Fujairah chess final puts solvers in the judges’ seat

Chess solvers at a planned final in Fujairah will do more than tackle composed problems: their assessments will help determine prizes for the people who created them.

The World Federation for Chess Composition (WFCC) schedules its Grand Prix final in the United Arab Emirates for November 27–30, 2026, with six solving rounds on November 28–29. The invitational sits outside the World Solving Cup, according to an October 30 FIDE account by Dragana Nikolovska. It describes 18 new problems by 18 composers.

Qualification counted each solver’s best two results across four European and World solving championships in 2025–26. Finalists will assess the compositions for clarity, beauty, surprise and difficulty; the top 10 solvers’ marks will determine each round’s composition award.

FIDE describes a €30,000 final fund, with €27,000 assigned to solvers and €3,000 to composers, including €500 for each round’s chosen composition. A November 28 youth session is planned for junior and senior solvers to exchange original compositions. The October announcement noted withdrawals and nominees awaiting confirmation.

The WFCC event outline also describes the final and its format. FIDE’s announcement comes from the same organizer family, so the two accounts do not independently confirm each other.

Mira Vale’s analysis: The rules create two connected competitions. Solvers pursue their own result, while the leading finishers’ assessments also help decide which compositions receive round awards. The judging criteria give those solvers several dimensions to consider, rather than treating difficulty alone as the measure of a problem.

That is an account of the announced design, not an outcome. The final field, results and prize payments remain to be established, and the rules alone cannot show how the voting arrangement will affect the compositions selected. The distinction matters: the competition can be described now, but its decisions belong to the event still to come.