Unofficial World Championship Checker Problem Composing Contest 43

[Bill Salot]

Usually the problems in these contests are selected from a pool of original, unpublished entries, with the object of making them similar and competitive. In contrast, this is an "open contest", as requested by composers who want to select and showcase their favorite unpublished problems without regard to appearance, size, length, type, style, theme or difficulty of competition.

The composers believe their choices of entries are best and will prevail over all the others. If they are right, this could be the best set yet of new checker problems. We'll see.

Such varied settings, like apples and oranges, will be difficult to judge. The voting results may be more a measure of preferred problem attributes than of the problems themselves. The winner may be the problem that emphasizes the most popular attributes. We'll see.

The entries are presented in order of decreasing size. There are no pure strokes, but plenty of forcing and waiting moves. Please help us learn from this experiment by examining the outstanding animated solutions and then voting for the one that impresses you most.

If you promptly report your vote to Bill Salot at the address below the diagrams, your name will appear on the problem evaluation ladder, currently headed by Lloyd Gordon, Canada.

[Bill Salot]

We need your votes to break ties for 1st and 3rd place in this contest. Can you help?

[Bill Salot]

Thanks for the additional votes.
But we still need one more to break the electronic tie for first place.
And there are only three days left before the polls close!

[Bill Salot]

RESULTS:

There were 363 visitors to this contest, and the 23 who voted were the most since Contest 34 in August 2017.

In this"Open Contest" (composers' choice of problems), the old adage, "Two heads are better than one", was confirmed. The two top vote-getters were Teamwork and Fooled Me Good, tied with 6 votes each. Both were co-authored by Ed Atkinson and Bill Salot, who each contributed a piece of the solution, but didn't feel comfortable taking full credit. Leo Springer (Netherlands) plus Gary and Gene Ellison voted for Teamwork. Slava Gorin (Russia), Kathy Wirthwein and Wilma Wolverton voted for Fooled Me Good.

In third place with 4 votes was Premature Burial, a Jim Loy correction of Derek Oldbury,

Fourth with 3 votes was Deflated, a deferred stroke by Roy Little. Liam Stephens (Ireland) voted for it.

Tied for last, but each with 2 votes for first, were Scrambled Eggs, another Roy Little deferred stroke and Magic, a correction of Peter Thirkell (1909), by Jim Loy. Voting for Magic was Lloyd Gordon (Canada), who remains at the top of the voters' ladder with 5 winners picked in 6 tries (83%).

Leo Springer (Netherlands) "sprang" to 2nd place on the ladder with 2 winners in 3 tries (67%). 3rd is Liam Stephens (Ireland) with 7 winners in 11 tries (64%). Tied for 4th and 5th are Slava Goren (Russia), and Kathy Wirthwein with 5 winners in 8 tries (62.5%). 6th is Gene Ellison with 6 winners in 10 tries (60%). 7th is Wilma Wolverton with 4 winners in 7 tries (57%).

Thanks for the increased participation! Let's do it again.

[George Hay]

Congratulations to the composing team of Ed Atkinson and Bill Salot who, like John Lennon and Paul McCartney with two hits on a 45 record, had a tie for first with Fooled Me Good and Teamwork. All six problems were incredible, yet instructive. I did vote for Fooled Me Good (and did it ever!) as the solution had a shocking first move , intricate follow up moves, and an "opportunity" to mess up with the last move.

--George Hay

[Bill Salot]

Here is a minor correction to the Contest 43 results:
Its 23 votes were the most since the 23 votes cast in Contest 4 back in in May 2012.
That's encouraging. Any explanations?

[Russian GM]

Because I vote 2 times.

[Bill Salot]

Thanks, that is better than not voting at all.

[J_D_C_]

I was a first time voter.

[Bill Salot]

Thank you sir,
I hope you vote many more times.