documents.iccf.com.s3.amazonaws.comdocuments.iccf.com.s3.amazonaws.com/congress/2014/iccf... · web...

1

The International Correspondence Chess Federation

2014 CongressSydney, Australia

2

Table of Contents

Introduction......................................................................................................................................5The Correspondence Chess League of Australia.........................................................................5Excursions....................................................................................................................................6Chess Events................................................................................................................................7Congress Participants – All Attendees......................................................................................12Congress Participants - World Champions................................................................................12

President’s Report to Congress......................................................................................................13President’s Opening Speech..........................................................................................................23ICCF Congress 2012 – Sydney, Australia.....................................................................................23President’s Opening Remarks........................................................................................................24Bertl von Massow Awards and Other Awards..............................................................................25

Gold Medal................................................................................................................................25Silver Medal...............................................................................................................................25

Honorary ICCF Member................................................................................................................25General Secretary Report to Congress...........................................................................................26Tournament Medals and Certificates – Awards Presentation........................................................31 Individual Tournaments.............................................................................................................31

Team Tournaments....................................................................................................................33Grandmaster (GM) Titles awarded since the 2013 Congress....................................................35SIM Titles awarded since the 2013 Congress............................................................................35IM Titles awarded since the 2013 Congress..............................................................................36LGM Titles awarded since the 2013 Congress..........................................................................37LIM Titles awarded since the 2013 Congress...........................................................................38IA Titles awarded since the 2013 Congress..............................................................................38

3

Approval of 2013 Congress Minutes.............................................................................................39Membership Matters......................................................................................................................40

Dismissals and Suspensions......................................................................................................40Qualifications Commissioner Report............................................................................................41Special Applications......................................................................................................................44

Financial Report & Accounts to 31.12.2013.............................................................................49Summary of Postal Entries........................................................................................................51Summary of Server Entries........................................................................................................52

Auditor Report...............................................................................................................................53Direct Entry...................................................................................................................................58

Appendix 1 – Entries to Direct Entry Programme.....................................................................60Appendix 2 – Rejected Entries..................................................................................................62

Services Director – Webserver, Website, and Internet Matters.....................................................63Server updates 2013/14 (Phase 11)................................................................................................63

Implemented (August 2014)......................................................................................................63Not yet implemented (August 2014).........................................................................................65

Proposed Server Updates for 2014/15 (Phase 12).........................................................................65Ratings Commissioner Updates.....................................................................................................67Hosting Arrangements...................................................................................................................67Congress Proposals (relevant to server development)...................................................................68Testing Arrangements....................................................................................................................70Webmaster Report.........................................................................................................................70Helpdesk Report............................................................................................................................70Help Files/Documentation Update................................................................................................71Services Committee Nominations 2014/15...................................................................................71Hutton Pairing System Implementation (England)........................................................................71Acknowledgements........................................................................................................................72Marketing Director Report............................................................................................................74Archivist Report.............................................................................................................................77

Appendix I – Tournament Proposals.........................................................................................79Interzonal Report...........................................................................................................................85Non-Title Tournament Commissioner...........................................................................................88Thematic Tournament Office Report.............................................................................................90Webserver Thematic Themes for 2015..........................................................................................91Postal Thematic Themes for 2015.................................................................................................92Aspirer Tournament Organiser Report..........................................................................................93 International Correspondence Chess Federation.................................................................93

Appendix 1 – Aspirer Entries....................................................................................................94Postal Tournament Office Report..................................................................................................95ICCF Promotion Tournament Entries............................................................................................96Title Tournament Commissioner...................................................................................................97Tournament Rules Commission..................................................................................................101

Flag Fall Proposal....................................................................................................................106Playing Rules Commission..........................................................................................................112Arbiter’s Committee (ACO)........................................................................................................126Appeals Committee – Playing Rules...........................................................................................129

4

Appeals Committee – Other........................................................................................................130Arbitration Committee.................................................................................................................131Appeals Committee – Other – Special Presentation....................................................................132Zone 1 Report..............................................................................................................................136Zone 1 – European Tournament Office.......................................................................................139Zone 2 Report..............................................................................................................................140Zone 3 Report..............................................................................................................................141Zone 4 Report..............................................................................................................................144

FIDE Congress.........................................................................................................................146Internal Matters............................................................................................................................146

FIDE Liaison...........................................................................................................................146Deadlines Timelines to 2015 Congress...................................................................................146

Commissions and Committees....................................................................................................149Playing Rules Commission......................................................................................................149Tournament Rules Commission..............................................................................................149Rating Rules Commission.......................................................................................................149Marketing Committee..............................................................................................................149Arbiters Committee (ACO).....................................................................................................149Services Committee (SC)........................................................................................................149Appeals Committee (Playing Rules).......................................................................................150Appeals Committee (Other ICCF Rules).................................................................................150Arbitration Committee.............................................................................................................150Disciplinary Committee...........................................................................................................150Chess 960 Ratings Working Group – Disbanded....................................................................150

