ICCF President's report

Tuesday, November 11, 2014: November 2014

President’s Report to Executive Board

National Federations Delegates

ICCF Officials

1. ICCF Congress 2014. Main Decisions.

The main decisions of the 2014 Congress held last month in Sydney are the following:

1.  ICCF Laws of Correspondence Chess

The FIDE Laws of Chess will no longer apply to ICCF games, and will be replaced with the "ICCF Laws of Correspondence Chess". A document will be prepared and submitted for approval by the ICCF 2015 Congress.

2. Arbiter Committee (ACO) Chair

The ICCF Congress has appointed a new chair of the ACO, Dennis Doren (USA).  Dennis is very keen to work with us on defining the role of the TD and implementing server features accordingly. 

3. Flag Fall Forfeit

Games ending on time will be scored as losses automatically and without a claim. A standard appeal procedure will apply. This will be applicable to all tournaments started after 01/01/2015.

4. Claims in team events

 Claims in team events are no longer required to be validated by the Team Captain. This will apply to all running tournaments as well as new tournaments.

5.  Norm table

 There are some errors in the Norm table published in the current tournament rules. A corrected version of the Norm table has been prepared by the Mariusz Wojnar (Qualifications Commissioner)

Also, players who did not achieve a norm in previous tournaments because of the errors in the table may send a special application to the QC via their National Federation Delegate, if applicable.

6. 21st Olympiad

Congress decided that the Preliminaries of the 21st Olympiad would be played on ICCF webserver, not by post as intended before.

7.   2015 Congress

The ICCF 2015 Congress will be organized by the Welsh Correspondence Chess Federation, in Cardiff on 16^th – 22^nd August 2015.

The ICCF officials who have received recognition for their dedicated work for ICCF and / or National federations:

ICCF Honorary Member: Carlos Flores Guttiérez (ESP)

Bertl von Massow Gold medals: Y. Dothan (ISR)

A. Gaujens (LAT)

D. Knol (RSA)

J. Mrkvička (CZE)

Bertl von Massow Silver medals: R.V.M. Hall (ENG)

J.A Martello (ARG)

2. Tournaments.

1. 1. 10^th Lady World Championship Final

The final of the 10^th Lady World Championship Final will start on November, 20.

The 3 best players from the 9th Lady World Championship final and the two first placed ladies of each of the 10th Semi-Final sections were invited to participate to the final. One player had to be replaced by the 4th placed in the 9th final according to the tournament announcement. Another player withdrew a few days after having received the start-list and was replaced by the best fourth placed in the 10thsemifinals.

The final is Lady Category XV (IM = 7, LGM = 5, LIM = 3). The 3 first placed ladies will qualify for the 11th Lady World Championship Final.

1. 2. 11^th Lady World Championship Semi-Finals

Two sections of 15 players from 14 different National Federations, have been arranged on the server and the official start date of these Semi-Finals is November, 20

The average rating of the players is 2125.56 and it has been very difficult to arrange two Sections of Ladies Category VIII (requested average rating > 2125.5). The first section has an average rating of 2125.6 and the section 2125.53.

The 4 first players of each section are qualified for the 11^th Lady World Championship Final. 

1. 3. Thor Løvholt Memorial

The winner and gold medalist of this team tournament organized by the Europa Zone is Ukraine. The silver and bronze medals are still to be decided.

3. Direct Entry.

This month has once again seen an above average number of entries, 140 in total.

The total of 1932 entries in ten months this year is already well beyond last year’s record of 1816 entries.

• President's Report