The FIDE Centenary celebrations include some new and promising projects in cooperation with the WFCC. In November, World Solving Championships for girls and boys, the biggest ever youth-solving competitions will be held as part of FIDE major events for cadets (U8, U10, U12) and juniors (U14, U16, U18).
Juniors will be solving eight problems and endgames on November 4, during the free day of the World Youth Chess Championships in Florianópolis, the capital of southern Brazil's Santa Catarina state. Cadets will have their solving championships on November 21, the rest day of the World Cadet Chess Championships in Montesilvano, a city in the Abruzzo region of Italy.
While celebrating this historical breakthrough in promoting chess composition among new generations, it's time to recall the prehistory that allowed us to take a considerable step forward. More than 30 years ago, different countries started applying the national solving championship model in the context of national youth chess championships. On the European level, it debuted in 2002, with the first such event organized in Serbia during the European Youth Blitz and Rapid Championship, and in the age categories U10, U14, and U18. Roughly the same format has been adopted by most of the hosts of this type of European chess competition, but some countries were not ready to organize these events. In other words, those competitions depended on the activity of the local chess composers and their relations with the national chess federations.
The longer-lasting chess competitions with classical time control were more suitable for organizing solving contests during the mandatory free days. Such a concept was brought to the platform of global FIDE events in Batumi 2006, when the director of the World Youth Chess Championships 2006 Akaki Iashvili initiated World Youth Solving Cup in the age categories U10, U14 and U18. We owe it to his long-lasting cooperation with the Grandmaster of Chess Composition David Gurgenidze, a chess writer, historian and trainer, in short – a Georgian chess legend. These two prominent Georgian chess personalities opened the doors for future solving competitions as a part of FIDE youth events.
FIDE solving events pioneers Akaki Iashvili and David Gurgenidze at the closing ceremony of the World Congres of Chess Composition in Batumi 2023 / Photo WFCC
However, after Batumi 2006 and Antalya 2007, the next such competition had to wait till 2016, when the FIDE championships were again organized in Georgia. In 2022, as the FIDE Special Tasks Director, Akaki Iashvili recommended solving competitions to become a part of all FIDE youth events. In Batumi 2022 (221 participants) and again in Batumi 2023, these events were branded as World Youth Solving Championships U10, U14 and U18.
A month ago Batumi hosted a newly introduced Cadets World Cup (U8, U10 & U12), with 132 players taking part in the solving competition called the Cadets World Solving Cup. The youngest generations enjoyed uncovering subtle combinations in seemingly simple positions. To get full points for the Mate in 2 moves below, it was enough to write the correct first move of White, but to find it, one needs to anticipate all Black's replies. The surprising solution is quite enjoyable:
Yuri Selyavkin, “Vpered”, 1985
White to play and mate in 2 moves
Since 2006, David Gurgenidze has directed all FIDE solving events (in the photo gallery below during the Cadets World Solving Cup 2024), with only one of the six competitions (Antalya 2007) held outside Georgia. The organizers' goodwill and personal affinities with local chess composers determined whether such competitions would be held.
The next step was to ensure regularity of solving championships and to avoid improvisation, whatever country gets the role of the organizer of the FIDE championships. That's where fruitful cooperation between WFCC and the FIDE officers has helped enormously. It started in Fujairah 2022, when the FIDE Deputy Chair Dana Reizniece-Ozola came to honor the closing ceremony of the World Congress of Chess Composition (WCCC). The communications with the main WCCC organizer, Akaki Iashvili, continued at the WCCC 2023 in Batumi. As the Chair of the FIDE Events Commission, Akaki Iashvili negotiated with the organizers in Brazil and Italy to enrich their chess program with official solving championships under the standardized rules, conditions and guidance of the WFCC.
In January 2024, as a special guest of the 20th International Solving Contest in Fujairah, the FIDE Executive Officer Victor Bologan (pictured at the closing ceremony, with the WFCC Vice-President Abdulla Ali Aal Barket on his left) showed a great interest in solving competitions and shared his ideas how to promote them. He suggested including the youth-solving championships into the special FIDE & WFCC projects in 2024, marking the FIDE Centenary.
Photo: Fujairah Chess & Culture Club
The future of this big joint project will largely depend on the success and overall effects of the two inaugural competitions in November. Our preparations started over a year ago, with forming a working group headed by the WFCC Vice-President Dinu-Ioan Nicula. An International Chess Arbiter with more than 20 years of experience in directing solving competitions at chess events, he prepared all the relevant documents and accepted the role of selector for the November competitions.
Some other members of our society have shown great enthusiasm in joining the project. Instructions for writing solutions with illustrative examples were prepared by Ilija Serafimović and Marcos Maldonado Roland, who also contributed to logistics in Brazil, where Ricardo de Mattos Vieira took the role of main judge.
All the WFCC documents were agreed upon with the FIDE Events Commission first and then with the local organizers. These documents were enclosed in the official invitations sent to all national chess federations and later on the official websites of both FIDE events. WFCC Secretary Mohammad Alhallak has prepared the registration forms and the newly opened WFCC page on the Chess-Results server. With a kind support of Heinz Herzog, the creator of the Chess-Results server, WFCC now has a permanent license to use the most popular server for announcements and results of the official solving events. You may find the WFCC page (abbreviation WFC) on the WFCC Federation Selection List, with an announcement of the WYCSC in Brazil. It contains a link to the official homepage of the organizer with the Registration form, as well as the detailed regulations and instructions in PDF format.
The youngest member to join the project, the Indian prodigy Anirudh Daga (16), came with a revolutionary idea to organize free online solving lessons for everybody who intends to go to Brazil and Italy. And that wasn't just an idea; he took the whole preparations on himself, from Invitation, Schedule and Registration form to the final realization!
All these preparatory actions, controlled and coordinated by the WFCC, should add new qualities to the previous FIDE solving competitions organized by the Georgian team, which handed over the organization to the WFCC and helped so much in this transition. Another reason to mark the coming world championships with number 1 is the technical difference. It will be the first time the World Solving Championships will be held in all six age categories: U8, U10, U12, U14, U16, and U18.
Solution:
Yuri Selyavkin, “Vpered”, 1985
1. Re4! Bxe4 (1...Ka7 2. Ra4#) 2. Ra6#
Written by Marjan Kovačević, WFCC president
Official website: WFCC – World Federation for Chess Composition