Future Planning – Congress - 2015.............................................................................................151Appendix B – Finance Director – ICCF Accounts 2013 – Profit and Loss Income...................157Appendix C – Finance Director – ICCF Accounts 2013 – Profit and Loss Expenditures..........158Appendix D – Finance Director – ICCF Accounts 2013 – Zones...............................................159Appendix E – ICCF Voting Regulations and Electoral Procedures............................................160

5

ICCF CONGRESS 2014Sydney, Australia

Introduction

The Correspondence Chess League of Australia

In the middle of 1929, a small group of enthusiasts founded the Commonwealth Correspondence Chess League as an offshoot of the Melbourne Chess Club. Mr. R Saunders was the first Director and membership reached 39 by the end of the year. Mr. L Spinks was Director from 1932 until 1936; he began many new tournaments, including a correspondence match between NSW and Victoria, and another between Australia and New Zealand. By his introduction of the ˜Perpetual Handicap™ laid the foundations for the system of regular competition among members, the main source of the League's strength. In 1937, it was decided that the League, which had by now acquired its present title, should be formally founded as an independent organisation. A committee was formed with G. Koshnitsky as President, G F McIntosh as Secretary and F M Hallman as Director of Play. The Australian Chess Review, under the editorship of C J S Purdy, was confirmed as the CCLA's official organ. A policy of expansion saw a substantial increase in membership and the start of the first Australian Championship. Cecil Purdy became the most notable force in raising correspondence chess in Australia to its present high standard. By the strength of his play, he became the first Australian Correspondence Chess Champion, as well as holding the cross-board title several times. He then went on to win the first World Correspondence Chess Championship. By his editorship of Australian Chess Review (later Chess World), he publicised correspondence chess at home and abroad. In 1946, the CCLA affiliated with the ICCF (International Correspondence Chess Federation) and since then has regularly entered in international events. Some of these have been on an ambitious scale; for example, matches with 100 boards were held against Great Britain and the USA. Many such friendly overseas matches are still conducted and, in addition, teams and individual players are entered in the ICCF's regular series of Olympiads and other events, including, of course, the World Championships.

By 1948, membership had grown to over 400 and the League was able to start its own journal and to fund it the subscription was raised to ten shillings. In that year also, seven-player trophy tournaments were introduced in place of the original twelve-player, which had proved larger than convenient. In 1950 came the automatic Rating System. At this time, League membership had been arranged into a number of classes and operation of the Perpetual Handicap™ often meant waiting for promotion or demotion from one class to another. The new system thereafter determined the class of each member. Forty years the League adopted later the ELO system. The moving spirit behind these early advances was S E Ward, at the time Secretary and Director of play. W.A. Parker became Director of play in 1951 and was later Secretary and Journal Editor. His death in 1956 was untimely. As well as this contribution, he had been an enthusiastic player in the lower grades so a Memorial Trophy is now held in his honour. In 1952, the Four-Two tourneys were introduced. In 1959 Maiden Tourneys (conducted as 4/2 tourneys) were also introduced, open to members in the lower classes who had not previously won a tourney. The 750 Membership mark was passed in 1962. At the time, R G Gilbert was Secretary, serving a record term from 1957 to 1963 and A J Walsh was Director of Play, having filled this post since 1959. At this time the Rules of Play were re-drafted and various steps taken to minimise delays in tourneys. Previously, each move had to be made in three days but this was altered to the present system (10 moves in 30 days) which provides greater flexibility. In 1960, the position of Games Starter was established and D J Fraser was the inaugural occupant. The League had over 1000 members in 1968 and a number of Directors (DOPs) were appointed to handle the additional workload. In 1966 a regular cycle of Major Events was introduced, in 1971-72 the Master title was revised, and Life-Membership conferred on Masters. At the same time, Class Championships were introduced. With the worldwide interest in chess generated by the Fischer-Spassky World Title match in 1972, the League's numbers swelled to over 2,000. In the years since the Council has adjusted the rules to reflect changing circumstances. With the advent of computers, email and internet chess in the 1990's, CCLA membership gradually dropped to 300. By 2000, ICCF webserver play began to take over from postal play and the importance of Marketing was recognised. Tim Runting stood down as President in 2012 and was replaced by Shaun Press. Brian Jones also took over as International Secretary and ICCF Delegate.

6

Excursions Participants of the Congress and accompanying persons were offered several and interesting excursions.

The Thursday after the 2014 Congress, all participants travelled to Sydney by ferry. See http://www.sydney-australia.biz/parramatta/

Lunch at the famous Doyle’s Seafood Restaurant (http://www.doyles.com.au/) was followed by viewing of the Pacific Ocean and the Sydney Heads at The Gap. https://www.google.com.au/maps/search/the+Gap/@-33.8537915,151.2441365,13z/data=!3m1!4b1

On return to Circular Quay, most participants went around the Opera House whilst a few toured (went on a pub-crawl around) the famous old area called the Rocks. http://www.sydney.com/destinations/sydney/sydney-city/circular-quay

