Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, 1886 (January competition)

The 3rd Solution Tourney, which was associated with this problem tourney, was planned to run for four months, thus limiting the number of published problems to 36. As 43 problems were received, the tourney directors warned that there might be a problem unless a sufficient number of problems were eliminated by a preliminary examination.

The report does not say if contributed problems were excluded to fit the constraints of the solving tourney, or if any problems were withdrawn voluntarily.

The spotting competition drew 31 competitors, who guessed the most probable prize winners. Their votes were given 3, 2 and 1 marks depending on the prize rank, and prizes in the problem competition were awarded based on the sum of these marks. The 1 pr. winner received 41 marks, while other winners received 28 and 20 marks, respectively.

The report does not number the honorable mention awards, or state that they are ordered. The republication, however, identify them as 1st to 4th hm.


While this problem tourney later is referred to as the 3rd Problem Tourney of Sheffield & Rotherham Independent it is not given that name during the time it was held. Indeed, the general impression is that the Solving Tourney was the more important event of the two.

The volume of Sheffield & Rotherham Independent misidentified the first two issues of the year as belonging to vol. LXXIX = 79 and LXXX = 80. The third issue corrects the volume number back to vol. LXX = 70, also correcting an error in volume numbering made in the previous year. This affects the reference of the announcement, where the volume number has been corrected from 80 to [70].

(There also appears to be some problem in issue numbering between 1886-01-02 and 1886-02-06, but has not been examined closer.)