On May 23, 2020,ChessKing.com hosted the first online chess problem-solving contest with video control, officiated by the chief arbiter, FIDE chess composition director, international GM in chess composition Andrey Selivanov.
Under the tournament regulations, the participants were to solve 30 two-movers, one minute per problem. The first invitational round was held for experienced solvers only. For each solved problem, a participant was given 10 points.
Danila Pavlov (Moscow, Russia), a 17-year old composition GM from Moscow took first place scoring 280 points out of 300. Despite starting late for the first couple of problems, Marjan Kovacevic, composition GM, and multiple composition champion from Serbia finished second with 260 points.
A 14-year old solver Ural Khasanov (Salavat, Russia) also scored 260 points but came in third as he spent 1204 seconds against Marjan’s 714 seconds. Serafim Bunin (Saratov, Russia) aged just 12, is fourth with an excellent result of 250 points.
With 200 points each, Nikita Ushakov (1060 seconds) and Egor Sokolov (1205 seconds) finished 5th and 6th respectively (the former spent less time). Another young participant, Aleksandra Safronova (Tula, Russia) scored 150 points and found herself in 7th place.
The second round was held one hour later on the same day with 235 players came to try and solve the same problems but without video control. This time round a 12-year old player Artyom Turin (Volgograd, Russia) took the first place with 280 points.
You can put yourself in participants’ shoes and test your skills by tackling one of the problems from this contest (one minute for solving):
William A. Shinkman 1903
Checkmate in two
