International Solving Contest
The ISC is now in its seventh year. This event is organised in an interesting
way. The problems to be solved are sent out to controllers who organise a separate
solving venue in each country (it’s possible to have more than one venue;
there were two in the United Kingdom, for example). The controllers in each
country open the envelopes and hand out the problems at the same time all over
the world. You may wonder how this works, but as the participating countries
are almost entirely European, the timing isn’t particularly inconvenient
for most solvers, with only the poor Brasilians having to get up early. The
solutions are marked by the local controllers and then they are sent back to
the overall coordinator (this year Axel Steinbrink), who checks the marking.
A total of 288 solvers took part in this year’s event (211 in the main
event and 77 in a special category for beginners), and the leading scores, out
of a possible maximum of 60, were:
1 |
John Nunn |
UK |
55 points |
196 minutes |
2 |
Miodrag Mladenovic |
Serbia |
55 points |
221 minutes |
3 |
Eddy Van Beers |
Belgium |
54 points |
|
4 |
Ofer Comay |
Israel |
53.5 points |
|
When points are equal, the tie-break is based on time used, which put John
Nunn in first place. It was his first victory in the ISC, although he has been
second on two previous occasions. Full results may be found here.

The winner in both tournaments: GM Dr John Nunn, England
Here are three problems from this event for you to solve. If you like to solve
these under the same conditions as the competitors in the ISC, allow yourself
20 minutes for the mate in three, and 25 minutes for each of the other two problems.

White to play and mate in three

White to play and mate in five

Helpmate in six (two solutions)
In this helpmate, Black moves first and both sides cooperate to help White
mate Black on White’s sixth move. Note that there are two solutions to
this problem (starting with different Black first moves).
British Problem Solving Championship
A few weeks after the ISC, many leading solvers gathered in Oakham, England
for the annual British Problem Solving Championship, which has been organised
by the British Chess Problem Society
every year since 1980. This event, which is sponsored by futures and hedge fund
manager Winton Capital, is also
open to overseas competitors, although they are not eligible for the British
Championship title.
The 2011 championship was a runaway success for John Nunn, who led from start
to finish and solved every problem except one. The leading scores (from a possible
maximum of 65) were:
1 |
John Nunn |
UK |
60 points |
2 |
Eddy Van Beers |
Belgium |
52.5 points |
3 |
Michael McDowell |
UK |
50.5 points |
4 |
Jonathan Mestel |
UK |
49.75 points |
5 |
Colin McNab |
UK |
49.75 points |
6 |
Dolf Wissmann |
Netherlands |
45 points |
One slightly unexpected result was the third place of Michael McDowell, who
is a problem expert rather than a player, but who nevertheless finished ahead
of over-the-board GMs Mestel and McNab. Full results are available here.

The current British, European and World Problem Solving Champion
Here are three problems from this event for you to solve. To replicate the
tournament conditions, give yourself seven minutes for the mate in two, 20 minutes
for the mate in three and 25 minutes for the selfmate. Of these problems, the
mate in three proved most troublesome for the solvers at Oakham, with only three
competitors scoring any points at all on it.

White to play and mate in two

White to play and mate in three

White to play and selfmate in five
In this selfmate, White plays first and forces Black to mate White on Black’s
fifth move at the latest. Black is trying to avoid mating White.
Solutions will be given next week.
The obligatory astronomy news
As usual, when the name Nunn apprears in a ChessBase report, we cannot resist
the temptation of including a few astronomical pictures. Our readers know the
situation well: John, who has a fairly respectable telescope in his home in
light-polluted England (see picture below), is a very active member of Global
Rent-a-Scope (GRAS), an organisation that allows you to access remotely
operated telescopes via the Internet. The site is operated by a small team of
astronomers based in the USA, Australia, Canada and Europe, and can be used
by amateur and semi-professional astronomers the world over. There you can access
large instruments located in very dark and clear places and equipped with cameras
that normal amateurs cannot afford. GRAS investment in the system exceeds two
million dollars in telescopes, infrastructure and customized software.

John Nunn in his home in England, together with Dr Christian Sasse (left), who
set up and runs
GRAS, and Ken Thompson, the inventor of Unix and C, who is also a keen amateur
astronomer
Periodically John sends us stunning images he has captured in his GRAS sessions.
The following is one of his best. It shows the galaxy M106, which is a spiral
galaxy about 23.5 million light-years from Earth. Unusual radio emissions from
this galaxy indicate that it has a black hole of about 36 million solar masses
at its centre. The spiral arms of M106 are also rather odd, presenting a mystery
which has only recently
been solved.

Click to enlarge to desktop size
Just below and to the left of M106 is NGC4248, a smaller galxy which is a similar
distance away and is probably gravitationally linked to M106. Several fainter
(and much more distant) galaxies can be seen in this image. For example, directly
above NGC4248 you can see an edge-on spiral galaxy. The distance to galaxies
such as these cannot be determined directly, but it can be inferred from the
galaxy's redshift (in this case it appears to be about 850 million light-years
away).
How far (back) can we see?
Talking about great distances: the German-Canadian physicist-engineer Christian
Sasse, keen astronomer and all round good guy, recently embarked on a project
to set up a new star machine that he felt certain would allow ‘amateurs’
to peer back in time, to galaxies far, far away. Actually…a certain quasar
in Ursa Major, powered by a supermassive black hole three billion times the
mass of our Sun.

This monster roared into existence with brutal cosmic power only 870 million
years after the universe began. It sends out infrared luminosity over 22 trillion
times brighter than our own mediocre star, forming a huge bubble of carbon monoxide
molecules 30 million light-years in diameter around its host galaxy.
Last month Christian pointed the newly commissioned G17 Deep Red Telescope
based at the GRAS-Astrocamp facility in Spain, to an otherwise blank piece of
sky. G17 proceeded to capture a few hundred thousand ancient photons on its
CCD camera during 16 hours of exposures (199 x 300 secs). The first signs of
the quasar appeared after about two hours of exposure. It should be noted, that
this object is not amplified gravitationally by lensing. No short cuts here.

Christian Sasse showing GRAS to Vishy Anand, Ken Thompson and Luke McShane.
He is operating
a telescope in Australia on his notebook in his hotel room in London during
the 2010 Chess Classic
The Global Rent-a-Scope
is well worth a visit, and you may even consider a trial
membership.