2019 New Year Message

Sunday, December 30, 2018: To all Correspondence Chess Friends,

As 2018 ends, I would like to extend my warmest wishes to you and all those dear to you for a very healthy, happy, and prosperous New Year. I also want to extend my sincere thanks to all officials and delegates for their devoted work on behalf of ICCF during the last year.

This last year has indeed been demanding for all ICCF officials and volunteers but nevertheless has proved to be successful for ICCF which has achieved substantial progress and improvement.

This year a new and fully automated registration system has been implemented on the server to improve player’s experience and streamline the entries to our tournaments. We have now published the ICCF laws of correspondence chess that complete the set of rules applying to correspondence chess.

The new structure of ICCF norm tournaments adopted by the Congress in Wales has been launched successfully in December. The new system provides improved targeted master and grand-master norm tournaments as well as new correspondence chess experts, chess masters, and senior international masters tournaments. The number of entries registered since these new tournaments have been advertised among the players demonstrates that they will be a success and that they have filled a gap in ICCF tournament offer.

This year the ICCF Congress will be held in Vilnius, Lithuania end of August and I hope that many delegates, officials and correspondence chess players will join us. 2019 will be an election year and all member federations are kindly invited to participate in the election of the ICCF Executive Board members.

In closing, let me once again extend to you my best wishes for the New Year. I hope that 2019 will bring satisfaction in all your endeavors, personal, professional, and chess!

Amici Sumus,

Eric Ruch
ICCF President