66th WCCC – Highlights and Decisions

66^th World Congress of Chess Composition

Jūrmala, Latvia
July 27 – August 3, 2024

Highlights & Decisions

30 member countries were present, 4 of them via Zoom connection.

Sanctions on Israel: The WFCC delegates voted on the “Proposals concerning war between Israel and Hamas” by Bjørn Enemark. Four delegates supported the proposal to apply the same sanctions on Israel as those applied on Russia and Belarus, 17 were against, and seven delegates abstained. So, the proposal wasn’t accepted.

FIDE supported projects: Marjan Kovačević informed the delegates about the difficulties the FIDE World Cup in Composing has been facing since 2023. This FIDE Special Project, initiated by Andrey Selivanov and organized by his team since 2010, was supported with yearly budget of 10000 Euros in the period 2019-2023. The sanctions on Russia prevented smooth realization in 2023 and 2024, and a new organizing team had to be found. Since it was too late for WFCC to take over the organization in 2024, the FIDE Executive Officer Victor Bologan kindly offered to reallocate the same budget to the three new FIDE supported projects in 2024: FIDE Youth Solving Events, FIDE Album, and a booklet celebrating FIDE Centenary with selected problems/endgames from the period 1924-2023. The first two projects were already on the way, and caused no additional efforts. Gady Costeff generously offered to prepare the whole material for a booklet with 100 endgames 1924-2023, and to edit it in a short time, while Peter Gvozdják kindly accepted publishing the booklet. The delegates were asked to make proposals about the future of the FIDE World Cup, including its format, budget, and the organizing team. The decisions are to be made during an online Meeting before the end of 2024.

UAE contributions to WFCC: Abdulla Ali Aal Barket presented significant contributions of the Fujairah Government and the Fujairah Chess & Culture Club to the WFCC: a yearly support of 5000 Euros since 2023; the technical support and work for all WFCC social media since 11.12.2022; support of various WFCC technical matters (Zoom Meetings, registration links for upcoming FIDE & WFCC solving competitions, updating Swiss-Manager info, etc). Thanks to the long lasting efforts of people from the Fujairah Club the first official WFCC bank account was opened in UAE and has been active since 21.11.2023. Marjan Kovačević added that massive solving competitions in Fujairah since 2017 have largely contributed to better cooperation between WFCC and the FIDE officers, being special guests during these events.

WCCT: As the spokesman Georgy Evseev was present only online, the report of the committee was presented by Kjell Widlert. The 12. WCCT should normally be announced in the spring of 2025. Georgy Evseev had distributed a letter with a request to all WFCC members to provide the following information:

– is your country ready to provide a Director for the 12. WCCT?

– proposals of themes for the 12. WCCT

– in which sections are you ready to be a judging country?

The countries are asked to answer by 15 November, 2024. Kjell Widlert stressed that without a Director, themes and judges, there will be no WCCT.

The committee had discussed whether countries with sanctions should be allowed to make a preliminary registration. The majority of the committee felt that there was no need for this: if and when the sanctions are lifted, a quick decision can be taken to allow those countries to take part. As the latest proposal to change the score calculation came very late, the committee couldn’t recommend any change (and therefore probably not for the 12. WCCT). The committee will return to the question next year.

WCCI: Preparations for WCCI 2022-24 were mostly finished in 2023, and only a few changes and additions in the list of judges and members of the Supervising Panel were added. The announcement is ready to be posted as planned. The final decisions about the future of WCCI beyond the 2022-24 cycle is needed by the next WCCC the latest, i.e. before the beginning of the next WCCI 2025-27 cycle.

Time Schedule:

December 1^st, 2024: Announcement

January 20^th, 2025: Deadline for Submission of entries to the Director Narayan Shankar Ram

By February 1^st, 2025: Entries and spreadsheets for the scores sent by email to the Judges

By June 1^st, 2025: the latest: Judges’ marks sent to the Director

June 15^th, 2025: Provisional results sent to the Supervising Panel and to the WFCC President

June 30^th, 2025: Final results published on the WFCC site

Judges:

