Barry Peter Barnes (1937-2025) was a tireless promoter of the best in chess composition art for 70 years, since his first published problem in 1954. With his contemporaries Michael Lipton and John Rice, in the late 1950s and early 1960s he revolutionised the British two-mover, moving from the single phase fashion to modern multiphase contents. Their joint book “The Two-Move Chess Problem: Tradition and Development” (1966) was a glorious monument to their revolution, and a brilliant gift for future generations.
Barry’s open mind and readiness for novelties never changed, up to the last problems he composed, and his final award, completed quite recently for The Hopper. Whatever the state of his health or private obligations, he was always there to help chess composers and promote the growth of chess composition.
The late 1960s were full of rewards and new engagements for Barry. In 1966 he was invited by the FIDE PCCC President Comins Mansfield to act as the PCCC Secretary. He was later to fulfil a promise to Mansfield to publish his complete output. Barry became a long-lasting British Delegate, PCCC Vice-President, and an Honorary Member. In 1967, only 30 years old, he earned the titles of lnternational Master of the FIDE for Chess Composition and lnternational Judge of the FIDE for Chess Composition.
Barry made a great contribution to The Problemist, writing numerous articles including a number of amusing Sherlock Holmes stories. He edited the two-move originals from 1964 to 1997, helping generations of newcomers with their early steps in the genre. My time to learn from him started half a century ago, and never ended. His kind postcards and letters definitely shaped my love for the two-mover, and The Problemist became my favourite magazine. Later, aside from the magazines, I started receiving his new books, always with noble contents and gentle inscriptions.
His last publications were his “blue book” and the “red book”. Behind the self-ironical subtitle “BPB – COMPOSER – A SHADOW OF HIS FORMER SELF”, one finds all that made Barry an icon of chess composition throughout his life. These books are full of love for his friends and his family up to his great-grandchildren, with compositions and comments full of subtle humour, kindness and highly independent thinking.
My deepest condolences go to Barry’s dear wife Jean, to his large and so beloved family, and to all British chess problemists. We share the same, irreparable loss. Barry’s endless optimism; his work, problems and books, will live as a sparkling advertisement of how chess composition may be a noble art that shares joy and friendship around the world.
Barry’s publications:
The two move chess problem: Tradition and development (with Michael Lipton and John Rice) 1966
Pick of the best chess problems 1976
Comins Mansfield MBE: Chess problems of a Grandmaster 1976
White to play and mate in two 1991
A.R.Gooderson: An English Progressive 1996
Complete Mansfield (3 volumes) 1996-99
Barnes about chess problems 2001
Conquering Kings 2004
B.P.Barnes Collected chess problems 2018
The BCPS Centenary Review 1918-2018 (with Michael McDowell) 2020
In 2007, the WFCC accepted the idea of the famous Ukrainian Grandmaster of Chess Composition Valentin Rudenko (1938-2016) to name January 4th as the International Day of Chess Composition.
Happy day to all chess composers, solvers, judges, editors, organizers and volunteers!
8 tournaments of the 4th quarter 2024 are included: 33rd Kedainiai Cup 2024, Open of Hamlet Amiryan Memorial Tournament, Hamlet Amiryan Memorial Tournament 2024, 39th Open Swiss Solving Championship 2024, 6th Pavle Orlov Memorial 2024, Solving Championship of Romania 2024, 29th Belgian Championship 2024, 9th Greek Chess Solving Cup 2024.
Ranking of the top 10 solvers: 1. Danila Pavlov (FID) 2835.28, 2. Kacper Piorun (POL) 2717.28, 3. Piotr Murdzia (POL) 2700.12, 4. John Nunn (GBR) 2654.46, 5. Ural Khasanov (FID) 2653.87, 6. Nikos Sidiropoulos (GRE) 2590.25, 7. Bojan Vučković (SRB) 2581.04, 8. Eddy Van Beers (BEL) 2568.75, 9. Ilija Serafinović (SRB) 2563.07, 10. Aleksey Popov (FID) 2560.30. Largest five gains: Roland Baier (SUI) +25.92, junior Anton Nasyrov (FID) +19.76, Evgenios Ioannidis (GRE) +18.81, David Saioc (ROU) +17.81, Thomas Maeder (SUI) +17.47
“One Endgame Study in a Thousand”: From a collection celebrating each year of FIDE to the composing tourney for beginners and more
The collaboration between FIDE and the World Federation for Chess Composition (WFCC) reached new heights in 2024, marked by several joint projects. Following the FIDE & WFCC World Cadet & Youth Chess Solving Championships in Italy and Brazil this November, a unique collection of 101 outstanding endgame studies was published to celebrate the art of chess over each year of the FIDE Centenary (1924–2024).