On Friday morning, a coach took all participants to Featherdale Wildlife Park to see local inhabitants such as Koala Bears, Kangaroos, Wallabies, Wombats, Crocodiles, Emus, Echidnas, Cockatoos, and Parrots. http://www.featherdale.com.au/

http://www.doyles.com.au/

7

Chess Events ICCF BlitzTuesday 14th October 2014 No Name Loc Total 1 2 3 4 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 91 |Lane, Gary W |2410|8 | 6:W| 8:W| 4:W| 3:W| 2:W| 5:W|10:L| 9:W|14:W2 |Söderberg,, Per |2187|6 |13:W|10:W| 3:L| 7:W| 1:L| 4:W| 6:W| 5:L| 8:W3 |Baumbach, Fritz |2114|6 |15:W| 5:W| 2:W| 1:L|10:W| 6:L| 8:W| 4:L|13:W4 |Jones, Brian A |1908|5.5 |14:W| 7:W| 1:L|10:L|16:W| 2:L| 9:D| 3:W| 5:W5 |Koshmak, Iurii |2125|5.5 |12:W| 3:L|14:D|13:W|11:W| 1:L| 7:W| 2:W| 4:L6 |Avotins, Margonis |2000|5.5 | 1:L|11:W|13:L|14:W| 7:W| 3:W| 2:L| 8:D|16:W7 |Poleshchuk, Nikolai|2000|5 | 9:W| 4:L| 8:W| 2:L| 6:L|15:W| 5:L|16:W|12:W8 |Chatterjee, Ambar |1850|4.5 |11:W| 1:L| 7:L|12:W|13:W|10:W| 3:L| 6:D| 2:L9 |Ibrahim, Victor |1650|4.5 | 7:L|12:W|10:L|11:L|14:W|13:W| 4:D| 1:L|15:W10|Doren, Dennis |2010|4 |16:W| 2:L| 9:W| 4:W| 3:L| 8:L| 1:W|15:L|11:L11|Lindh, Stefan |1929|4 | 8:L| 6:L|15:W| 9:W| 5:L|12:L|16:W|14:L|10:W12|Stipic, Stephen |1680|4 | 5:L| 9:L|16:W| 8:L|15:L|11:W|14:W|13:W| 7:L13|Kosolapov,Vadym |2014|3 | 2:L|16:W| 6:W| 5:L| 8:L| 9:L|15:W|12:L| 3:L14|Jones, Lee R |2026|3 | 4:L|15:D| 5:D| 6:L| 9:L|16:W|12:L|11:W| 1:L15|Lane, Nancy L |1766|3 | 3:L|14:D|11:L|16:D|12:W| 7:L|13:L|10:W| 9:L16|Parsons, Colin J |1360|.5 |10:L|13:L|12:L|15:D| 4:L|14:L|11:L| 7:L| 6:L

8

Congress Participants – Voting Members

Zone 1 – 36Voting – 23 Responsible Individual

Europe

Austria (AUT) (197) Dr. Uwe Staroske (as Proxy)

Belarus (BLR)

Belgium (BEL)

Bulgaria (BUL)

Croatia (CRO) (27) Josef Mrkvička (as Proxy)

Czech Republic (CZE) (237) Josef Mrkvička (as Delegate and ICCF Auditor)

Denmark (DEN)

England (ENG) (721) Austin Lockwood (as Proxy and Services Director)

Estonia (EST)

Finland (FIN) (131) Eric Ruch (as Proxy and ICCF President)

France (FRA) (289) Eric Ruch (as Delegate and ICCF President)

Germany (GER) (1,112) Dr. Uwe Staroske (as Delegate)

Greece (GRE)

Hungary (HUN)

9

Iceland (ISL) (49) Per Söderberg (as Proxy and Playing Rules Commissioner)

Ireland (IRL)

Israel (ISR) (48) Eric Ruch (as Proxy and ICCF President)

Italy (ITA) (476) Artis Gaujens (as Proxy)

Latvia (LAT) (55) Artis Gaujens (as Delegate)

Lithuania (LTU)

Luxembourg (LUX) (20) Ulrich Baumgartner (as Proxy)

Netherlands (NED) (282) Per Söderberg (as Proxy and Playing Rules Commissioner)

Norway (NOR)

Poland (POL) (218) Mariusz Wojnar (as Delegate and Qualifications Commissioner)

Portugal (POR)

Romania (ROU) (177) Mariusz Wojnar (as Proxy and Qualifications Commissioner)

Russia (RUS) (729) Sergey Grodzenskiy (as Delegate and Zone 1 Director Designee)

Scotland (SCO) (89) Dr. Ambar Chatterjee (as Proxy)

Slovakia (SVK) (179) Dr. Ján Helbich (as Delegate Designee)

Slovenia (SLO) (96) Josef Mrkvička (as Proxy)

Spain (ESP) (402) Ulrich Baumgartner (as Proxy)

Sweden (SWE) (197) Per Söderberg (as Delegate and Playing Rules Commissioner)

Switzerland (SUI) (115) Ulrich Baumgartner (as Delegate)

Turkey (TUR) (160) Dr. Uwe Staroske (as Proxy)

Ukraine (UKR) (204) Iurii Koshmak (as Delegate Designee)

Wales (WLS) (50) Austin Lockwood (as Delegate and Services Director)

Zone 2 – 10Voting - 2 Responsible Individual

Latin America

Argentina (ARG)

