{"id":22754,"date":"2023-06-24T17:17:57","date_gmt":"2023-06-24T17:17:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www1090.fide.com\/?p=22754"},"modified":"2023-10-25T10:51:30","modified_gmt":"2023-10-25T10:51:30","slug":"european-solving-championship-polish-solvers-regain-titles-lithuanians-keep-rising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/european-solving-championship-polish-solvers-regain-titles-lithuanians-keep-rising\/","title":{"rendered":"European Solving Championship: Polish solvers regain titles, Lithuanians keep rising"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Photo: Eddy van Beers (Belgium, bronze), Kacper Piorun (Poland, gold) and Piotr Murdzia (Poland, silver)<\/em><\/p>

The season of the official solving competitions organized by the\u00a0World Federation for Chess Composition<\/a>\u00a0is getting closer to its final and the most important stage: the 46th World Chess Solving Championship in Batumi (September 2-9). The\u00a016th European Chess Solving Championship<\/a>\u00a0is in the books, and only four more legs of the\u00a0<\/strong>World Solving Cup 2022\/23<\/a>\u00a0remain.<\/p>

The European Chess Solving Championship brought together 75 solvers from 18 countries in sunny and friendly Bratislava at the entrance to the Old City. As usual, the ECSC festival included several solving and composing tournaments.\u00a0<\/p>

The major event, European Team and Individual Championship, went smoothly, officiated by experienced FIDE Solving Judge\u00a0Marko Klasinc<\/strong>\u00a0from Slovenia. Being\u00a0FIDE Master for Chess Composition\u00a0and\u00a0FIDE Solving Master<\/a>\u00a0helped him to select a set of\u00a018 solver-friendly compositions of high artistic quality. None of them was too difficult, but all together, they were tough enough to prevent even the best solvers from scoring the maximum of 90 points.<\/p>

\"\"Waiting for the new set of problems to solve<\/em><\/p>

The problems were spread over six rounds, each including three entries from different genres: 1. twomovers (20 minutes), 2. threemovers (60 minutes), 3. endgames (100 minutes), 4.selfmates (50 minutes), 5. moremovers (80 minutes) and 6. helpmates (50 minutes).<\/p>

The main favourites, multiple world champions\u00a0Piotr Murdzia<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Kacper Piorun<\/strong>, cruised through the first day with perfect results, the same as the 4th seed\u00a0Marko Filipovi\u0107<\/strong>\u00a0from Croatia. The challenges and tension started mounting on the second day. Filipovi\u0107 lost 5 points on selfmates and gave up third place to\u00a0Vladimir Podini\u0107<\/strong>\u00a0from Serbia, who in turn lost all 15 points in the next round of moremovers.<\/p>

Meanwhile, the Polish duo kept their cool and had perfect results all the way to the final round. Before three helpmates, later easily solved by several solvers (the shortest time was only 23 out of 50 minutes), Murdzia had a slight advantage in time over Piorun (250:259 minutes) and an excellent chance to win.\u00a0<\/p>

The last round proved that tension affects even the best of the best. It all came down to the last two problems. The first one was a helpmate in four moves with two intended solutions.<\/p>

1<\/strong><\/p>

\"\"<\/p>

Helpmate in 4 moves, 2 solutions<\/em><\/p>

Both leaders found only one solution, each of them missing a different one. Since both spent a maximum of 50 minutes and missed one solution each, it looked as if Murdzia won on time tiebreak, but see what happened with one of his solutions in helpmate in 2 moves:<\/p>

\u00a02<\/strong><\/p>

\"\"<\/p>

Helpmate in 2 moves, 3 solutions<\/em><\/p>

This complex position, with three different pawn batteries set to open the lines of wB, wR and wQ, hides unusual regrouping of white guns in each solution. Probably, the trickiest solution is\u00a01.Kf4 Rc4 2.Bxg7! e5#<\/strong><\/p>

Eight-minute difference decided the tight race between the two favourites in the 2023 Polish Championship, but this time around 9 minutes had no importance as, in a hurry, the 8-time World champion switched the order of two black moves and wrote 1.Bxg7, jumping over the wRc3 on the first move. This rarely-seen blunder (1.5 points) was enough for Kacper Piorun to finally celebrate his first European victory after already having five world champion titles under his belt.\u00a0<\/p>

Eddy van Beers<\/strong>\u00a0from Belgium won the bronze medal and completed the expected domination of the top three seeds.<\/p>