The project was spearheaded by Gady Costeff, an acclaimed endgame study composer and advocate for chess artistry. Inspired by a suggestion from FIDE Executive Director Victor Bologan, Costeff undertook the formidable task of picking out a single remarkable chess study for each year of FIDE’s history. Selecting one composer per year, without repetition, highlighted FIDE’s motto, “Gens Una Sumus” (We Are One Family). The result, One Endgame Study in a Thousand, draws from the annual production of roughly a thousand high-quality endgame studies on average.
In the words of the editor: “The 101 studies in this book are extraordinary, each in their own way. Incredible mate, stunning sacrifice, astonishing foresight, shocking capture avoidance, mind-boggling depth, humorous maneuvers, and many more delightful surprises await you. Taken together, these studies show the development of the endgame study over the period 1924–2024.
The studies are presented with up to six sequential diagrams. Each highlight gets its own diagram, so the reader can follow the action from start to finish, much like they would follow a chess game. The commentary includes insights on the studies, their history, and the composers whose work is presented.”
WFCC Presidium has the pleasure of presenting an important project to popularize chess composition and assure better conditions for our most important solving competitions.
Upon a personal initiative of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad Al Sharqi, Crown Prince of Fujairah, our UAE members, WFCC Vice-President Abdulla Ali Aal Barket, and WFCC Secretary Mohammad Alhallak, have realized the project of the WFCC Fujairah Grand Prix cycle 2025-26, the first cycle of what is planned to be a traditional competition.
The Grand Prix 2025-26 consists of (at least) four qualifying solving competitions, leading to the final competition in Fujairah, at the end of 2026. →read more (show/hide)…
The qualifying stages may be any strong solving competitions, but the highest points in qualifications and the highest prizes will be earned in two strongest competitions: WCSC & ECSC.
The organizers of WCSC & ECSC 2025 have confirmed they would join the Grand Prix cycle, so the results from these two competitions will complete qualifications in 2025. If the 2026 hosts of ECSC or WCSC decide not to be a part of the Grand Prix cycle, the results of two other 2026 solving events will be counted instead of the results of ECSC/WCSC. Thus, the 2025-26 cycle may consist of 4, 5 or 6 qualifying stages.
Each ECSC leg will have a budget of 12,000 €, including 2,000 € allocated to the host for covering the expenses of judges, solving halls, etc. The remaining 10,000 € will be distributed to the winners in general standings; to the most successful women, seniors, domestic participants and juniors in different age categories (U23, U18 & U14), as well as to the best participants in different rating categories. The highest individual prize is 1,000 € – for the individual ECSC winner.
The budget for the WCSC leg is 15,000 €, including 3,000 € allocated to the organizing expenses. The fund for solvers of 12,000 € will be distributed to proportionally increased prizes for the same categories of solvers as in the ECSC leg. The highest prize is 1,250 €, for the individual WCSC winner.
In the Fujairah Final, the prize fund will be 27,000 € for solvers, and 3,000 € for composers. The problems and endgames to be solved in the Final will be originals, each composed by a different author. The Top Ten solvers in the final standings will vote for the best problem/endgame in each of the six rounds.
The part of the Grand Prix budget allocated to organizing costs should allow better overall conditions and a dignified status of judges and competitors (adequate solving hall, coffee breaks, appropriate closing ceremony with cups and medals, etc). With the lack of human resources we’ve been facing (including organizers and judges), and with a constant rise of prices, the budget for organizing costs comes as a very valuable support to the WFCC.
The Grand Prix budget isn’t related to the WFCC budget. The competitions using the Grand Prix budget are obliged to promote the official logo of the Grand Prix in official presentations, such as websites, banners and rolls up:
WFCC Presidium welcomes this generous initiative of the UAE members to assure continuation of our most important competitions and to lift them to a higher level. We trust the WFCC Fujairah Grand Prix 2025-26 will be a great success and the beginning of a long lasting tradition.
Merry Christmas to all lovers of chess composition!
