and then to A. There was one composition, evaluated by every participant as the best one, and with good reason.

Neal Turner has compiled nine recently successful Finnish compositions, see pp. 174–176. Neal’s Paha Pähkinä, a Tough Nut to Crack, shows a 3#, which was composed for an International Solving Match. It would be interesting to know how today’s solvers manage with this one, see. p. 176. On the next page we publish the most recent ratings of all officially rated Finnish solvers and the international top ten, along with composing competition announcements. The originals columns start on p. 178. Your contributions to the columns are welcome, as always.

Thank you, dear reader, for the year 2025! The next issue is due to appear in March 2026.