World Chess Problem Solving Championships
If you appreciate the beauty of chess above all else, and enjoy figuring out devilishly difficult puzzles, then solving chess problems could be for you!
The World Chess Solving Championship is one of FIDE's less well known championship events. The 34th edition of this fascinating competition (31st of the individual championship) recently took place in Crete and was won for the third time by the English GM, chess writer, mathematician and all-round clever-clogs John Nunn (pictured).
In second place was the five-time champion Piotr Murdzia, who led the Polish team to the Gold medal in the team event.
The format consists of six rounds of problems over two days, with 71 participants having to solve the puzzles against the clock.
| Day 1 | Round 1 | 3 twomovers in 20 minutes |
| Round 2 | 3 threemovers in 60 minutes | |
| Round 3 | 3 endgame studies in 100 minutes | |
| Day 2 | Round 4 | 3 helpmates in 50 minutes |
| Round 5 | 3 moremovers in 80 minutes | |
| Round 6 | 3 selfmates in 50 minutes |
German solver Michael Pfannkuche took the bronze medal.
| Solver | Country | Rd1 | Rd2 | Rd3 | Rd4 | Rd5 | Rd6 | Total | |
| 1 | Nunn, John | GBR | 15.0 | 13.5 | 5.0 | 12.5 | 11.0 | 14.0 | 71.0 |
| 2 | Murdzia, Piotr | POL | 15.0 | 15.0 | 2.0 | 12.5 | 10.0 | 15.0 | 69.5 |
| 3 | Pfannkuche, Michael | GER | 15.0 | 13.0 | 1.0 | 10.5 | 15.0 | 9.5 | 64.0 |
The full results can be found here. An example of the fiendishly difficult problems the competitors were set is below. The variations of the solution are given in the move list.
All the problems and their solutions can be found here.
