The lakeside Hotel Willa Port provided a very comfortable environment for the solving and the Polish organising team of Piotr Murdzia, Aleksander Mista and Grzegorz Mista did an excellent job of ensuring that the whole event ran smoothly. The Polish team, having previously won six times in a row, were clear favourites to take the title for the seventh time, and it remained to be seen if any other country could offer resistance to the Polish juggernaut. The individual title was being defended by Kacper Piorun, who in 2014 had narrowly edged out his compatriot Piotr Murdzia to seize first place.
The format of the event has remained the same for many years, and consists of six solving sessions spread over two days. Each session is devoted to a different type of problem, and the event always kicks off with three mates in two. The chosen problems, this year selected by Axel Steinbrink, are kept a closely guarded secret until they are handed out to the competitors and solved under ‘school exam’ conditions.
Here is one of the mates in two. If you would like to solve it under competition conditions, allow yourself seven minutes to find the solution (solutions to all problems will be given in the second part of the article).
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