Article provided by: “Mate Postal” Group
 
 
 

Short History
 
Until now the oldest game played by correspondence in Spain of which we preserved full development and data was disputed in 1865 between two chess clubs domiciled in the cities of Gijon and Oviedo, as it was published by Pablo Morán Santamaría in our magazine “Mate Postal”. However recently, thanks to research conducted by our partner and collaborator Carlos Martín Sánchez fortune has brought the discovery of an even former game. It was played from March to June of 1850 between a Mr. William Henderson and several members of the club “Circulo Cartagenero” of the city of Cartagena and the development of the game was published move after move in a local newspaper from 24 of March till 2nd June 1850.
 
The first Spanish organization dedicated exclusively to correspondence chess was founded in 1941 under the acronym FEDA-SAC. Ten years later the Spanish Chess Federation (FEDA) created their own “Vocalía de Ajedrez Postal” and nominated Luis Marimón Riera as Postal Chess member in its Executive Board. After a period of time when the activities of correspondence chess is largely irrelevant in our country, the Catalan Chess Federation decided in 1961 to organize the Catalonia Postal Chess Championship, that after two editions become “Open” and in 1969 the IX Spanish Postal Chess Championships. Almost at the same time, Carlos Ros Miró Postal Chess Commissioner within the Catalan Chess Federation Carlos was appointed to the same position in the Spanish Chess Federation.
 
In 1974 Alfonso Campoy Moreno – a regular postal player – is elected President of the Spanish Chess Federation and under his leadership FEDA agreed to support postal chess, substantially increasing the financial aid to this modality of the game. With this help, Carlos Ros began publishing the newsletter “Mate Postal”, organized all kind of national and international tournaments, and decided to devote his life to work with and for correspondence chess.
 
A few years later FEDA Board was occupied by other persons and the financial support to postal chess disappeared from their budgets. For those reasons in 1983 is created the “Comisión Permanente de Ajedrez Postal (CPAP)”, a kind of Association still connected with FEDA but acting quite independently.
 
Finally, in January 2002 we decided to operate as an independent CC organization and founded the “Asociación Española de Ajedrez por Correspondencia (AEAC)” who has been ruling the destiny of correspondence chess in Spain during the last 10 years.
 
Principal Achievements
 
A Spanish team (Lafarga Santorromán, Martín Clemente, Drake Díez de Rivera, Cánovas Pordomingo, Velilla Velasco and Bescós Anzano) has won the Silver Medal in Olympiad XVII.
 
A Spanish team (Reig Piñol, Fernández Vicente, Moreno Carretero and Martí Pericot) won the “Mare Nostrum III” tournament.
 
A Spanish team (Cuadrado Wentwort-Hyde, Penades Ordaz, Fernández Vicente, Reig Piñol, De Carlos Arregui, Sánchez Ródenas, Peñafiel López and Rodríguez Rey) won the “North Atlantic VI” tournament.
 
A Spanish team (Cruzado Dueñas, Alonso Gónzalez, Martí Pericot, Santos Crespo, Pérez Fernández y Penades Ordaz) has won the Section 5 in the Preliminaries of the XVIII Olympiad, obtaining the classification for the next Olympiad Final.
 
A Spanish team (Cruzado Dueñas, Punzón Moraleda, Penades Ordaz, Rodríguez Amezqueta, De Carlos Arregui, Rosa Ramírez, Tarrío Ocaña, Peñafiel López, Landero Luna and De Blois Figueredo) placed second in the “Chessfriends Rochade 5171 – 20 years”, scoring 2,5 points more than the actual winner of the tournament!!.
 
Carlos Cruzado Dueñas won the title of European Champion in the 66th Championship.
 
Several Spanish players classified for the World Championship Finals: Josep Mercadal Benejam (XX), Pedro Drake Díez de Rivera (XXII), Joel Martín Clemente (XXIII and XXVI), Francisco Javier Muñoz Moreno (XXIV) and Juan Manuel Martí Pericot (XXVI).
 
Miguel Ángel Cánovas Pordomingo was the winner of “AEAC 5 Years – Alcazaba” tournament (Category XII).
 
Joel Martín Clemente was the winner of “AEAC 5 Year – Alhambra” tournament (Category XII).
 
Francisco de Asís Velilla Velasco was the winner of “Carlos Ros Miró Memorial” tournament (Category VII)
 
Manuel Jesús Bescós Anzano was the winner of “Carlos Ros Miró Memorial” tournament (Category VII)
 
At 31.08.2012, Spain has (some of them inactive):
 •10 CC Grandmasters
 •11 CC Senior International Masters
 •28 CC International Masters
 •2 CC Lady International Masters
 •5 International Arbiters
 
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CC Champions of Spain
 
1st (unofficial) (1880-1890) M. Herrero; 2nd (unofficial) (1941-1942) Luis Mundi; 3rd (unofficial) (1st official, 1948-1951) Santiago Martínez Mocete; 4th (unofficial) (2nd official, 1956-1958) Miguel Albareda Creus. We have not found the winners of the 5th, 6th , 7th and 8th Championships. 9th (1969-1973) Francisco Ballbé Anglada; 10th (1971-1975) Ernesto Palacios de la Prida; 11th (1972-1976) Rosendo Planas Ferret; 12th (1973-1977) Rosendo Planas Ferret; 13th (1973-1977) Rosendo Planas Ferret: 14th (1974-1978) Enrique Pascual Gras; 15th (1975-1979) Josep Garriga Nualart; 16th (1976-1980) Santiago Bonay Toscas; 17th (1986-1988) Josep Garriga Nualart; 18th (1986-1991) Josep Mª. Pons Ribot; 19th (1991-1994) Ricardo Montecatine Ríos; 20th (1995-1999) Juan Ramón García Orenes; 21st (2000-2004) Pedro Drake Díez de Rivera; 22nd (2003-2006) José Mercadal Benejam;  23rd (2003-2005) Francisco Javier Muñoz Moreno; 24th (2005-2008) Ignacio Santos Crespo; 25th (2007-2009) Javier Asturiano Molina; 26th (2009-2012) Javier Asturiano Molina; 27th (2011-ongoing).

Our Executive Board

Iñigo de Carlos Arregui - AEAC President and Technical Director

Valentín Costa Trillo - Vicepresident, Community Manager and ICCF Delegate

Antonio Sánchez Ródenas - International events and Friendly Matches

Carlos Huguet Reina - Secretary General and Treasurer

Josep Guevara i Pijoan - National events