Kamila Hryshchenko<\/strong>\u00a0(GBR; below, center),\u00a0Denisa-Andreea Bucur<\/strong>\u00a0(ROU;\u00a0below, left) and\u00a0Daria Dvoeglazova<\/strong>\u00a0(ISR; below, right) became the best female solvers (pictured with WFCC President\u00a0Marjan Kova\u010devi\u0107<\/strong>).<\/p>

\"\"<\/p>

With the top two\u00a0individual scores<\/a>, the Polish solvers had a massive chance for team victory, but it was not guaranteed since the three best results of four team members count in each round.\u00a0Piotr G\u00f3rski<\/strong>, another ex-world champion, was the only team member to have perfect 45 points on the second day, while\u00a0Jakub Marciniszyn<\/strong>\u00a0contributed in the 2nd, 3rd and 6th rounds. This lucky combination explains the convincing\u00a0Polish win<\/a>\u00a0with 260 out of possible 270 points: when one of the solvers had a bad round, the other three made up for that!<\/p>

With their sixth European title, Polish solvers matched the record held by Serbian team, but in the meantime, new contenders for team medals emerged. Lithuanian solvers started their rise in 2018 when\u00a0Martynas Limontas<\/strong>\u00a0won the World Solving Cup and kept winning medals in this prestigious competition. Thanks to these impressive results, Lithuanian solvers got strong support on the governmental level, and this year another rising star was born.\u00a0<\/p>

Aged under 18,\u00a0Kevinas Kuznecovas<\/strong>\u00a0reeled off several victories at the World Solving Cup to become the overall WSC leader after 13 out of 17 WSC legs. Given that his countryman Limontas holds 2nd WSC place, the silver medal for the Lithuanian team was no surprise, but the two WSC leaders wouldn’t have made it alone.\u00a0Vidmantas Satkus<\/strong>\u00a0became a hero of the team climbing to the 5th individual place, while\u00a0Viktoras Paliulionis<\/strong>\u00a0also contributed in a tense last round.<\/p>

\"\"Checking solutions after a round<\/em><\/p>

The bronze medal for the Slovakian team was a great satisfaction for the hosts and their organizing team. Having an average rating much lower than the 4th placed Serbian team,\u00a0Tom\u00e1\u0161 Peitl<\/strong>,\u00a0Richard Dobi\u00e1\u0161<\/strong>,\u00a0Juraj L\u00f6rinc<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Marek Kol\u010d\u00e1k<\/strong>\u00a0leapfrogged the defending champions and put the icing on the cake of their organizing efforts. Once again, the team’s success didn’t come from the sum of individual results but from a lucky match in each round, which usually comes with good team spirit.<\/p>

In fact, Marek Kol\u010d\u00e1k and Tom\u00e1\u0161 Peitl weren’t solving only chess problems in Bratislava. They were among the main members of the ECSC organizing committee, together with\u00a0Mari\u00e1n Kri\u017eovensk\u00fd<\/strong>,\u00a0Tom\u00e1\u0161 Peitl<\/strong>,\u00a0\u013dubom\u00edr \u0160ir\u00e1\u0148<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Milan \u0160umn\u00fd<\/strong>. As mentioned before, ECSC is a massive festival, and this time, the organizers had to take care of not less than four different solving events and two thematic tournaments in composing.<\/p>

Marek Kol\u010d\u00e1k, an architect by profession, engaged several members of his artistically inclined family to help surf through the organizing duties. His daughter\u00a0Nela Kol\u010d\u00e1k<\/strong>\u00a0was on registering desk, his brother-in-low\u00a0Erik Rothenstein<\/strong>\u00a0was performing a musical program on saxophone during ceremonies, and his mother\u00a0B\u011bla Kol\u010d\u00e1kov\u00e1<\/strong>\u00a0inspired the official banner with one of her chess paintings from the collection of Nitra Gallery. A well-known artist, B\u011bla Kol\u010d\u00e1kov\u00e1, was often inspired by chess motives, and this one she called “Selfmate”:<\/p>

\"\"B\u011bla Kol\u010d\u00e1kov\u00e1: “Selfmate” (from the collection of the Nitra Gallery)<\/em><\/p>

