World Team Cup

Wednesday, June 9, 2021: Call for entries

On behalf of ICCF, I am pleased to announce a new World Team Cup.

All member federations (MF) are invited to enter this event played on the ICCF webserver. Either may enter teams:

• Individual National Federations
• Groups of Federations (For example, a Benelux team representing Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands)
• A team representing a Zone made up of isolated players

Note: A National Federation may only be represented once; for example, if a Benelux team took part, then Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands would not field individual teams.

Each national federation may enter one team. The event is free to enter.

Member Federation should express its wish to participate not later than July 1st, 2021.

A tournament is played as a series of matches. Each round begins after the previous round is completed.

All players must be full members of the federation they represent or be registered on the ICCF server for the country of the federation they represent for the duration of the tournament. Teams will comprise 20 players. Any number of players may be replaced during the tournament. It should be noted that any player may only play on a single board (so each team must comprise 20 different players).

Time control is Triple-block, 302 days at each round.

The schedule is as follows (if there are 4 rounds):

• 1st round. Start date 1-August-2021. A team that wins a match is promoted to the next round.
• 2nd round. Start date 1-August-2022. A team that wins a match is promoted to the next round.

• Semifinals. Start date 1-August-2023. A team that wins a match is promoted to the final; a team that loses a match plays 3rd-place-match.

• Final and 3rd-place-match. Start date 1-August-2024.

In case there are three rounds start dates are 1-August-2021, 1-August-2022 and 1-August-2023.

In each round, matches will comprise either two or three teams, dependent on overall entries.

A team that wins a match receives 2 match points; a team that loses a match receives 0 match points; if it is a draw, both teams receive 1 match point. The winner is defined on a number of match points. In case 2 or 3 teams of a group have the same number of match points, a number of total points scored by all team members is the first tie break rule. If these figures are the same, a team with the lowest average rating (at the moment of a start of a match) will be promoted to the next round.

A whole cycle will be played in 3 or 4 years as a maximum.

The three top teams are awarded medals/certificates.

At the beginning of the first round, all teams receive their start numbers according to an average rating of the entered team, which represents its national federation in rating list 2021/3.

I kindly ask you to reply to this invitation no later than July 1st to let me know how many teams are ready to participate in a new World Team Cup. I would appreciate it very much if you inform me whether your NF intends to participate or not. Following this, the deadline for team details will be July 10th, with a start date of August 1st, 2021.

Confirmations, team details, and any queries should be sent to Russell Sherwood (leanthinker@hotmail.co.uk)

Russell Sherwood                            Jorg Kracht                          Frank Geider

Tournament Organiser                      ICCF NTTC                            ICCF WTD