Brazil (BRA)

Chile (CHI)

Cuba (CUB)

Ecuador (ECU)

10

Guatemala (GUA)

Nicaragua (NCA)

Panama (PAN)

Peru (PER) (74) Austin Lockwood (as Proxy)

Venezuela (VEN) (55) Dennis Doren (as Proxy)

11

Zone 3 – 6Voting - 3 Responsible Individual

North America/Pacific

Australia (AUS) (152) Brian Jones (as Delegate and 2014 Congress Host)

Canada (CAN) (120) Dr. Dennis Doren (as Proxy)

Hong Kong (HKG)

Japan (JPN)

New Zealand (NZL)

United States (USA) (942) Dr. Dennis Doren (as Delegate Designee)

Zone 4 -4Voting - 2 Responsible Individual

Africa/Asia

Cape Verde Islands (CPV)

India (IND) (79) Dr. Ambar Chatterjee (as Delegate)

Republic of South Africa (RSA) (37) Everdinand Knol (as Delegate and Zone 4 Director)

Tunisia (TUN)

36 Member Federations – Zone 110 Member Federations – Zone 206 Member Federations – Zone 304 Member Federations – Zone 456 MFs

The following Member Federations and their players (active players on the ICCF server represented in parentheses) were not represented at this Congress:

Belarus (71) Belgium (73) Bulgaria (99) Denmark (78) Estonia (38) Greece (33) Hungary (37) Ireland (26) Lithuania (70) Norway (83) Portugal (120) Argentina (136)

Brazil (166) Chile (25) Cuba (75) Ecuador (14) Guatemala (12) Nicaragua (19) Hong Kong (23) Japan (36) New Zealand (26) Panama (3) Cape Verde (29) Tunisia (16)

12

Congress Participants – Officials

Title Last First Position Attending?President Ruch Eric EB YesGeneral Secretary Millstone Michael EB YesFinance Director Pyrich George EB NoWorld Tournament Director Geider Frank EB NoServices Director Lockwood Austin EB YesMarketing Director Dearnley Andrew EB NoZone 1 Director Caressa Marco EB NoZone 2 Director Cranbourne Carlos EB NoZone 3 Director Bokar Dr. Jason EB YesZone 4 Director Knol Dinand EB Yes

Direct Entry Commissioner Pheby Ian M. MC NoTitle Tournament Commissioner Tani Gian-Maria MC NoNon-Title Tournament Commissioner Hömske Markus MC NoRules Commissioner Söderberg Per MC YesQualifications Commissioner Wojnar Mariusz MC YesRatings Commissioner Binder Gerhard MC YesWebmaster Figlio Gino MC No

13

Congress Participants – All Attendees

FRA Ruch Eric ICCF PresidentUSA Millstone Michael ICCF General SecretaryAUS Jones Brian Congress Organiser Delegate AUSAUS Lane Nancy Partners ProgramAUS Lane Gary Partners ProgramAUS Press Shaun CCLA PresidentAUS Parsons Colin CCLA TreasurerAUS Williams John CCLA General SecretaryAUS Maylott Peter Member of DelegationAUS Jones Lee Partners ProgramCZE Mrkvička Josef Delegate CZECZE Mrkvičková Alena Member of DelegationCZE Chytilek Roman Member of Olympiad 16 Winning TeamCZE Dufek Jiří Member of Olympiad 16 Winning TeamCZE Dufek Jiří Junior Accompanying Person 1FRA Ruch Catherine Accompanying PersonGER Staroske Uwe Delegate GERGER Binder Gerhard ICCF Ratings CommissionerGER Baumbach Fritz Member of DelegationGER Pöschel Margot Accompanying PersonGER Riess Bernhard Member of DelegationIND Chatterjee Dr. Ambar Delegate INDIND Chatterjee Urmila Accompanying Person 1LAT Gaujens Artis DelegateLAT Avotins Maigonis Member of DelegationLAT Avotina Anita Accompanying PersonPOL Wojnar Mariusz Delegate POL, ICCF Qualifications CommissionerPOL Wojnar Marzena Accompanying PersonRSA Knol Everdinand Zone Director Africa/AsiaRUS Grodzenskiy Sergey Delegate RUSRUS Grodzenskay

aNatalia Accompanying Person

RUS Poleshchuk Nikolai Member of DelegationRUS Saveleva Vilga Accompanying PersonSVK Helbich Dr. Ján Delegate SVKSVK Vybíral Jaroslav Accompanying PersonSUI Baumgartner Ulrich Delegate SUISWE Soderberg Per ICCF Rules Commissioner Delegate SWESWE Persson Conny Member of European Winning TeamSWE Olofsson Dan Member of European Winning TeamSWE Olofsson Birgit Accompanying PersonUKR Koshmak Iurii Delegate UKRUKR Kosolapov Vadym Member of DelegationUSA Doren Dr. Dennis Proxy Delegate USAUSA Van Dyke Patricia Accompanying PersonUSA Bokar Dr. Jason Zone Director NAPZWLS Lockwood Austin ICCF Services Director Delegate WLS

Congress Participants - World Champions

WC # Period Surname First Name MF

11 1983-1989 Baumbach Fritz GER

14

President’s Report to Congress

International Correspondence Chess Federation

President’s Report to Congress August 2014

Dear Delegates, ICCF Officials, Chess Friends,

Next month we will meet for the annual ICCF Congress held for the first time in Australia to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the Correspondence Chess League of Australia (CCLA).