Among the parallel ECSC events,\u00a0Bratislava Open\u00a0<\/a>was an important leg of the World Solving Cup 2022\/23. The field, with most of the ECSC participants, reached the 2nd WSC category (top 10 average rating of 2.558). The winner\u00a0Piotr Murdzia\u00a0<\/strong>netted 41 points and came out on top, ahead of\u00a0Jonathan Mestel<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Eddy van Beers<\/strong>. This win placed Murdzia in the top 3 of the\u00a0WSC 2022\/23 Standings<\/a>, despite taking part in only two out of six possible competitions.<\/p>

Baltic Combined\u00a0<\/a>was another interesting event that united composing and solving skills. Each participant had to compose one original helpmate in 2 moves with a single solution. Next, they solved problems composed by others and got additional points from those who didn’t solve their own composition.\u00a0<\/p>

Ulrich Voigt<\/strong>\u00a0solved all 16 entries and got points from 9 participants who didn’t solve the problem he composed.\u00a0Vidmantas Satkus<\/strong>\u00a0had the same sum with 15+10 points, but the longer solving time gave an advantage to Voight (103 minutes). The same tiebreaker favoured\u00a0Ilija Serafimovi\u0107<\/strong>, who netted 15+7 points and spent less time than\u00a0Peter van der Heuvel<\/strong>\u00a0(15+7).\u00a0<\/p>

One of the unlucky composers was the well-known GM\u00a0Jonathan Mestel<\/strong>, the ex-World Champion in solving and now European champion among seniors (60+). He had perfect solving results, but his helpmate proved to be easier than those of the winners, and his score of 16+4 was enough only for 6th place. If you want to test yourself, you can find all the problems\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>

The festival was organized by the Slovak Organization for Chess Composition, and supported by the Slovak Chess Federation. The SCF President\u00a0Milan Roman<\/strong>\u00a0and Vice-President\u00a0\u0160tefan Blaho<\/strong>\u00a0took part in the opening and closing ceremonies, together with the WFCC President\u00a0Marjan Kova\u010devi\u0107<\/strong>.<\/p>

After the 16th ECSC, the results of the\u00a045th German Solving Championship<\/a>\u00a0didn’t change much on the top of the WSC Standings. It was a 6th WSC Category event, and the most important points (23, 19, and 16) were collected by the domestic solvers\u00a0Ulrich Voigt<\/strong>,\u00a0Boris Tummes<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Arno Zude<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>

This tournament was officiated by the busiest FIDE Solving Arbiter\u00a0Axel Steinbrink<\/strong>, the assistant in both solving events in Bratislava before that. His selections often hide some hard nuts to crack, and this time the hardest one was the next innocently looking endgame:<\/p>

3<\/strong><\/p>

\"\"<\/p>

White to play and draw<\/em><\/p>

How to start? The nine best solvers in Gera didn’t get a single point here, stumbling right at the first white move!<\/p>

There are three more national championships inside the WSC 2022\/23, two of them this weekend: in\u00a0Azerbaijan (June 24-25),<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Israel (June 25)<\/a>. The last national championship in 2023 will be held in\u00a0the\u00a0Czech Republic (August 26-27)<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>

Whatever happens there, Batumi open (September 4) will be the decisive event, with at least 41 WSC points to grab for the 1st place, or even 46, if the field reaches 1st WCSC Category (top ten average rating over 2.600). The strongest possible field is expected, as the Batumi open comes as an introduction to the\u00a046th World Chess Solving Championship (September 5-6)<\/a>.<\/p>

Solutions<\/strong>:<\/p>

1.<\/strong>\u00a0Marko Klasinc,\u00a0<\/strong>Original after Tivadar Kardos (version)<\/p>

A)\u00a01.<\/strong>Q<\/strong>xd5\u00a0<\/strong>K<\/strong>xe3 2.<\/strong>K<\/strong>b3\u00a0<\/strong>K<\/strong>d2 3.<\/strong>K<\/strong>a4\u00a0<\/strong>K<\/strong>c3 4.<\/strong>Q<\/strong>b5 b3#<\/strong>;<\/p>

B)\u00a01.<\/strong>N<\/strong>a7\u00a0<\/strong>B<\/strong>xc6 2.<\/strong>Q<\/strong>xb2+\u00a0<\/strong>K<\/strong>d1 3.<\/strong>Q<\/strong>a1+\u00a0<\/strong>K<\/strong>c2 4.<\/strong>B<\/strong>c8\u00a0<\/strong>B<\/strong>d5#<\/strong><\/p>

