ICCF Congress 2013

Thursday, August 1, 2013: Highlights

Dear ICCF Delegates, Officials, and Friends,

Below are some highlights from the 2013 Congress held in Cracow.

·         Statute 13 was modified to allow deviations from FIDE when appropriate.

·         “The Basic Laws of Chess only apply to Over-the-Board play”

·         New ICCF Member Federations

o   Cape Verde (Zone 4 – Francisco Carapinha – Delegate)

o   Venezuela (Zone 2 - César Jesús Reyes Maldonado – Delegate)

Andrew Dearnley (ENG) elected as Marketing Director
Markus Hömske (FRA) appointed as NTTC (Non Title Tournament Commissioner)
Jason Bokar (USA) appointed as Help Desk Manager

Neil Limbert (ENG) has resigned from the qualification Commission position after a superb 4-year contribution to ICCF.  Any interested parties are invited to contact the General Secretary for more information.

·         Scoring 3/1/0 proposal not adopted

·         Chess 960 rating are approved – Rating Commissioner is working on implementation.

·         Incremental time control adopted (10/50 remains the time control for most ICCF tournaments)

·         Special Leave disbanded effective 01/01/2014.  45 days of leave per calendar year will be introduced for all tournaments starting after 01/01/2014.

·         Table bases are introduced.  50-move rule suspended if TB is entered.  Playing Rules committee along with the Service Director, under oversight of the EB will address the technical issues of implementation.

·         Some changes were made to the Code of Conduct regarding slow play.

·         A new category will be added to the Promotion Events ladder (below to Open class) to promote chess for very low ranking players.

·         Congress – 2014 – Sydney – Delegate Brian Jones is already preparing for an Oct 2014 Congress Australia.

·         Congress 2015 – Bulgaria has submitted a non-binding interest in hosting the 2015 in a resort on the Black Sea.  However, other Federations are encouraged to submit proposals before Australia.

2013 Congress Minutes Review Timelines

·         August 24 – President and GS finalize first draft.

·         August 25 – send draft version 2 to officials presenting at Congress – deadline August 31

·         September 7, send draft version 3 to delegates

·         September 22, deadline for draft 3 comments

·         September 30, send final draft to all

·         October 6 – final version published

Regards,

Dr. Michael Millstone
ICCF General Secretary
PJBoogie@yahoo.com