Tournament Awards

Please send new awards (if possible PDF and PGN) to 

webmaster This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or also to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and they will be published at this website.

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Due to the change of Judge the Provisional Award (planned for 15 Jan) for the Benko 90 JT will be delayed.

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Nielsen wins ChessStar 2018

The annual tourney of the chessstar.com website was won by Steffen Nielsen (Denmark) with a tactical battle ending in a subtle bishop endgame.
The duo Pervakov/Sumbatyan secured 2nd prize with a logical study where a seemingly anonymous pawn on h7 plays the central role.

The tourney was judged by Sergiy Didukh.

23 studies participated. The award (in Russian).

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FIDE Album 2016-2018 announcement
Composers are invited to submit their best studies for the FIDE Album 2016-18
Read the announcement on the WFCC Website

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DUE TO BECOMING A TOO BIG PAGE, THE REFERENCE TABLE IS MOVED TO ANOTHER SUBPAGE !

Awards Files

Also to be found by Menu-tab Awards

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15-12-2018: Pavel Arestov and Aleksandr Zhukov are the winners of the Shahmat Bestechiliyi 15 JT 2018

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26-11-2018: Vladislav Tarasiuk is the winner of the 6th FIDE World Cup 2018 !

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25-11-2018: 19th Ukraine championship won by Vladislav Tarasiuk.

Ukraine 19th Championship 2018

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60 studies competed in the 7th UAPA  
 
The 7th online tourney of UAPA (Union Argentina de Problemistas de Ajedrez) is a jubilee tournament in honour of Prof. Zoilo R. Caplutto.
It is split up into three sections; one for win studies, one for draw studies
and one thematic section asking for domination in the endgame Rook and Bishop or Night vs Queen.
 
The thematic tournament is a limited success with only 9 studies competing.
The winner (with an honourable mention) is Oleg Pervakov (Russia) showing a spectacular zugzwang position.
The judge was Ľuboš Kekely (Slovakia).
 
The win section (29 studies) is won by an international trio: Mario Garcia (Argentina), Pavel Arestov (Russia) and Vladislav Tarasiuk (Ukraine).
The study is a miniature showing a prolonged domination of knight by bishop and king.
Second prize went to another long "flow study" by  János Mikitovics (Hungary).
Third prize was won by Steffen Nielsen (Denmark), with a tactical-logical study where a knight sacrifice vacates a7 for the White king, at a time where the king is still on f1.

In the draw section (22 studies) the winners are David Gurgenidze (Georgia) and Martin Minski (Germany)with a tactical study ending up in a spectacular stalemate reminding us of a famous study by Gurgenidze himself from 1985 (HHDBV #  28338; Polish Chess Federation Tourney, 1st prize). 

The second prize winner is a surprise, namely Marc Gelly, a French composer who up until now has no study to his name in the Harold van der Heijden database.

Third prize is won by Marco Campioli (Italy) in typically eventful and dramatic style.

The judge for both the win and the draw section was Michal Hlinka (Slovakia). 

 
The 8th UAPA is already under way, the thematic section asking for queen and minor piece against queen endgames.
 

24-11-2018: Provisional award: Caputto-95 JT 2018 UAPA 7th

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 Martin Minski wins The Problemist tournament 2016-2017

The informal tourney of The Problemist is generally considered one of the strongest, if not the strongest, informal study tournament at present.
Judge Oleg Pervakov has just released his verdict of the period 2016-2017.
Editor Yochanan received a total of 49 studies of which 18 were awarded. You can replay the studies below.
 
The winner is Martin Minski with a large scale tactical battle ending in a original domination of the Black queen with the material NN vs QNN.
 
Second prize, a rare output by Ladislav Salai Jr., was very much different.
In miniature form, the Slovakian created a subtle study showing a stalemate and a logical try where the stalemate attempt just fails. 
 