2.<\/strong>\u00a0Dan Meinking 15th Place 5th WCCT 1993-97<\/p>

A)\u00a01.<\/strong>K<\/strong>e2\u00a0<\/strong>Q<\/strong>c4 2.<\/strong>R<\/strong>f7 d4#<\/strong>;<\/p>

B)\u00a01.<\/strong>K<\/strong>f4\u00a0<\/strong>R<\/strong>c4 2.<\/strong>B<\/strong>xg7 e5#<\/strong>;<\/p>

C)\u00a01.<\/strong>K<\/strong>xg4\u00a0<\/strong>B<\/strong>xd7 2.<\/strong>Q<\/strong>xc3 fxg6#<\/strong><\/p>

3.<\/strong>\u00a0Volker Hergert, Original for Die Schwalbe 2023<\/p>

1.e4!\u00a0<\/strong>B<\/strong>xe4 2.a5!\u00a0<\/strong>K<\/strong>g5 3.d5!\u00a0<\/strong>B<\/strong>xd5 4.c6!\u00a0<\/strong>B<\/strong>e4 5.a6\u00a0<\/strong>B<\/strong>d3+ 6.<\/strong>K<\/strong>a5\u00a0<\/strong>B<\/strong>e4 7.<\/strong>K<\/strong>b5\u00a0<\/strong>=<\/p>


