Varsaw Open 2015

Abdel continues on his path

With this third round of the World Cup of Resolution, Abdel is still collecting points and is now the sole leader of the World Cup.

The following report is taken from his website

Abdel's report

Probably the strongest solution tournament of the 2015-16 season, due to the presence of many strong Polish solutionists. The problems proposed were very difficult at times.

1st round - mates in 2 - 20 mn

The first problem is very tricky. Only two variations. A trivial key to predict the unprovided King's flight. On the other hand, I found no difficulty in finding the keys to the 2nd and 3rd problems. Numerous variations with very strong thematic links (exposure of the White King to check for n°2 and Stochi theme for n°3). I was the fastest : 17 minutes.

15 on 15

2nd round - mates in 3 - 60 mn

The 4th problem (again exposure of the white king to check) seems obvious to find...I came back to it afterwards. Because n°5 with its key found immediately, but because of many variants and its checking process, it took me some time. Afterwards, I immediately attacked n°6 which also required time (the most difficult of the three). There too, many variations. Finally, I came back to n°4. In all, I spent 52 minutes to finish the 3 problems in 3 moves, without forgetting any variation.

3rd round - Studies - 100 mn

Study 1 (7) is particularly detestable. Unfindable by a humanoid. The best of us only got 1.5 out of 5. The second one (8) was only found by one solutionist. But, it is an excellent study (a stalemate picture in 11 moves). The 3rd study (9) is of the same kind as the 1st one. Only 5 solutionists got the mark 0. Otherwise all the others got the same mark 1 out of 5. That is to say that they found only the 1st move. The other 8 moves remain a mystery.

2 on 15