The results of ISC 2020 are final as of 25^th of February, 2020. 48 tournaments in 31 countries, 885 solvers from 47 countries. The overall winners by category:

Category 1 (202 solvers): Ulrich Voigt, GER (1^st place), Kacper Piorun, POL (2^nd place), Evgeny Viktorov, RUS (3^rd place)

Category 2 (241 solvers): Alexander Smirnov, RUS (1^st place), Miķelis Emīls Miķelsons, LAT (2^nd place), Bartosz Świątek, POL (3^rd place)

Category 3 (442 solvers): Nikita Ushakov, RUS (1^st place), Agnesa Stepania Ter-Avetisjana, LAT (2^nd place), Daniil Maneluk, RUS (3^rd place)

The presentation page of ISC 2020 Results is updated with a gallery of participants and statistics ISC TOP 100 2005-2020 by Axel Steinbrink.

FIDE – International Chess Federation
24.02.2020

The 16^th WFCC International Solving Contest attracted a record number of 885 participants from 47 countries. Chess composition is the art of creating and solving chess problems. Tournaments, both for composers and solvers, are held all over the world and governed by the World Federation for Chess Composition (WFCC). [→more @FaceBook]

“Now we have the completed preliminary results of the ISC 2020. The reports of the Solving Tournament Manager (STM): Preliminary results Cat.1 | Preliminary results Cat.2 | Preliminary results Cat.3

This year we had 885 solvers (cat-1 202, cat-2 241, cat-3 442) from 47 countries and 48 tournaments in 31 countries.

Thank you to all local controllers. You make this tournament to a great success.

I want to give a special thank to

• Ivan Denkovski, Luc Palmans, Marjan Kovacevic and Neal Turner for selecting the problems 
• Luc Palmans  for the preparing of problem and solution sheets.
• Borislav Gadjanski for his help with all activities concerning Mat Plus and daily updates of results on Mat Plus
• all Local controllers who uses the STM for their results”

Axel Steinbrink, Central controller of ISC 2020.

The first ISC was organized in 2005 and was an immediate success. …more →

The idea of a multiple locations solving tournament was appealing, but there was also some scepticism. Of course, there were some issues, because everything was new. With trial and error in the next years the rules were slowly established. Internet, e-mail and social media made life of the controllers more easy. The Solving Tournament Manager, created by Misha Mladenović, is an incredible aid. But also the websites of WFCC (Julia Vysovska) and Mat Plus (Borislav Gadjanski) are pivotal for our competitions. We take this all for granted, but too quickly we forget all the hard work it takes.

Every year the first category of ISC welcomes some 200 solvers, many of them the best of the world. Winning this prestigious tournament is only for the happy few. The second category is much liked because the less experienced or occasional solver can enjoy a nice day of solving close at home, and still compete against the rest of the world. The introduction of a third category for kids proved to be a spark of genius. Thanks to the efforts of some local controllers, several hundred kids were this year introduced to problem chess.

The 16^th edition of the ISC will be in many ways a marking point for future tournaments. Experienced solving directors provided us with interesting problems, which lead to a selection of quality problems to solve. Especially Ivan Denkovski should be mentioned, because his review of the final proofs avoided some embarrassing errors.

We can’t praise enough the central controller Axel Steinbrink for his hard work, and without him the tournament would not be such a success. He developed the rules and the procedures of this complicated competition. As you all could witness in the past days, the tournament ran smoothly, with daily updates of the results, and a minimum of complaints. One reason of the success of this year (almost 900 solvers!) is undoubtedly that the ISC is such a well organized competition.

Everyone who was ever involved in a WCSC or ECSC-championship knows how hard this work can be: supervising several hours the competition, and then marking a few hundred solving sheets in the remaining hours, while all the solvers impatiently wait for the results. But this cannot be compared with the ISC. In the past days, Axel not only collected all the results and made all the rankings. Most of all he meticulously checked the more than 1300 solving sheets “with terrible handwriting, and corrects tens of careless local controllers” (dixit Marjan Kovacević). Thanks, Axel!

Finally, we thank all the participants for their efforts, congratulate the winners, and look forward to the 17^th edition!

Luc Palmans, Central controller of ISC 2020, Spokesman of WFCC Solving Committee

16^th ISC problems and solutions:
Problems cat.1 | Problems cat.2 | Problems cat.3 | Solutions cat.1 | Solutions cat.2 | Solutions cat.3
ISC 2020 Winners | Full Report