The 3rd European Chess Solving Championship

There follows a very welcome first guest blog posting by Michael McDowell -

"The 3rd European Chess Solving Championship was held in Pardubice, Czech Republic, on 14th-15th July 2007. 17 teams and a total of 84 solvers competed.

The Great Britain team has won the last two World Championships, but for various reasons has not been able to field its strongest teams for either of the last two European Championships. The format favours teams who have greater strength in depth, as World Championships require teams of three with the highest two scores counting each round, whereas in the European Championship three and two becomes four and three. The team consisted of Jonathan Mestel, Ian Watson, Paul Cumbers and myself. The remaining two places were taken up by Dafydd Johnston, who has experience at British Championship level, and his son Ifan, who was competing (as a Junior) in a clock solving event for the first time.

I travelled with 1997 World Solving Champion Jonathan Mestel. As Jonathan was by far the team's best solver, I felt duty-bound to spend the flight feeding him problems to get him mentally attuned for the forthcoming contest. On landing at Prague we were surprised to meet Paul, accompanied by a taxi driver who was waiting for the Johnstons, whose flight from Bristol had landed about half-an-hour earlier. It turned out that they had cancelled their taxi but the message had not got through, so the three of us took advantage of the offered transport to Prague Central Station. Displaying the complacency common to the majority of British travellers, we had made no attempt to gen up on the local language and simply expected to find signs in English. As a result we missed a connection through an inability to find the ticket counter! Eventually, after a pleasant journey in a train with old-style compartments (I kept thinking of Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes) we arrived at Pardubice and met up with Ian, who had travelled with wife Eileen and daughter Victoria.

We stayed in the Hotel Euro, close to the hall where the solving took place and a short walk from Pardubice's beautiful town centre. The venue was highly suitable except for rather limited toilet facilities, but the hotel was close enough in case of emergency!

The defending champions Serbia had a full strength squad and were favourites to retain the title. On gradings GB were expected to finish 8th. It was hard to see past defending champion and current World Champion Piotr Murdzia when considering potential winners of the individual title. Piotr has totally dominated solving in recent years. His combination of natural ability allied to a highly professional attitude to preparation has set a new standard for consistency that no-one else can currently match.

The event was run by the vastly experienced and genial Belgian Ward Stoffelen, ably assisted by Axel Steinbrink (Germany), Peter Bakker (Netherlands) and Pavel Kamenik (Czechia). Selection of problems for such an event is a very difficult and thankless task. Ideally all compositions used would be originals, but in the real world published problems have to be used, running the risk that one or two may be familiar to some solvers. It was unfortunate that the three-movers round included one of the best-known problems by the famous Russian composer Lev Loshinsky, as undoubtedly many solvers gained five easy points. One British solver who failed to recognise or solve it uttered something unrepeatable when he saw the composer's name on the solutions sheet. I really must become more familiar with my problem library. The helpmate round also included a famous problem. On sight I said to myself 'Gyorgy Paros, 3rd Prize, BCF Tourney 1938' - unfortunately I then couldn't remember the solutions and probably spent about fifteen minutes solving it! I can assure the cynical reader that such things do happen. It is also not unusual to realise that you have seen a problem before - only after you have solved it! I found the moremover selections especially enjoyable, not least because I scored a rare maximum for this particular round.

Serbia duly won the team title, ahead of Russia and Poland, and GB duly came eighth. The real shock came in the individual event, where Piotr Murdzia, despite only dropping 6 points out of 90 (the equivalent of one problem and a variation out of 18 problems), finished third, behind Andrei Selivanov of Russia and the new champion, Bojan Vuckovic of Serbia. Vuckovic won the International Solving Championship in January ahead of John Nunn (Murdzia did not compete), and will undoubtedly provide Piotr with a strong challenge when the latter defends his world title in Rhodes in October. Jonathan put in a normal performance by his standards, finishing 4th, though nearly ten points adrift of the top three. I can hardly complain, having beaten my personal best for this format of event by 4¾ points to finish 18th with 65¾, annoyingly just short of a solving IM norm (that bloody Loshinsky...). Ian and Paul struggled throughout, and would both probably be happy to forget their scores! Dafydd performed above expectations, finishing well ahead of Paul. Ifan also did well in his first solving event. The strength of the Junior event is such that it was won by Jacek Stopa of Poland, who finished 6th in the 2006 World Championship!

The social side is a pleasant bonus to these events. It was especially pleasing for me to meet Mat Plus editor Milan Velimirovic for the first time in a number of years. The solving event was held as part of Pardubice's Czech Open, which appears to be the equivalent of Britain's Mind Sports Olympiad. One intriguing event involved competitors examining a Rubik's cube then solving it blindfold. The winner took under 4 minutes!! Walking near the venue on Saturday afternoon Jonathan and I were surprised to run into Les Blackstock, who it turned out was playing in a Shogi tournament at a separate venue. He told us that the doyen of British Chess, Bob Wade, was playing in one of the chess events, so, after the solving prizegiving on Sunday afternoon, the two of us walked across town to say hello to Bob. When we arrived Bob was torturing an opponent over 70 years his junior in a rook and opposite coloured bishop ending. Grandmaster Mestel may not have learned much, but ordinary-club-player McDowell was fascinated by the ending, which ended in a draw claim under the 50-move rule, Bob having not quite managed to win with rook + bishop v rook. At the risk of sounding horribly patronising I was greatly impressed by Bob's ability to play a tough game lasting 5¼ hours at the age of 86, and still be bright and alert at dinner afterwards. A 2½ hour session used to be quite enough for me. The number of publicity leaflets on display gave the impression that you could compete in chess congresses in the Czech Republic every weekend for the next year or so. Someone who shall remain nameless pointed out that with the beer being so cheap he was tempted....

Jonathan disappeared early on Monday for some sightseeing in Prague, while those of us who find a temperature of 37° more than a little oppressive opted for a lazy morning at the hotel before heading for the airport. Lubomir Siran had been distributing copies of his latest Solving Yearbook, so there was plenty of material for those who wanted to begin their preparation for the next solving championship! All in all, a very enjoyable weekend."