FIDE/WFCC special project: 1st World Youth Chess Solving Championships
The FIDE Centenary celebrations include some new and promising projects in cooperation with the World Federation for Chess Competition. In November, the World Youth Solving Championships for girls and boys will be held in Florianópolis, the capital of southern Brazil's Santa Catarina state, where juniors will be solving eight problems and endgames on November 4, during the free day of the World Youth Chess Championships. You can try your hand at a typical puzzle like the ones they will get.
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.
A month ago Batumi, Georgia, 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
Since 2006, David Gurgenidze, Grandmaster of Chess Composition, chess writer, historian and trainer, in short – a Georgian chess legend, 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.
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.
The above are excerpts from an article written by WFCC president Marjan Kovačević.
Official website: WFCC – World Federation for Chess Composition