In the third prize study by Jan TImman tactics again abounded.
The dutch GM made a strange sacrificial dance of the bishop ending only on move 14 move after a breathtaking battle.
Fourth prize went to Alain Villeneuve showing a mutual zugzwang in a rook endgame, and fifth prize to Vladislav Tarasiuk in a rook vs pawns endgame.
Please have also a look at the special prize by Jan Timman, an amazing rework of a study by Swedish composer Axel Ornstein.

22-11-2018: Replay all the studies here: The Problemist 2016-2017

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The Moscow Tournament of 2018 is won by Romanian Arpad Rusz

with a highly original rook endgame resulting in a mating attack after mutual queen promotions.

The move 4. Rh1!!, in comparison to the try 4. Rf1?, the composer describes as a "pseudo-Turton", securing that the (not yet promoted) queen gets decisive access to a8 from g8.
All in all, 30 studies competed and judge Sergey Osintsev decided to award 5 prizes (1 special prize).

22-11-2018: Moscow 2018

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Pervakov and Didukh win the 2018 Batumi Chess Olympiad

An endgame study tourney was held in connection with the 2018 Batumi Chess Olympiad.

There were two sections, both judged by International Arbiter David Gurgenidze.

The win section was won by Oleg Pervakov with an epic tactical study featuring a suble logical try.

In the draw section Sergey Didukh was succesful with a logical study showing long foresight effect in a knight endgame.
The awards are awailable here (in PDF):

Draw studies

Win studies

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21-11-2018: Gravure 2018

The study section of the Gravure tourney 2018 saw the Russian duo Oleg Pervakov and Mikhail Gromov winning ahead of a field of 18 composers.

Gravure is a traditional cross genre tourney requiring studies and problems with 8-10 pieces.

The winning study shows a highly suprising tactic (9. Rg5!!) as well a thematic try where a similar move (9. Rh5+) fails to work.

The second prize went to Sergei Osintsev, likewise from Russia. Oleg Pervakov secured another strong tournament result winning third prize.

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18-11-2018: Provisional award 4th Royal Maroc Chess Federation: FMRE 4th Moroccan 2018

17-10-2018: Kondratyuk 70 MT 2018

2-10-2018: Die Schwalbe 2016

30-9-2018: Pat a Mat 2016-2017

and Problem Paradise 2016-2017.

17-9-2018: 3rd Youth Chess Composing Challenge 2018

Provisional award JIRTDAN 2018.

16-9-2018: Hillel Aloni 80 MT 2017 (Updated 15.10.2018)

Arves 11th Jenever Ty 2018

 

Tournament Calender.

On this page a calender of all known Endgame study tournaments which are running with information:

Also a very good page to check tournament announcements is on UAPA: Informal Tournaments, Formal Tournaments.

Another good calendar for study tournaments is chess-compose blogspot.

 

Latest update on 14-1-2019.

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WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP IN COMPOSING FOR INDIVIDUALS
(WCCI) 2016-18
ANNOUNCEMENT

The WFCC is inviting composers of all countries to participate in the 2016-18 WCCI. The tourney director is Dmitry Turevsky (email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." target="_blank">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.). The competition will be held according to the system used in the previous championship, with changes in the points 4, 5, 8 and 12 of the rules.

Time Schedule

  • September 2018: Announcement
  • January 20th 2019 12 Midnight UTC: Deadline for the submission of entries to the director
  • February 1st 2019: Entries and spreadsheets for the scores sent by email to the judges
  • June 1st 2019: Judges’ marks sent to the director
  • June 15th 2019: Provisional results sent to the Supervising Panel and to the WFCC president
  • June 30th 2019: Final results published on the WFCC site

Judges for studies:

D) Endgame studies: van der Heijden, Harold (NED), Gyarmati, Peter (HUN), Minski, Martin (GER), Nielsen, Steffen Slumstrup (DEN), Rusz, Arpad (ROU).

All details at WFCC.

Latest News

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The most quality magazine about Chess Endgame studies for over 53 years !!