1. Twomovers: Kabe Moen (USA); Mikhaïl Khramtsevich (BLR); Vasyl Markovciy (CZE); David Shire (GBR); Givi Mosiashvili (GEO); Reserve Judge: Piotr Novitsky (UKR).
2. Threemovers: Abdelaziz Onkoud (FRA); C.G.S. Narayanan (IND); Zoran Gavrilovski (MKD); Dragan Stojnić (SRB); Kari Valtonen (FIN); Reserve Judge: –
3. Moremovers: Uwe Karbowiak (GER); Oto Mihalčo (SVK); Mikhaïlo Marandyuk (UKR); Valery Shavyrin (RUS); Olivier Schmitt (FRA); Reserve Judge: –
4. Endgame studies: Jan Sprenger (GER); Michael Pasman (ISR); Geir Sune Ostmoe (NOR); Luis Miguel Gonzalez (ESP); Alekseï Gasparyan (ARM); Reserve Judge: Steffen Nielsen (DNK).
5. Helpmates: Francesco Simoni (ITA); Kenan Velikhanov (AZE); Marko Klasinc (SLO); Marcos Roland (BRA); Harry Fougiaxis (GRE); Reserve Judge: Ofer Comay (ISR).
6. Selfmates: Hartmut Laue (GER); Mark Erenburg (ISR); Aleksandr Azhushin (RUS); Jozef Havran (SVK); Sergey Borodavkin (UKR); Reserve Judge: –
7. Fairies: Kjell Widlert (SWE); Borislav Gadjanski (SRB); Paz Einat (ISR); Tadashi Wakashima (JAP); Emil Klemanič (SVK); Reserve Judge: –
8. Retros: Michel Caillaud (FRA); Vlaicu Crișan (ROU); Thierry Le Gleuher (CAN); Kostas Prentos (USA); Thomas Brand (GER); Reserve Judge: Andrey Frolkin (UKR).

Supervising Panel: Brian Cook (GBR), Gady Costeff (ISR), Neal Turner (FIN)

FIDE Album: All the material for the current Album 2019-21 is on the editorial site that Peter Gvozdják and his team have created. Indexing is in progress and there is a clear sign that the album will be available in the next Congress. The old proposal made by N. Shankar Ram and Vlaicu Crișan in 2022 to create a new fairy group G3 for help-self play problems of all kinds, was accepted after voting: 21 in favour, 2 against, 5 abstained. The list of judges for Album 2022-24 was finalized, and the announcement prepared:

Time Schedule

• Announcement: March 1, 2025
• Closing date: September 1, 2025
• Submission of entries to the judges: December 1, 2025
• Reports by the directors and results: December 1, 2026
• Submission of selected entries to the editor: February 1, 2027
• Indexing, typesetting, printing: August 1, 2028

Directors and judges

A) Twomovers

Director: Gérard Doukhan (FRA), gerard.doukhan@gmail.com

Judges: Vasil Dyachuk (SVK), Kabe Moen (USA), Anatoly Slesarenko (RUS)

B) Threemovers

Director: Sergey Bilyk (RUS), kuk.spb@mail.ru

Judges: Mikhailo Marandyuk (UKR), C.G.S. Narayanan (IND), Srećko Radović (SRB)

C) Moremovers

Director: Grigory Popov (RUS), popovgl@yandex.ru

Judges: Jorma Paavilainen (FIN), Valery Shavyrin (RUS), Igor Yarmonov (UKR)

D) Endgame Studies

Director: Jan Sprenger (GER), jan.sprenger@gmx.net

Judges: Amatzia Avni (ISR), Oleg Pervakov (RUS), Vladislav Tarasyuk (UKR)

E) Helpmates

Director: Harry Fougiaxis (GRE), loyaldragon@gmail.com

Helpmates in 2 moves [Group E1)

Judges: Michal Dragoun (CZE), Vladislav Nefyodov (RUS), Aleksandr Semenenko (UKR)

Helpmates in 2.5 and 3 moves (Group E2)

Judges: Valery Gurov (RUS), Mikola Kolesnik (UKR), Abdelaziz Onkoud (FRA)

Helpmates longer than 3 moves {Group E3)

Judges: Christopher Jones (GBR), Valery Semenenko (UKR), Marko Ylijoki (FIN)

F) Selfmates

Director: Zoran Gavrilovski (MKD), zoran.gavriloski@gmail.com

Judges: Aleksandr Azhusin (RUS), Frank Richter (GER), Ivan Soroka (UKR)

G) Fairies

Director: Manfred Rittirsch (GER), mrittirsch@gmail.com

Fairies without fairy conditions, other than help-self-play problems (Group G1)

Judges: Emil Klemanič (SVK), Jean-Marc Loustau (FRA), Gerard Smits (NED)

Fairies with fairy conditions, other than help-self-play problems (Group G2)

Judges: Georgy Evseev (RUS), Eric Huber (ROU), Narayan Shankar Ram (IND)

Help-self play problems (with or without fairy conditions/pieces) (Group G3)

Judges: Vlaicu Crișan (ROU), Borislav Gadjanski (SRB), Juraj Lörinc (SVK)

H) Retros

Director: Silvio Baier (GER), silvio.baier@gmx.de

Judges: Andriy Frolkin (UKR) [reserve: Kostas Prentos (USA)], Thierry le Gleuher (CAN), Reto Aschwanden (SUI) [for proofgames], Andrew Buchanan (SGP) [for retros other than proofgames]