The youngest players are more interested in chess composition
Two weeks after the 1st FIDE & WFCC World Youth Chess Solving Championships in Brazil (U14, U16, and U18 years), we were hoping that younger categories of players (U8, U10 and U12), participants of the World Chess Championships in Italy (Montesilvano, November 14-27), will be less pressed with OTB ambitions and more curious to try themselves in solving. In Brazil, the numbers of solvers per group were inversely proportional to their age, and the same tendency was shown in Italy, where each age category had more solvers than all three groups in Florianópolis together!
The 1st World Cadet Chess Solving Championship took place on 21st November, with 228 solvers, including 87 girls. →read more (show/hide)…
The same as for the Brazilian event, the problems were selected by WFCC Vice-Presidnet Dinu-Ioan Nicula who was also the director at the place. His helper, the WFCC Secretary Mohammad Alhallak, took part in several organizational activities, including presentation of the competition in the new WFCC account in the Chess-Results server. The fact that they were present in Montesilvano during two weeks, as the selected International Chess Arbiters for the World Cadet Chess Championship, made the whole solving project smoother and less expensive.
For many cadets 60 minutes were too short a time to handle six problems. In the U8 category there were five twomovers and one endgame. As presented in the Results and Problems’ Difficulty page, some twomovers were more difficult for them than the study. Even the starter among twomovers caused some upsets, most notably to Rayna Yan from USA. The girl spent only 35 minutes, and with the best time among top ten contenders she missed to become the absolute winner among boys and girls.
The U10 group of 91 solvers was the largest and the only one with a perfect result, achieved by Anand Tsogtbileg from Mongolia. The problems for U12 group were too difficult for more than a half of the participants. One of the reasons was failure to write correctly solution of the easiest #2, where both white Knights may go to square d4, and only one of them is the correct key-piece. This problem shows that either many of the U12 players have issues with chess notation, or they didn’t read the official Regulations, where exactly such a case was clearly explained. The WFCC Solving Calendar shows all details about FIDE & WFCC solving championships 2024, including results, problems, and solutions.
The WFCC Vice-President Abdulla Ali Aal Barket came to the closing ceremony in Montesilvano to mark this inaugural event with a special WFCC plaque presented to the main chess organizers Roberto Mogranzini and Nadia Ottavi.
We hope the new tradition of joint FIDE & WFCC solving events will be growing in quantity and quality from 2025 on.
Florianópolis, the capital of southern Brazil’s Santa Catarina state, was the venue of the 1st FIDE & WFCC World Youth Chess Solving Championships in the Open and Girls categories for participants up to 14, 16 & 18 years. The solving competitions in these six categories were held in the context of the World OTB Championships in the same age and gender categories, during the free day in the OTB events, on 4th November 2024.
The first solving events in the context of main FIDE championships dated back in 2006, thanks to Georgian Grandmaster of Chess Composition David Gurgenidze and his compatriot Akaki Iashvili, currently at the position of the FIDE Special Tasks Director and Events Commission Chairman. Since then, there were five such competitions, all of them directed by Mr. Gurgenidze, and mostly happening when the big FIDE events were organized in Georgia. This year, for the first time, the solving championships were an official part of a joint project of FIDE and WFCC. Also, for the first time FIDE separated Youth competitions (U14, U16 & U18), from Cadets events (U8, U10 & U12).
From the WFCC side, the solving event in Brazil was realization of a long lasting project, starting year ago and involving many contributors. In the first steps to it, Dinu-Ioan Nicula made proposal for the rules, while Ilija Serafimović and Marcos Roland prepared instructions for writing with illustrative examples. Mohammad Alhallak has done a huge work in preparing registration forms; organizing presentation on the Chess-Results server, and manually adding all participants into it. Anirudh Daga and Marjan Kovačević organized free online solving lessons for all interested.
420 participants from over 50 countries, including many trainers, registered for these online lessons. At the end of his amazing project, Anirudh sent the recorded video materials from all five sessions to all 420 registered participants. It is important to notice that more than a half of them came from Asia (India 106, China 80…), and only 67 from European countries. At the moment, Anirudh is continuing promotion of these online sessions, posting them in the form of series of articles in the well-known ChessBase website.