The CCLA welcomes all Delegates and ICCF officials to attend the 43rd ICCF Congress in Sydney, which will be held between 12 October and 18 October.

Much information about travel and accommodations can be found on the congress website www.2014.ccla.net.au

I hope that many of you will be able to join us in Sydney despite the long and expensive trip for our American and European friends, but the congress in Australia will also offer us the chance to welcome some of our Asian friends from India.

In Sydney, I will have the pleasure to congratulate the new Correspondence Chess World Champion Aleksandr Dronov (RUS) the winner of the 27th World Championship (his second crown after the title of the 22nd World Championship). It will also be a great pleasure for me to award the gold medals of the 16th Olympiads to some of the members of the winning team of the Czech Republic and the gold medals of the 8th European Team Championship to the members of the Swedish team who will be present in Sydney.

At the end of last year, we have released a major update of the webserver including all the new features and rules decided last year in Poland. The Services Committee has met in Bolton in June to work on the next year’s plan and the proposals are presented in the Services Director’s report. If adopted by the Congress, they will help us to improve the services offered to the players and the efficiency of the officials, tournament organizers, and tournament directors.

In my report, I will focus on two subjects. The first one reflects the popularity of the ICCF tournaments and the second one the result of the player’s survey that we will have a chance to discuss in Sydney.

I wish to see you many of you next month in Australia.

Amici Sumus

Eric RuchICCF President

http://www.2014.ccla.net.au/

15

ICCF Activity in 2013

2013 has been another record year for ICCF! The year 2013 has concluded with 1,817 entries, an average of almost five entries per day, which is the highest total in the history of the Direct Entry programme.

This year’s total of entries is 44.2% higher than in 2012 and 32.8% higher than the previous highest figure in 2011.

The introduction of the NAPZ Promotion tournaments clearly increased participation in the Direct Entry programme, but the general trend was an increase in participation in events, which is good to see.

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013DE Applications 728 821 1038 1070 1368 1260 1817Average Applications per day 1.99 2.25 2.84 2.93 3.75 3.44 4.98

2013 has also been a record year for ICCF players’ activity: the number of players who have at least played a game has increased by 7% with respect to 2012 and the number of registered players by 17%.

Registered users

16

Active Players

The overall trend is very positive with an increase of 26% of the active players since 2009. However, the number of registered players has increased by 70% over the same period, which is probably a sign of numbers of new players registered on the server, but do not actually play (or leave ICCF and the MF after a year or two).

It is more than likely that this trend will continue in 2014, boosted by the reduction of the tournament entry fees decided last year in Krakow and effective since January 1. For instance, the number of Direct Entries (1,555 entries after the first seven month of the year) is already on the way to breaking last year’s record and the 6th edition of the Webchess Open has attracted almost 1,000 entries— in excess of about 50% compared to the previous open.

Player Survey

For the first time in the ICCF history, a player survey has been conducted beginning of 2014 and more than 2,500 answers have been received, much more than I had expected. About 50% of the ICCF active players have provided many useful suggestions for future improvements.A few “closed question” were part of the survey:

1. More than 90% of the players are satisfied with the services that the ICCF provides to the players (and more than 50% are very satisfied leaving only 2% that are dissatisfied).

2. About 84% of the players who have answered to the survey are members of their National Federation. 85% of the players belonging to a Federation are satisfied or very satisfied by the services provided by their Federation.

3. Only about 20% are interested in playing in postal tournaments and more than 88% consider that ICCF provides a wide enough offer of postal tournaments.

4. 95% of the players are interested to play on the webserver and about 90% consider that the offer of server tournaments is wide enough.

5. More than 90% of the players are satisfied with the ICCF webserver (about 57% are very satisfied and only a little more than 2% are dissatisfied).

I consider these results very encouraging for all ICCF officials, Tournament Organizers, Tournament Directors, National Federation Delegates, Officials, and all volunteers who give their free time to promote CC worldwide.

In conjunction with the continuous increase of number of active CC players on the server during the last few years, the strong and active support of the players is a positive sign that we are leading ICCF into the right direction. The

17

player’s survey and the ICCF official‘s survey will be used to direct our actions for the future developments of ICCF. As you can imagine, most of the “open answers” were related to the server and how it can be improved. The answers have been analysed by the Executive Board and discussed during the Services Committee meeting in Bolton in June. A significant number of these suggestions have been analysed and the most interesting are part of the Server Development Plan that you will find in the Services Director’s report. If accepted by the Congress, the implementation of these suggestions will help to improve the players’ satisfaction.

18

1.

24

President’s Opening Speech

ICCF Congress 2012 – Sydney, AustraliaMonday 13 October 2014

It is my great pleasure to welcome you all here today and that for the very first time an ICCF Congress is being held in Australia. It is also my great pleasure to welcome you in Australia, which is amongst the countries of this region of the world with the longest and the richest history and tradition in correspondence chess.

