Blog birthday (1)

Dear readers, dear friends of this blog,
today one year has passed since I have started the blog http://kallitexniko-skaki.blogspot.com (in Greek language), aiming to cover subjects about chess problems, about composers, about solvers, about solving or composing contests, about Greek problemists gatherings, about circulation of relevant books or magazines.

It is true that such a blog (or a book, as a matter of fact), dedicated to chess problems, was missing from Greece. That means I ought to write posts for all subjects, from very simple to very advanced. So, I have presented solved problems from various solving contests, and I wrote many posts explaining the various Themes. (To add more workload, I have translated the posts to English language in the blog http://chess-problems-gr.blogspot.com, and now these two blogs are synchronized).

If you like to estimate the spread of the published subjects, and how many work hours were spent, please see the reference post "Terminology for Problemists". The terminology contains links to posts relevant to the examined term.

Also, there is a reference post "Composers and their Chess Problems" with links to published-in-this-blog problems for each composer. The solutions of 313 problems were presented, problems created by 24 Greek and 178 foreign composers. Many thanks to composers who have published some of their original problems in this blog, (Emmanuel Pantavos, Nikos Pergialis, and others).

Fourteen biographies were presented for the following chess problem composers : Milan Vukcevich, Byron Zappas, Stavros Iatridis, Ioannis Kalkavouras, Genrikh Kasparyan, Sam Loyd, Lorenzo Mabillis, Emmanuel Manolas, Pavlos Mοutecidis, Carlo deGrandi, Nikos Pergialis, Kostas Prentos, Triantafyllos Siaperas, Harry Fougiaxis.

The content of some posts was enhanced with remarks or cooperations by the following persons : Themis Argyrakopoulos, Ioannis Garoufalidis, Spyros Ilandzis, Kostas Prentos, Panagis Sklavounos, Harry Fougiaxis. Thank you all!

This blog is read by many persons each day, but there are very few comments, mainly praising ones. It is nice that I do not receive irrelevant comments, since I have already said that I will remove them, in order to have in the blog material suitable to be read by children.

I believe that I have done remarkable infrastructure work and I thank all who have recognized it publicly (Schroendinger's Cat, Elias Economopoulos, Panagis Sklavounos, and others). I also thank all who have proposed me and have elected me “Member of the Chess Problem Committee” of the Greek Chess Federation.

For 2009, additionally to the usual material, I will try to promote the easy subjects "Problem Composing", "Publication of Problem", and also the very difficult subject "Chess Lessons in Schools".

I wish to you all : health, joy and success!
Manolas Emmanuel (a.k.a. Alkinoos)