The media promotion of FIDE & WFCC solving events was as wide and intensive as possible. Several articles were published on the FIDE website and FIDE & WFCC social media; the famous Indian chess promoter Sagar Shah volunteered to create a promo video and the Fujairah team has created another promo video. Posted in the FIDE Facebook channel, their video attracted over 10000 views, more than any WFCC post ever before.
First steps are usually the hardest, and the Brazilian event was far from being an exception. As experience has showed, the older age categories of chess players (and their trainers!) are much more oriented toward the OTB chess results, and less ready to experiment in the field of chess composition during an important tourney. The decreasing of numbers of participants with their age (14-16-18) has proved it once again.
Another obstacle was communication with the main chess organizers away from Europe. Even the Brazilian team of three WFCC engaged organizers was almost 900 km away, coming from Rio in the eve of event. Ricardo Vieira was the director of the solving competition, with Bruno Perez as his assistant. Marcos Roland took many different roles before and during competition, including a series of solving events and free online lessons across Brazil. Dinu-Ioan Nicula selected the three sets of problems and endgames, while Axel Steinbrink and Miodrag Mladenović were giving important technical help in the use of STM and posting results in WFCC Solving Portal.
At the end, 63 out of 87 registered participants took part. This number didn’t reflect all preparatory efforts, but the quality was better than quantity. With 8 tasks to solve in 90 minutes it was good no participant ended with zero in the final standings. The most impressive results were achieved by the girls, especially in the youngest age category, where they completely overshadowed boys of the same age.
Unofficial results were sent by email to the participants the same night, and the protests were replied by sending the scanned solving sheets. So, in the morning of 5th November the winners of the 1st WYCSC were crowned.
Before turning thoughts to 21st November and the 1st World Cadets Chess Solving Championships (U8, U10 & U12) in Montesilvano (Italy), you may read the report from Florianópolis, by Marcos Roland, one of the main organizers of the 1st WYCSC:
I experienced one of the greatest expectations of my life in the days leading up to the first world chess solving championship for the youth (WYCSC; U-14, U-16 and U-18 categories), in the very friendly and welcoming city of Florianópolis, in the south of my country. The holding of this event represented the culmination of almost two decades of efforts to bring together chess problemists and chess players, represented by their respective federations, the World Federation for Chess Composition (WFCC) and the Fédération internationale d’échecs (FIDE).
The event took place on a free day in the context of the World Youth Chess Championship, U-14, U-16 and U-18 categories, and the solving competition was divided into the same categories. Girls could choose to be classified in their own group (G) or in the open group (O), together with the boys. None of the girls opted for the open group, all preferred to compete in their own group. Interestingly, they missed a good opportunity to make it explicitly clear that, possibly, gender differences in chess are counting less, because, in the end of the day, the girls practically dominated the U-14 category, in which they placed three of the four best scorers, shared the honors in the U-16 category, in which they placed three of the five best scorers, and only came behind the boys, but with some excellent performances, in the U-18 category!
My country was given the honor and also the great responsibility of hosting this historic event, and I confess that I was nervous and worried when I arrived in Floripa, a few days before the solving event. Local organizers had no experience in this type of side event, and difficulties were expected. The director of the main event, the well-known Brazilian chess organizer and promoter Kaiser Luiz Mafra, whom I thank here, did everything in his power to provide us with suitable conditions. However, the venue for the event, which had been chosen long before the agreement between the WFCC and FIDE was signed, had certain physical limitations. I encountered some difficulties in carrying out my duties, one of them being the confirmation of the registrations for the event.
However, I believe that, in the end of the day, everything worked out. Although the number of participants was lower than we had hoped, this was probably due more to a change in expectations of parents or coaches regarding the level of difficulty of the problems that would be proposed to the participants. One coach of a national team even told me that he would not enter his young players in the competition because there was too little time for adequate preparation, but that he would like to have some technical support in the future to instruct young chess players from his country in the field of chess solving.
The closing – prize giving ceremony was like a synthesis of the ups and downs that characterized the holding of this first WYCSC. It was held in the cramped lobby next to the playing hall. In this sense it was a modest and poor ceremony, but at the same time it was a meeting of organizers and young people and their coaches and relatives, all very pleased to have participated in an event of high technical level. Therefore, I believe that the medals, distributed in such a simple and improvised way, with the help of an 8-year-old boy, Gabriel Henry, will be pleasant memories for those who received them. At least, that was the feeling I had when shaking hands with those people and taking pictures with them. A memorable moment in my life.