Text: Marjan Kova\u010devi\u0107, WFCC President<\/p>

Photos: Julia Vysotska<\/p>

Official website:\u00a0WFCC \u2013 World Federation for Chess Composition<\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo: Eddy van Beers (Belgium, bronze), Kacper Piorun (Poland, gold) and Piotr Murdzia (Poland, silver) The season of the official solving competitions organized by the\u00a0World Federation for Chess Composition\u00a0is getting closer to its final and the most important stage: the 46th World Chess Solving Championship in Batumi (September 2-9). The\u00a016th European Chess Solving Championship\u00a0is in the books, and only four more legs of the\u00a0World Solving Cup 2022\/23\u00a0remain. The European Chess Solving Championship brought together 75 solvers from 18 countries in sunny and friendly Bratislava at the entrance to the Old City. As usual, the ECSC festival included several solving and composing tournaments.\u00a0 The major event, European Team and Individual Championship, went smoothly, officiated by experienced FIDE Solving Judge\u00a0Marko Klasinc\u00a0from Slovenia. Being\u00a0FIDE Master for Chess Composition\u00a0and\u00a0FIDE Solving Master\u00a0helped him to select a set of\u00a018 solver-friendly compositions of high artistic quality. None of them was too difficult, but all together, they were tough enough to prevent even the best solvers from scoring the maximum of 90 points. Waiting for the new set of problems to solve The problems were spread over six rounds, each including three entries from different genres: 1. twomovers (20 minutes), 2. threemovers (60 minutes), 3. endgames (100 minutes), 4.selfmates (50 minutes), 5. moremovers (80 minutes) and 6. helpmates (50 minutes). The main favourites, multiple world champions\u00a0Piotr Murdzia\u00a0and\u00a0Kacper Piorun, cruised through the first day with perfect results, the same as the 4th seed\u00a0Marko Filipovi\u0107\u00a0from Croatia. The challenges and tension started mounting on the second day. Filipovi\u0107 lost 5 points on selfmates and gave up third place to\u00a0Vladimir Podini\u0107\u00a0from Serbia, who in turn lost all 15 points in the next round of moremovers. Meanwhile, the Polish duo kept their cool and had perfect results all the way to the final round. Before three helpmates, later easily solved by several solvers (the shortest time was only 23 out of 50 minutes), Murdzia had a slight advantage in time over Piorun (250:259 minutes) and an excellent chance to win.\u00a0 The last round proved that tension affects even the best of the best. It all came down to the last two problems. The first one was a helpmate in four moves with two intended solutions. 1 Helpmate in 4 moves, 2 solutions Both leaders found only one solution, each of them missing a different one. Since both spent a maximum of 50 minutes and missed one solution each, it looked as if Murdzia won on time tiebreak, but see what happened with one of his solutions in helpmate in 2 moves: \u00a02 Helpmate in 2 moves, 3 solutions This complex position, with three different pawn batteries set to open the lines of wB, wR and wQ, hides unusual regrouping of white guns in each solution. Probably, the trickiest solution is\u00a01.Kf4 Rc4 2.Bxg7! e5# Eight-minute difference decided the tight race between the two favourites in the 2023 Polish Championship, but this time around 9 minutes had no importance as, in a hurry, the 8-time World champion switched the order of two black moves and wrote 1.Bxg7, jumping over the wRc3 on the first move. This rarely-seen blunder (1.5 points) was enough for Kacper Piorun to finally celebrate his first European victory after already having five world champion titles under his belt.\u00a0 Eddy van Beers\u00a0from Belgium won the bronze medal and completed the expected domination of the top three seeds. Kamila Hryshchenko\u00a0(GBR; below, center),\u00a0Denisa-Andreea Bucur\u00a0(ROU;\u00a0below, left) and\u00a0Daria Dvoeglazova\u00a0(ISR; below, right) became the best female solvers (pictured with WFCC President\u00a0Marjan Kova\u010devi\u0107). With the top two\u00a0individual scores, the Polish solvers had a massive chance for team victory, but it was not guaranteed since the three best results of four team members count in each round.\u00a0Piotr G\u00f3rski, another ex-world champion, was the only team member to have perfect 45 points on the second day, while\u00a0Jakub Marciniszyn\u00a0contributed in the 2nd, 3rd and 6th rounds. This lucky combination explains the convincing\u00a0Polish win\u00a0with 260 out of possible 270 points: when one of the solvers had a bad round, the other three made up for that! With their sixth European title, Polish solvers matched the record held by Serbian team, but in the meantime, new contenders for team medals emerged. Lithuanian solvers started their rise in 2018 when\u00a0Martynas Limontas\u00a0won the World Solving Cup and kept winning medals in this prestigious competition. Thanks to these impressive results, Lithuanian solvers got strong support on the governmental level, and this year another rising star was born.\u00a0 Aged under 18,\u00a0Kevinas Kuznecovas\u00a0reeled off several victories at the World Solving Cup to become the overall WSC leader after 13 out of 17 WSC legs. Given that his countryman Limontas holds 2nd WSC place, the silver medal for the Lithuanian team was no surprise, but the two WSC leaders wouldn’t have made it alone.\u00a0Vidmantas Satkus\u00a0became a hero of the team climbing to the 5th individual place, while\u00a0Viktoras Paliulionis\u00a0also contributed in a tense last round. Checking solutions after a round The bronze medal for the Slovakian team was a great satisfaction for the hosts and their organizing team. Having an average rating much lower than the 4th placed Serbian team,\u00a0Tom\u00e1\u0161 Peitl,\u00a0Richard Dobi\u00e1\u0161,\u00a0Juraj L\u00f6rinc\u00a0and\u00a0Marek Kol\u010d\u00e1k\u00a0leapfrogged the defending champions and put the icing on the cake of their organizing efforts. Once again, the team’s success didn’t come from the sum of individual results but from a lucky match in each round, which usually comes with good team spirit. In fact, Marek Kol\u010d\u00e1k and Tom\u00e1\u0161 Peitl weren’t solving only chess problems in Bratislava. They were among the main members of the ECSC organizing committee, together with\u00a0Mari\u00e1n Kri\u017eovensk\u00fd,\u00a0Tom\u00e1\u0161 Peitl,\u00a0\u013dubom\u00edr \u0160ir\u00e1\u0148\u00a0and\u00a0Milan \u0160umn\u00fd. As mentioned before, ECSC is a massive festival, and this time, the organizers had to take care of not less than four different solving events and two thematic tournaments in composing. Marek Kol\u010d\u00e1k, an architect by profession, engaged several members of his artistically inclined family to help surf through the organizing duties. His daughter\u00a0Nela Kol\u010d\u00e1k\u00a0was on registering desk, his brother-in-low\u00a0Erik Rothenstein\u00a0was performing a musical program on saxophone during ceremonies, and his mother\u00a0B\u011bla Kol\u010d\u00e1kov\u00e1\u00a0inspired the official banner with one of her chess paintings<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":22756,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[79],"regular":[],"sticky-post":[],"class_list":["post-22754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chess-news","tag-composition-and-solving"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22754"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22759,"href":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22754\/revisions\/22759"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22754"},{"taxonomy":"regular","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regular?post=22754"},{"taxonomy":"sticky-post","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sticky-post?post=22754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}