Two FIDE World Cups are currently taking place, which could hardly be more different. One takes place in Baku (Azerbaijan) with over 300 of the very best chess playing men and women who have just completed their first knockout rounds. In the other one the participants didn't had to leave their homes and everyone could take part. I'm talking about the 11th FIDE World Cup in Composing 2023, a tournament run jointly by FIDE and the World Federation for Chess Composition (WFCC).
The conditions of participation are published on the WFCC website in an easily understandable manner. The tournament is held in eight sections:
- A-Twomovers
- B-Threemovers
- C-Moremovers
- D-Endgame studies
- E-Helpmates
- F-Selfmates
- G-Fairies
- H-Retros and Proofgames.
In each section, only one composition by each author was possible and joint compositions were not allowed. The closing date for submission of the compositions was June 15, 2023.
In the study section (D), a PGN file was desired, while the other sections required a doc or pdf file.
I sent my study as PGN file to Tournament Director (TD) Aleksey Oganesyan on June 14th, telling him that this is my first composition tournament. On the same day I received a friendly reply and the information that my study is participating in the tournament.
The TD send the compositions to the judges without the names of the composers. All judges were supposed to submit their awards by August 1, 2023, and these preliminary results were already published without composer names for six of the eight sections. Sections D and F are still waiting. All final results will be published no later than September 1, 2023.
The judge in Section D is Branislav Djurašević (Serbia). Judge preferences are always very important (I'll write a stats blog on that later). That's why I looked at Djurašević's studies and I also searched for tournaments that he had previously judged. I couldn't find any extraordinary likes or dislikes.
The WFCC webpage presents the reports on all previous FIDE World Cups in Composing. There you can see that the World Cup is generally a very prestigious tournament in which the crème de la crème of composers take part.
The diagram shows the start position of a study by Michael Pasman (Isreal) which won the 1st prize of the 10th FIDE World Cup 2022. It is White to move and draw. For the solution and more details please visit the WFCC website on the FIDE World Cups.