Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Diyan Kostadinov, again...

We have written in February 2009 a post about the composer Diyan Kostadinov, when the match Topalov - Kamski had started, (see here).

The composer has repeated this year the task of creating new problems featuring the names of the contestants for the higher title, Anand and Topalov, as you can see here. The six problems are two-movers and you can send your solutions to the composer (he publishes an e-mail address under the problems).

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

European solvers in Sunningdale

Best European solvers for 2010 (contest ECSC 2010)

Rank - Name - Country - Points - Minutes
1 - John Nunn - GBR - 80,50 - 335
2 - Piotr Murdzia - POL - 77,00 - 360
3 - Eddy van Beers - BEL - 76,25 - 333
4 - Kacper Piorun - POL - 72,25 - 360
5 - Bojan Vučković - SRB - 65,25 - 344
6 - Jorma Paavilainen - FIN - 62,75 - 357
7 - Michal Dragoun - CZE - 60,50 - 360
8 - Michel Caillaud - FRA - 59,50 - 351
9 - Milan Velimirović - SRB - 59,25 - 335
10 - Volodymir Pogorelov - UKR - 58,25 - 360
11 - Dolf Wissmann - NED - 58,00 - 358
12 - Marjan Kovačević - SRB - 56,25 - 333
13 - Colin McNab - GBR - 56,25 - 360
14 - Vladimir Podinić - SRB - 54,75 - 342
15 - Jonathan Mestel - GBR - 54,25 - 360
16 - Piotr Górski - POL - 52,75 - 360
17 - Araz Almammadov - AZE - 52,00 - 355
18 - Vasyl Dyachuk - UKR - 51,75 - 356
19 - František Sabol - CZE - 50,00 - 352
20 - Andy Ooms - BEL - 49,00 - 360
21 - Kostas Prentos - GRE - 48,50 - 354
31 - Nikos Mendrinos - GRE - 42,00 - 351
49 - Harry Fougiaxis - GRE - 29,25 - 351
51 - Panagiotis Konidaris - GRE - 29,00 - 360
and a few more.

Read the report at the site of Chessbase here and see the presentation of the problems here.
Photo of our national team at the blog of Panagiotis Konidaris, here.

Thursday, April 08, 2010

European Chess Solving Championship 2010

The European Chess Solving Championship, ESCS, for 2010 is organised by the British Chess Problem Society, BCPS, in Sunnindale, from 09-04-2010 thru 12-04-2010.
Announcement : http://www.saunalahti.fi/~stniekat/pccc/ecsc10.pdf

Greece is represented by the excellent solvers : Kostas Prentos, Nikos Mendrinos, Panagiotis Konidaris, Harry Fougiaxis. We wish them every success!

Links :
http://www.bstephen.me.uk/ecsc2010
http://www.matplus.net/pub/start.php?px=1269824566&app=forum&act=forum&fid=ecsc6


Results
Countries : (1) England, (2) Poland, (3) Serbia, ..., (8) Greece, ..., 13 teams.
Solvers : (1) John Nunn, (2) Piotr Murdzia, (3) Eddie van Beers, ..., (21) Kostas Prentos, ..., (31) Nikos Mendrinos, ..., (49) Harry Fougiaxis, ..., (51) Panagiotis Konidaris, ..., 55 contestants.

The problems (very difficult) were selected by Pavel Kamenik.

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Blog Statistics, 2nd year

The statistics come from the "Google Analytics" tool, and cover the period [Feb 07, 2009 - Feb 06, 2010], second year of operation of this blog.

In 4335 visits, 2893 unique visitors asked for 7884 pageviews, staying average time on site 1 minute 47 seconds, viewing 1.81 pages per visit.

19.52% of the visitors enter from Greece, 16.06% from United States, 5,24% from Germany, 4.96% from United Kingdom, then follow Poland, Australia, Brazil, France, Spain, Serbia, India, Israel, Netherlands, Romania, Czech Republic - a total of 96 territories.

They live in 1085 cities and speak 55 languages.

34.67% are returning visitors, the rest are new visitors. 3.16% of them have returned over 200 times.

Some of the titles attract more attention : Composers of chess problems, Easy win in four moves, Greek Terminology for problemists, World Champioship in Rio de Janeiro, ECSC 2009 in Subotica, Sam Loyd, Helpmates, etc from 332 titles.

47.22% of the visitors use Internet Explorer / Windows, 37.39% use Firefox / Windows, and the rest use various operating systems and devices, even portable phones.

Some more elements are included here :
Biographical details are written for the composers Spyros Bikos, Dimitrios Goussopoulos, Dimitris Kapralos, Vassilis Lyris, Panagis Sklavounos.
A new column started with cooperations of composers (here and here).
An International Contest for Compositions has been announced [Jubilee Tourney Manolas-60].


Thank you all!
Manolas Emmanuel (a.k.a. alkinoos)