Year: 2019

Dear friends, I’m glad to announce to you fairy judges for the current and next period, the both will be judging JF’s competitions for the 2^nd time:

The judge of the current fairy period, JF-2019/II (July-December’2019) will be GM Petko A. Petkov – multiple World Champion in Composing and Olympic Champion (1990), inventor of many fairy-conditions, author of more than 120 theoretical articles, International Judge and a leader in the world rank list with 471.75 points in the FIDE Albums (1914-2015) with 64 years practice in chess composition! Would like to mention, that this year Petko finished the award for JF-2016/I and I’m grateful to him for the very kind offer to JF again, almost without any break! 

The judge for the next fairy period, JF-2020/I (January-June’2020) will be Eric Huber – another very supportive person, one of the first judges on JF (has judged JF-2013/III), International Judge of fairy problems,  organizer  (together with Vlaicu Crişan) of the yearly Tzuica Tourney, dedicated to helpselfmates. Let’s meet Eric in 2020!

The first half of the year 2019 is over, and the tournament JF-2019/I is closed on the 30^th of June with 43 fairy problems (plus some versions). While the quantity is not so big, I believe the quality of the problems would make the competition enjoyable for the judge, Michal Dragoun! Thanks a lot to all participants and to the judge for accepting this work! Special gratitude to Shankar Ram, who was updating the index page of the tournament, menu Original Problems -> Julia’s Fairies – 2019

I’m sorry, the judge is not appointed yet for the second half of this year. Still, a new fairy tournament JF-2019/II (01.07-31.12.2019) is opened for the submissions and I’d gladly publish your good problems!

Have to tell, I’ll be less active on JF during July-August. Family vacation, some own composing for WCCC’s unofficial tournaments, 4^th YCCC composing TT for juniors, and the Congress itself… So, I’d appreciate it very much if you include the notation and full solutions (with departure and arrival squares) in your entries! It would make my work much faster.

Thank you very much in advance! Wishing to all of you to have a wonderful summer! – Julia

Dear composers, I’m very glad to announce the judge of Retro & PG problems 2019-2020: Vlaicu Crișan!

5 years ago Vlaicu was the judge of fairy problems on JF, JF-2014(I) ( problems | award ). And now I’m grateful to Vlaicu for his enthusiasm in acceptance of judging PG/Retros on JF!

Vlaicu is an International master of the FIDE for chess composition (since 2016), and international solving master (since 2007). His interest to retro compositions started from solving originals published in the retro column of French magazine Phénix. After being a regular solver for many years, Vlaicu was invited to judge the retros informal tournament for 2004 and that was his first award in retro sections. A couple of years later, Vlaicu was invited to judge the section of retros from StrateGems 2016 informal tournament. The third experience will be this year, with PG section of the Quartz TT 13 (Leffie).

While I’m very glad about JF’s PG/Retros becoming the 4^th experience, Vlaicu comments: “I am quite grateful to accept another experience with Julia’s Fairies informal tournament 2019-2020, as the fourth name in the already impressive list of the previously appointed judges: Hans Gruber, Thomas Brand and Dirk Borst. Well, I can only hope the composers will indulge me and your fairy retro column with many outstanding compositions!”