The composition on the cover is by Antti Gottfrid Ojanen, born on September 1. Ojanen is the one of two Finns to have achieved three titles of a National Master in all three main genres of chess: over the board chess, correspondence chess and chess composition. In this issue Harri Hurme writes on Ojanen, describing his influence in Finland´s chess life in general, but focusing on chess composition. Ojanen started with composing in the middle of 1930s and remained active until his death, scoring 15,67 FIDE Album points. He was best known and most interested in selfmates. The Ojanen theme is named after him.
This issue has reports on the Belgrade congress, during which the 59th meeting of the WCCC took place. In addition, there were many composing competitions, lectures and events. The 40th World Championship in Solving attracted 22 teams and 89 individual solvers. The glory days of Polish solvers continued on both team and individual level. Finns did not manage get close to the top, but better luck or skill next year! In the composing competitions we had only one awarded composition, thanks to Hannu Harkola for saving us from a complete whitewash. Hopefully this is not a sign of things to come…
Viktoras Paliulionis was recently asked to judge helpmate moremovers published in our magazine in 2008-2010. He kindly obliged and the award is now ready, sincere thanks to Viktoras for his expert work!
Henry Tanner writes of Kindergarten helpmates with three examples and a promise to continue with this theme in future issues. On the next page we have a small article on smartphone applications, which may be useful for a problemist.
Walther Jørgensen, born on October 3, 1916, was one of the most important Scandinavian composers. In addition to composing, he is known for his activity as a publisher of approximately 35 books on chess composition. Joose Norri writes on Jørgensen and presents ten examples of his creative work, which brought him the title of an International Master of Chess Composition.
The second part of Kari Valtonen´s article on Hungary and Hungarian chess composition provides a wealth of interesting reading. Not to mention 40 compositions, which are enjoyable even to our foreign readers.
Paha Pähkinä, a Tough Nut to Crack, selected by Neal Turner, can be devilishly difficult. What is your opinion of this Nut, 70th in order? In this year´s British Solving Championship this selfmate made solvers sweat, so beware!
The autumn meeting of our society will be held during the first meeting of November. The invitation is in this issue and the report of the event in the next one.
A new book in the famous FEE=NIX series was available in the Belgrade congress. Atelier 64 – Ausgewählte Schachaufgaben, kommentiert von meinen Freunden, presents a great composer, Zdravko Maslar. His output is always interesting and of high class, so this collection is warmly recommended. Maslar composed really great long helpmates in the pre-computer era, an admirable feat in itself.
We are happy to publish nine recent successes of Finnish composers, and, in a separate article, a 1st Prize winner of Milan Velimirovic 64 MT. Congratulations to Kari Valtonen on the latter!
The originals columns consist of all genres with one exception, because for this issue we did not receive any original studies. Your contributions are most welcome to all our originals columns.
Finally, you have surely not forgotten to pay for your subscription for 2016: 25 EUR (within Finland) or 28 EUR (foreign subscribers)?
The next issue is due to appear in December 2016.
Published 14th September 2016