If we look back at history, we can find a long tradition of correspondence chess in Australia back in the 19th century. In 1929, the Correspondence Chess League of Australia was founded and we are celebrating this year the 85th anniversary of the CCLA. In addition, everyone remembers that Cecil Purdy was the first Correspondence Chess World Champion in 1953. He was widely acclaimed as one of the world's greatest chess writers and teachers. His success had an unequalled impact on the development of chess in Australia.

Being here today to open the first ever ICCF congress in Australia is a great honour for me and I would like to thank the organizing committee of the Correspondence Chess League of Australia and especially his National Delegate, Brian Jones for the dedicated work to make this all possible.

It is also an opportunity for Delegates from the Asian continent to attend the Congress and I welcome our friends from India.

This year we will also have the pleasure to congratulate the new Correspondence Chess World Champion Aleksandr Dronov (RUS) the winner of the 27th World Championship (his second crown after the title of the 22nd World Championship). It will also be a great pleasure for me to award the gold medals of the 16th Olympiads to some of the members of the winning team of the Czech Republic and the gold medals of the 8th European Team Championship to the members of the Swedish team who will be present in Sydney.

In my report to the Delegates, I have highlighted the growing success of our tournaments, not only last year for at least during the last four of five years. The survey of the players beginning of this year was a real success with an unexpected 50% reply of the active players. The answers have been very positive, players having a good or very good perception of ICCF and have expressed a general satisfaction of the proposed scope of tournaments and their general organization. That is the very positive sign that we are going in the right direction but also that we should continue to work on the development of the server, making it more attractive and user friendly for the players and the officials, more reliable, more secure, more available on various platforms. We still need to improve the professionalism of the Tournament Offices to propose to the players a secured tournament calendar, tournaments with timely start dates and finished dates, and we also need also to continue the advertisement of the tournaments both internally for instance by using more efficiently the mailing feature of the server but also outside of ICCF where more advertisement of our tournaments is a must. The renewed cooperation agreement signed this year with New in Chess gives us a very clear idea what can and shall be done in the future

In conclusion, I would like to express my sincere thanks to delegates and officials for the support they had given me during these years.

43rd ICCF Congress, Sydney 2014, duly open

Please stand for the playing of the ICCF Anthem.

25

President’s Opening Remarks

Due to previous commitments or health issues, the following ICCF Officials were unable to attend and expressed their apologies for not being present:

Finance Director, George Pyrich World Tournament Director, Frank Geider Marketing Director, Andrew Dearnley Zone 1 Director, Marco Caressa Zone 2 Director, Carlos Cranbourne Direct Entry Commissioner, Ian M. Pheby Title Tournament Commissioner, Gian-Maria Tani Non-Title Tournament Commissioner, Markus Hömske Webmaster, Gino Figlio

26

Bertl von Massow Awards and Other Awards

The ICCF President outlined the background and criteria which applied for Bertl von Massow awards: - “Medals in Gold and Silver were awarded respectively for 15 and 10 years of faithful service to ICCF, as the Delegate of a National organisation, as Member of the Executive Board, Management Committee or Commissions, for Zonal organisations or as a Tournament Director, or as Team Captain of a winning or highly placed team in an Olympiad or Continental (Zonal) Team Tournament”.

The President Eric Ruch announced the names of officials that the ICCF Executive Board had agreed to receive Bertl von Massow awards in 2014. Each recipient (or their respective delegate) came forward to receive medals and certificates, with the acclamation of Congress.

Gold Medal J. F. Campbell (USA)

Y. Dothan (ISR)

A. Gaujens (LAT)

D. Knol (RSA)

J. Mrkvička (CZE)

Silver Medal R.V.M. Hall (ENG)

J.A Martello (ARG)

Honorary ICCF Member

In honour of his outstanding service to ICCF for more than 20 years, ICCF President Eric Ruch proposed to nominate SIM Carlos Flores Gutiérrez of Spain. Congress affirmed the nomination with a resounding show of appreciation to Carlos.

27

General Secretary Report to Congress


General Secretary Report to Congress

September 2014

Dear ICCF Delegates, Officials, Players, and Friends,

This year has been quite busy in the background implementing the many changes approved by the 2013 Congress in Poland. We have been dedicating this year to implementing changes, updating documentation, and starting to allocate some time to ICCF strategic discussions versus a mostly tactical approach of previous years. As you can see from the President’s report, we distributed an ICCF Official and ICCF Player survey. Response rates were overwhelming and we spent many months on analysis and preparing recommendations for future improvements and enhancements.

We have good news and bad news on the Membership front. The good news is that no Federations will be suspended this year for non-payment of dues (a few Member Federations have some outstanding balances – please refer to the Financial Director reports for additional information), but the bad news is that we have experienced no growth in Member Federations since the addition of Cape Verde Islands and Wales some years ago.

The practice of preparing and submitting proposals in advance of Congress is working quite well. This has allowed our experts in the various committees and commissions to review, discuss, and provide recommendations to all delegates prior to Congress. The Congress minutes, while quite hefty, have provided a completely transparent view into not just the Congress activities, decisions, and voting, but visibilities into the year-round work our officials do on behalf of ICCF.