The annual subscription to EG (Jan. 1 - Dec. 31) is only € 30,- euro for 4 issues.

Check it out  at: EG

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Update: 14-1-2019:

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Tip: the Chessify app on your mobile phone

(Apple and Android):

 

Chessify is a must-have tool for chess lovers.

It allows to scan and digitize chess diagrams from books, journals, pdf files,

or other sources with acceptable recognition efficiency,

which makes its scanner the best chess OCR tool (optical character recognition) in the market.

The app also allows the users to analyze the digitized positions either locally or on cloud servers for free.

The strongest chess engines are used for analysis, such as Stockfish 10.

The cloud Stockfish engine can be used for free at about 25.000 kN/s speed for 10 seconds.

If you want to play or analyze interesting chess positions and puzzles, Chessify is a perfect and free app for you.

Notably, you can also save the needed positions (FEN) in the app’s storage and share them with other chess applications.

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At the website by Arpad Rusz the announcement is made about the publication of the studies

for the World Championship in Composing for Individuals (WCCI 2016-18)

organized by the World Federation of Chess Composition.

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In the German magazine "die Schwalbe" there is an excellent article about the famous composer Hermann Mattison.
The study expert Stephen Rothwell from Henstedt - Ulzburg has selected some of the 
famous studies by Mattison, which are still recommended for every chess player today.
 
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Sergei Tkachenko has written many new books about endgame studies:

Biography's about Gorgiev, Tigran 1910-1976, Zinar, Mikhail 1951 and Rezvov, Nikolay 1921-2013:

 

With 100 studies each and pictures.

And by material theme:

 

  

You may can find more details about them and more chessbooks at: http://www.elkandruby.com/

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Due to the change of Judge the Provisional Award (planned for 15 Jan) for the Benko 90 JT will be delayed.

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At "Elk and Ruby Publishing House" high quality Chess books are published.

Also about Endgame studies.

Oleg Pervakov (born in 1960 in the city of Kirov) is widely recognized as Russia’s greatest living chess composer.

He has composed nearly 500 studies and he has won the individual chess composition world championship three times: in 2004-2006, 2007-2009 and 2013-2015.

In this book, Sergei Tkachenko, a member of the Ukrainian team that won the 5th World Chess Composition Tournament in 1997

and which came second in 2000, 2004, 2013, and 2017, has selected 100 of Oleg Pervakov’s best studies.

The selection is quite varied – from elegant short studies with six moves to romantic grotesques with many pieces on board and over 30 moves to the solution.

Yet what all of these studies have in common is spectacular play by both sides.

And watch out: they are tough! That said, Oleg’s compositions are never boring.

You may buy this collection of studies to test your endgame tactical abilities, to improve your endgame understanding, or simply to appreciate chess in all its beauty.

Unlike previous studies books compiled by Sergei Tkachenko this book is not pocket-sized due to its longer solutions.

Available at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/5604071048

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The leading publishing house Quality Chess has just released a new title by Yochanan Afek

Practical Chess Beauty

Summing up a creative career of over 50 years the new hardcover book introduces in 464 pages

Yochanan’s selected endgame studies, games and fragments, as well as bites from his problems in other genres all presented in thematic chapters.

The book is available in online chess shops and on the publisher’s website also in a digital version from Forward Chess.

Look it up here:

Practical Chess Beauty

Author Yochanan Afek with Jan Timman (left) and the new book. 

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14-11-2018: New issue of Finales Y Temas 107

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Older messages can be found at menu News: Archived news messages

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10th International Solving Contest Arves 2019 at Wijk Aan Zee during Tata Steel chess touunament at Saterday 27-1-2019.

See for details Agenda

Details in Dutch at Schaaksite.

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Cook found in 2nd prize study in Hillel Aloni 80 MT 2017

Correction is created and added to this page.

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 Everyday a quote in the footer of each page about chess or art.