Solving update, additions to Meson and additions to BCPS website

The 2007-2008 WCBCSC Postal Round (see the problems and the results) must have been one of the most difficult ever as the normal last-minute deluge of entries didn’t happen and the total number of entries, at just 60, is one of the lowest that I can ever remember. It seems that the better and more experienced solvers found the long helpmate the most difficult, but for everybody else it was the long selfmate that held them up. As ever, I found it difficult to judge the difficulty of the problems I selected. As that long selfmate is such a lovely problem and is intensely thematic I naively thought that it wouldn’t be that difficult, but I was wrong, at least as far as the less-experienced solvers were concerned.

All email entrants have been informed of the results and the solutions. Replies to postal entrants will go out tomorrow. Some qualifiers to the final have already accepted their invitations. A page about the final, listing confirmed entrants, guests and controllers is on my website. This page will be updated as invitations are responded to.

At the WCBCSC Final, solving the same problems, will be solvers in the Open Championship, competing for the cup presented by our sponsors, Winton Capital Management. Former world champion Piotr Murdzia has already confirmed his entry and it is hoped that other overseas solvers will also take part. For details of the prize fund for the Open and of conditions for overseas solvers, please go to this page of my website. Overseas solvers wishing to compete should enter soon, as there is limited space and entries will only be accepted on a first come, first served basis.

I’ve made a few additions and amendments to Meson recently. Some of those were as a result of very welcome help from two of my hard-working problemist friends, Paul Valois and Michael McDowell. Paul has been going through the chess columns in the Weekly Westminster, which ran from August 1922 to January 1926 (when it was reabsorbed into the Westminster Gazette) and has sent me details of the chess compositions published there. The library he did his research in did not have a complete run but Paul was able to see most of it. All the problems he collected are now online. As well as adding new problems this research has also meant that I have adjusted the sources of several of the problems already on Meson.

Michael has also been researching chess columns, this time at Colindale where he has been going through those in the Illustrated London News and the Era. He has passed me several pages of problems from these sources with full publication details. I have only got a limited way through this material so far and, although I haven’t actually added that many new problems, I have added sources to many that were previously unsourced on Meson.

My thanks are due to both Paul and Michael. Their various research efforts are of great importance to Meson.

Mention of Michael reminds me to report that his excellent article about British composer Eric Westbury has just been added to the British Composers page of the BCPS website. Do give it a look. Michael's review of the November 2007 BCPS magazines is another recent addition to that site.

In the time running up to Christmas I shall be doing some urgent programming work for the BCPS and writing up the Rhodes meeting for the February issue of CHESS.