ICCF World Cup 21 (webserver) Semifinals

Thursday, May 18, 2017: Announcement

The International Correspondence Chess Federation

in association with the

Polish Chess Federation

Announcement

ICCF World Cup 21 (webserver) Semifinals

14th March 2017:

Dear Chessfriends,

On behalf of ICCF, the tournament is being organised and administered by the Polish CC Federation.

The preliminaries of this World Cup started on 2015-10-01 with 928 players in 72 server sections and now it is coming to the end on 2017-05-01. There are 99% games finished already and most qualifiers are known. See tournament website.

Basic information

The semi-finals of the ICCF World Cup 21 will start on 2017-06-30.

ICCF Rules valid at the start of the semi-final stage (2017-06-30) will be binding, including tie-breaking (number of wins, points evaluation by the Sonneborn-Berger-System, results of the tied players against each other). For your convenience, they are accessible at the tournament website.

The tournament will be played by webserver with an incremental rate of play (30 days per game followed by 3 days every 1 move; 45 days leave per year, no special leave). Linear conditionals can be entered. Usually each group consists of 9-13 in the semi-final round and 9-15 in the final round. Each player plays one game with every player of his group simultaneously.

The event will be rated with title norms, which are usually possible at the semi-final and final stages.

Entries

The semi-final stage is opened to the 2 top players of each preliminary section (no more than 2 semi-final groups). Qualifiers are presented at the tournament website. Most of them confirmed their participation already. There is no additional entry fee (for those playing in the ICCF World Cup 21 preliminaries and earning qualification to the semi-final stage).

In addition, those players who qualified for World Cup 19 and 20 Finals will also be entitled to play in the semi-final stage of World Cup 21 and the winners of World Cup 19 and 20 Finals will be eligible to participate in World Cup Final 21 – unless, they exploited their right to play at that stage in previous editions of the World Cup. These players need to pay entry fee.

Should there be any non-starters or unexpected withdrawals, the semi-final sections might be filled by players from a prioritized list of reserve (those sharing 1st or 2nd place in the preliminaries). Some of these players might be contacted (if applicable) by TO Mariusz Wojnar via e-mail who will be offered any vacancies which arise.

Players (other than qualifiers from the World Cup 21 preliminaries) may enter in the usual way through their National Federations. Entries should contain player’s name, email address, ICCF ID, current rating and background and should be forwarded by email to the Tournament Organizer, Mariusz Wojnar (email: mariusz.wojnar@gmail.com), to reach him before 2017-05-20.

Allocation of players to the semi-final sections will be made as random as possible; however, geographical distribution as well as an achievement of reasonable equality of the average rating will be considered.

Tournament Organization

There will be 10-12 semi-final groups (13-15 players each) and the winner from each section will qualify for a 13-15 player final.

The start date for all semi-final sections will be 2017-06-30 with closing date of 2019-04-01.

Any unfinished games are called for adjudication. The players involved shall submit their claim (with the required result – win or draw) and supporting analysis.

The adjudication will be organized in such a way that all qualified players will be known by 2019-05-15.

The final is expected to start on 2019-09-01 at the latest.

Prizes

Prizes will be awarded to winners of the Semi-final Sections (such prizes will be in the form of books or other chess material or vouchers, each to the value of approximately 25 EUR, with tie-breaks to be applied if necessary to determine section winners). When all sections finish play TO will sent list of winners to ICCF Finance director who then will arrange prizes distribution.

In the Final medals and certificates will be awarded to the top 3 players (if necessary tie-breaks will be applied to determine the top 3 places). Also in the Final cash prizes of 1,000 EUR, 600 EUR, 300 EUR and 100 EUR will be awarded to the top 4 players. Tie-breaks will not be applied in respect of these cash prizes and instead those players scoring equal points will equally share any prize money due.

Qualification

Only the group winner (ties to be decided by points evaluation) will be promoted to the World Cup final. No player will qualify for more than one place in the final.

In addition, those players who qualified for World Cup 19 and 20 Finals will also be entitled to play in the semi-final stage of World Cup 21 and the winners of WC 19 and 20 Finals will be eligible to participate in World Cup Final 21.

The following qualifications can be achieved in the final:

• the winner and the runner-up may enter directly a World Championship Candidates (tie break applies) (upon payment of the entry fee) (ICCF Tournament Rules, Article 1.3.1.(d));
• the winner of the World Cup Final 21 will qualify for the final of the next World Cup Tournament without paying any entry fee (ICCF Tournament Rules, Article 3.6) and will be awarded the IM title (ICCF Tournament Rules, Article 10.4.(c));
• participants in the final round have the right to take part in the semi-final round of the next correspondence chess World Cup tournament (upon payment of the entry fee) (ICCF Tournament Rules, Article 3.6)
• the participants in a Final of the ICCF World Cup Tournament who finished in place 3 or 4 (tie break applies) or scored at least 60% of the possible points may enter directly a World Championship semi-finals (upon payment of the entry fee) (ICCF Tournament Rules, Article 1.2.1.(e));
• the participants in a Final of the ICCF World Cup Tournament who scored at least 50% of the possible points may enter directly a World Championship Preliminaries (upon payment of the entry fee) (ICCF Tournament Rules, Article 1.1.1.(e)).

Member Federations are asked to give the tournament wide publicity to all their players.

We wish all participants many interesting games and new connections with CC friends in other countries, based on the spirit of friendship and the ICCF motto:

AMICI SUMUS

Mariusz Wojnar

Central Tournament Leader