As we look forward to our first Congress in Sydney, Australia, I was to express my appreciation to Brian Jones and all the hard working members of the Correspondence Chess League of Australia. Hosting a Congress is an enormous effort and the Australian team has worked extremely hard to ensure everyone attending has a wonderful and productive experience.

Justifications for many proposals have been based solely on alignment with FIDE. While we are an affiliate of FIDE, it is obvious that blind allegiance to following every FIDE rule, in many cases, does not make sense. Consequently, in our strategic thinking, we have recognized that blind devotion to FIDE may not make sense as we move further. Rather than the ICCF using the FIDE handbook as our “bible”, we are considering creating an ICCF handbook that will outline all the activities, rules, policies, and procedures of ICCF.

While researching our historical affiliation with FIDE and whether it has been deemed, not just successful, but advantageous to ICCF, I provide you some of the highlights extracted from ICCF Congress minutes concerning our relationship with FIDE. This is only provided to spark discussion about the future direction and alignment of ICCF.

A Summary of FIDE References in ICCF Congress Minutes 1986-20131986The relationship with FIDE had not improved since last Congress. Unfortunately, FIDE took no opportunity to show any affinity to correspondence chess. So long as this situation continues, it must be considered that the participation of ICCF in FIDE is only a historical matter.

28

1997The ICCF Liaison Officer to FIDE reported that the proposal for an ICCF team to play in a FIDE Olympiad was no longer a possibility. It was clear to him that at present FIDE had very little interest in the work of ICCF. He suggested that in future ICCF should focus its co-operation with FIDE on joint events connected with new technology.

1998The ICCF Liaison Officer to FIDE reported that there had been no special activities in this area, and that there had been no invitation to ICCF regarding attendance at the FIDE Congress. He particularly asked delegates to maintain good contacts with the over the board federations in their countries.

1999The ICCF Liaison Officer to FIDE reported that contact with FIDE had been limited to supplying written reports based on Congress minutes; though ICCF title awards were consistently ratified by FIDE, there was no other response to ICCF. It was clear that FIDE and ICCF operate almost in different worlds, with divergent interests and perspectives, linked solely by ICCF's potential for bringing in revenue for FIDE through sponsorships.

2000The Liaison Officer to FIDE had reported that FIDE had not seemed to be interested in active collaboration with ICCF for some years. He indicated a wish to resign, and suggested that the position should be discontinued. Congress accepted his resignation with regret and grateful thanks, and agreed that henceforth liaison with FIDE, as with other external bodies, would be the responsibility of the President. The President informed the Congress that he had been in contact with FIDE in recent months and relationships were good and friendly.

2001The President reported that, though there had been little contact with FIDE, they had recently appointed FIDE Treasurer, David C. Jarrett (ENG), as the FIDE delegate to ICCF. It was disappointing that, despite several reminders, that FIDE had not updated the ICCF information on its “affiliated member’s pages” but it was hoped the new FIDE delegate to ICCF would arrange this, and there would be a better working relationship in future.

2002The ICCF President reported that good contact had been restored with FIDE and that David Jarrett, the FIDE Treasurer, had been appointed as FIDE official representative to ICCF. He had met David earlier in the year and was delighted that David and his wife Valentina have accepted the invitation to come to Portugal for the early part of the Congress. They had shown a great interest in ICCF and developing closer working relationships between FIDE and ICCF. The ICCF President indicated that he would be attending the FIDE Congress in Bled.

2003The Zonal Director expressed his disappointment at the unsatisfactory results of discussions with FIDE officials and/or delegates.2005ICCF is most delighted to be able to field a team in the next FIDE Olympiad, to be held in Torino (Italy) during May 2006. This news was welcome by Congress and it was unanimously voted in favour of such participation.

2006The ICCF President referred to the ill-fated issue of an ICCF team participating in the 2006 FIDE Olympiad and George Walker (SUI) presented his observations on how he perceived that FIDE officials had viewed the ICCF entry to their Olympiad. He suggested how ICCF should try to deal with FIDE and build new and stronger relationships with that organisation. This was exactly what the President had decided and he had invited Honorary President Alan Borwell (SCO) to become the ICCF Liaison Officer to FIDE.

2007ICCF Liaison Officer to FIDE, Alan Borwell reported that relationships with FIDE were good and very recently he had contact with FIDE Executive Officer, David Jarrett (ENG) who had hoped he might be able to come to Benalmadena. Alan reported that the ICCF President had asked him if he could attend the forthcoming FIDE

29

Assembly, in Antalya, Turkey, from 14-17 November. He had arranged to do this and will report to the Executive Board. He hoped to make personal contact with delegates from many countries, which were not currently ICCF members. (NB, no new members were admitted to ICCF for the following five years).

2008Alan Borwell (SCO), as ICCF liaison officer to FIDE, hoped to attend the FIDE Congress in Dresden in November. If he were able to attend, he would make contact with FIDE Delegates, especially those of countries, which were not ICCF members. It would be helpful if an attractive ICCF information pamphlet could be prepared for distribution. (NB, no new members were admitted to ICCF for the following four years).

