Wouter Van Rijn wins the 6th Tata Study Solving contest (2015).

The 6th ARVES study solving contest was held in De Moriaan, Wijk aan zee, the venue of the Tata Steel tournament in the last weekend of the famous event. ARVES is the International association that promotes the art of the endgame study and publishes the quarterly EG –the only publication which is dedicated entirely to endgame studies.

17 solvers took part in the competition this year of which two were former solving world champions: Frenchman double GM (for solving as well as for composing) Michel Caillaud and GM Jorma Paavilainen from Finland.
The participants were confronted for three hours with nine unpublished studies of various degrees of difficulty, created by famous composers who had provided them especially for this event.
Composers whose originals were selected by chief arbiter Luc Palmans were: Daniel Keith (France); Martin Minski (Germany); Ger Sune Tallaksen Ostmoe (Norway); Andrzej Jasik (Poland); Siegfried Hornecker (Germany) Jan Timman (Netherlands) and Gady Costeff (Israel / USA).
With 5 points per study the maximal number of points to score was 45.

All top honours were shared by Dutchmen leaving behind the more natural favourites.
Here are the top final standings:
1. Wouter van Rijn 26;
2.Twan Burg (winner of the first edition in 2009) 22;
3.Willem van Briemen 21;
4.-5. Piet Peelen, Marcel Van Herck (BEL) and Michel Caillaud (FRA) 18 etc.

Yours truly was again the tourney organizer and acted as the arbiter assistant.