We have a tie! The ACF Website would like to congratulate
Leo Springer, Netherlands, the composer of Impossible and
Roy Little, Oklahoma, the composer of Slow, Fast and Watch Out
who have tied with 5 votes.
Leo Springer, Netherlands, the composer of Impossible and
Roy Little, Oklahoma, the composer of Slow, Fast and Watch Out
who have tied with 5 votes.
Check out Contests 14 (2013), 25 (2015), 35 (2017), 44 (2019), and this just concluded 2-Phase Contest 47 (2019), all in odd-numbered years. They were the only problem composing contests that octogenarian composer Leo Springer (Netherlands) has ever entered. Incredibly he won or tied for first in all of them! A strange, man-down, winning finish to his compound stroke titled Impossible tied for first place in Contest 47. Gene Ellison, Slava Gorin (Russia), Mark Sokolovsky, Liam Stephens (Ireland) and Kathy Wirthwein were the 5 who voted for it.
Tied with Leo was our most-frequent-winner (his second consecutive win) and fellow-octogenarian Roy Little. His Slow, Fast & Watch Out, was a giant stroke with a false solution, finishing with a delayed steal. George Hay and 4 others voted for it.
Tied for third place, with 3 votes each, was Ed Atkinson's Houdini, a shot with an escape requiring that a single King stymie 3 pieces (3 anonymous votes); and Bill Salot's Guard Change, a stroke into a 138-year-old classic example of the Guard Change maneuver (Brian Hinkle, Canadian Lloyd Gordon and one other voted for it).
There were 271 visitors to the contest web site; 16 of them voted.
The Voters' Ladder now stands as follows:
1. Leo Springer (Netherlands) 3 winners picked in 4 tries (75%)
2. Liam Stephens (Ireland) 10 in 15 tries (67%)
3. Gene Ellison 8 in 14 tries (57%)
4-5 tie Kathy Wirthwein 6 in 12 tries (50%)
Slava Gorin (Russia) 6 in 12 tries (50%)
6. Lloyd Gordon (Canada) 5 in 10 tries (50%)
7. Wilma Wolverton 3 in 6 tries (50%)
14 others have either picked fewer than 50% winners or have voted in fewer than 4 contests.
This contest was introduced as follows:
This original, unpublished quartet of problems includes one from overseas. All are unusual in that the first part of every solution introduces interesting afterplay in the second part. You don't have the full solution until you grasp both the early and late phases. Most checker problems don't offer that bonus.
See these problems animated, and cast your deciding vote for the one you like best. Hone your skills by climbing the International Voters' Ladder and help identify World Champions. Or enter, in future contests, your own original, unpublished problems, if you think they are competitive. The action is here at this contest website.
To get on the ladder, just make public your vote by promptly disclosing it in an e-mail to the address under the diagrams. Anonymous voters don't get on the ladder. Currently the top four voters are from four different countries. Send your contest entries to the same address.
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