Solving: Irregularities in the ISC 2024 were registered, but the solving committee did not identify any notable impact on the results. An additional rule was accepted to forbid money prizes in ISC in order to reduce the danger of irregularities. Point 6 of the Rules for World Solving Cup was reformulated this way: The WSC season is generally the period between two WFCC congresses. Therefore, the new WSC season usually starts after the WFCC congress, but not later than 1 September. This rule change is intended to prevent from having to propose exceptions when congresses are scheduled at a later date. The proposals on how to treat a virtual threat (in the guidelines for solving directors) and the proposals touching wildcards for ECSC &WCSC (senior team championships and wildcards for previous medallists) were left for future discussion, the same as the proposals to re-establish Olympic solving tournaments. The proposal from Dinu-Ioan Nicula to shift the tournaments with late results to the next Rating list wasn’t accepted. Instead, the organizers will be asked to avoid holding tournaments at the latest dates of the rating periods.

Youth: Brian Cook reported that the 1st Online Solving Challenge for Youth (OSCY) started well, with support from Ian Watson, Vlaicu Crișan, and Miodrag Mladenović, but more intensive advertising and support from the delegates would be welcome. Milan Petras informed about the European Youth Chess Solving Championship (U10, U14 and U18) to be held on 18^th August in Prague, with Miloslav Vanka as Selector.

Ricardo de Mattos Vieira will direct the World Youth Chess Solving Championship (U14, U16 and U18) in Florianópolis (Brazil) on 4^th November. The host of the World Cadets Chess Solving Championship (U8, U10 and U12) wil be Montesilvano (Italy). It is scheduled for 21^st November, with Dinu-Ioan Nicula as Director, and also the selector for the both November events. He gave a wider report about the progress in realization of the FIDE Youth Solving Projects. Piotr Górski joined the organization in the FIDE Youth Solving Team, and Kacper Piorun announced his readiness to contribute to promotion of these competitions. Mohammad Alhallak has done a great technical work to allow registration of the young participants and presentation in the newly opened WFCC account on the Chess-Results portal. Indian prodigy Anirudh Daga was praised for contributions to WFCC social media, and especially for organizing free online lessons for participants of the FIDE solving competitions.

The 8^th Youth Chess Composing Challenge (YCCC) has produced a large number of high quality entries by the 37 participants. The winners of the 2025 vouchers granted by the Fujairah Government are: 1. Ural Khasanov (Russia), 2. Ilija Serafimović (Serbia), 3. Benjamin Defromont (France), 4. Joachim Hambros (Austria), and Itay Richardson (Israel). The first reserves are: 6. Dylan Schenker (USA) and 7. Andrii Sergiienko (Ukraine). The 9^th YCCC will keep the same format with three standard sections.

Studies: The only topic this year was a proposal from the Finish Chess Problem Society to abandon the old rule that endgame in FIDE Album counts 1.67 title-points. This proposal, raised several times in the past,  wasn’t supported by Studies committee. After some discussions, the assembly decision was postponed.

Codex: Spokesman Kjell Widlert reported that there have been no new proposals this year (the previously announced retro-related proposals from Andrew Buchanan had not arrived), and the committee didn’t meet.

Miscellanea:

FIDE World Cup in Composing: Proposals for the future of this competition (the organizing team, budget, format and else) will be discussed in an online Meeting before the end of 2024.

WFCC Calendar of Composing Tournaments: Coordinator of the Composing Calendar Kenneth Solja informed about materials from more than 100 tourneys he posted between November 2023 and August 2024. He invited delegates and organizers to contribute more actively and pointed at main issues. One of them is that he’s been receiving pdf-files instead of links to already posted files.

Final results of the 47^th World Chess Solving Championship (WCSC):

Teams

Individuals

New titles:

• Grandmaster of the FIDE for Chess Compositions: Steffen Slumstrup Nielsen (DNK)
• International Master of the FIDE for Chess Compositions: Karen Sumbatyan(RUS)
• FIDE Master for Chess Compositions: Sergiy Didukh (UKR), Daniel Keith (FRA), Jan Sprenger (GER), Aleksandr Stavrietsky (RUS)
• International Solving Master of the FIDE: Mihnea Costachi (ROU), Jakub Marciniszyn (POL)
• FIDE Solving Master: Roman Brick (USA), Lev Glanzspiegel (ISR)
• International Judge of the FIDE for Chess Compositions: Marcin Banaszek (GER, selfmates), Viktoras Paliulionis (LTU, helpmates)

21^st International Solving Contest (ISC) on 19.01.2025, Director Arvydas Mockus.

Future events: The deadlines for bids for 67^th WCCC, 48^th WCSC & 18^th ECSC were extended till October 5 2024, the final decisions will be made in an online Meeting after that. The only bid presented before the Congress, to hold WCCC & WCSC 2025 in Moscow, wasn’t supported by the assembly.