2009There were opportunities to work more closely with FIDE on matters of mutual interest, including schools/junior chess, marketing in collaboration with Global Chess and ICCF gaining more member countries via FIDE members. (NB, no new members were admitted to ICCF for the following three years). A formal application had been received from Cape Verde (CPV) but it was noted that it was not a FIDE member and therefore should not be granted full membership.

2010ICCF Honorary President, Alan P. Borwell (SCO) has announced he was stepping down as the ICCF FIDE Liaison Officer.

2012Three new federations admitted to ICCF.

2013Cape Verde finally admitted to ICCF.

Sincerely,

Michael Millstone, PhDICCF General Secretary

30

[General Secretary Note: because many participants travelled to Congress to receive special medals and certificates, we rearranged the agenda to provide medals and certificates early in Congress to accommodate these participants and avoid conflicts with the excursions later in the week.]

Prior to the awards presentation, the Qualifications Commissioner had one proposal that required a Congress decision.

Tournament Rules – Reminder - Tournament Director for Title TournamentsAs you know each title and title tournament has to be verified by me (if it conforms ICCF rules) before I place it in my report. Reminder about rules related to TD selection, obligatory for all ICCF officers and member federations, was placed in President's Report - September 2013. Short summary is presented below. It is high of importance since it has an influence on awarded titles this year and in the future. Requirement for an International Arbiter (IA) is for all title tournaments: 1° events of category 7 and above - obligatory 2° events of category 6 or lower - if possible In case of event category 7 and above NF may ask another federation or ICCF for support, if TD holding IA title is missing. Expression "if possible" does not mean that requirement has to be diminished or neglected. It should be read by organizer that if NF has IA in its human resources he should be exploited. However, it would be acceptable and good practice (for cat 6 and lower) to appoint TD aspiring for IA title (who has met say 75% of the requirements - it is just a thought and something to discuss in Sydney perhaps) and supported by his mentor or another IA. Title tournament cannot be the first tournament to start of a TD career for sure. Rules that some tournaments are to be controlled by TD holding IA title were introduced more than 10 years ago. The first documented information is placed in the minutes 2002 (Appendix J "Invitation tournaments"). Then Arbiter Manual introduced this requirement in the minutes 2005 (Appendix I "Arbiters Manual"). Then in 2012, Appendix "Invitation tournaments" was refreshed (just minor changes) and inserted directly to TR (Appendix III) - thus reminding that "Arbiter Manual" is also valid ICCF document and has to be observed. Unfortunately, some organizers did not follow these obligations in the past and this is subject to sanctions described in Code of Conduct. Member federations should be penalized for infringement or ignorance of this rules and norms should not be confirmed. However, my proposal is following:

- to discontinue disciplinary action with penalty/sanctions for TD & TO (events started before 2013);- these events shall NOT count towards the IA title or application for IA title to be rejected;- to accept NF applications for titles for players (several cases in this report!), even though norms were gained

in tournaments (started before 2013) where TD was not holding required IA title. I believe that players should not be penalized as a result.

The QC asks Congress to accept this proposal before international titles presentation. Please be advised that feature preventing from initiation tournament of category 7 or higher if TD is not holding IA title was introduced to the server in 2013.

31

Proposal: For Title Tournaments, the TD must be an International Arbiter

MF Yes No ABS NP Member

Australia (AUS) 1 Brian Jones

Austria (AUT) 1 Dr. Uwe Staroske

Canada (CAN) 1 Dr. Dennis Doren

Croatia (CRO) 1 Josef Mrkvička

Czech Republic (CZE) 1 Josef Mrkvička

England (ENG) 1 Austin Lockwood

Finland (FIN) 1 Eric Ruch

France (FRA) 1 Eric Ruch

Germany (GER) 1 Dr. Uwe Staroske

Iceland (ISL) 1 Per Söderberg

India (IND) 1 Dr. Ambar Chaterjee

Israel (ISR) 1 Eric Ruch

Italy (ITA) 1 Artis Gaujens

Latvia (LAT) 1 Artis Gaujens

Luxembourg (LUX) 1 Ulrich Baumgartner

Netherlands (NED) 1 Per Söderberg

Peru (PER) 1 Austin Lockwood

Poland (POL) 1 Mariusz Wojnar

Romania (ROM) 1 Mariusz Wojnar

Russia (RUS) 1 Sergey Grodzenskiy

Scotland (SCO) 1 Dr. Ambar Chaterjee

Slovakia (SVK) 1 Dr. Ján Helbich

Slovenia (SLO) 1 Josef Mrkvička

South Africa (RSA) 1 Everdinand Knol

Spain (ESP) 1 Ulrich Baumgartner

Sweden (SWE) 1 Per Söderberg

Switzerland (SUI) 1 Ulrich Baumgartner

Turkey (TUR) 1 Dr. Uwe Staroske

Ukraine (UKR) 1 Iurii Koshmak

United States 1 Dr. Dennis Doren

Venezuela (VEN) 1 Dr. Dennis Doren

Wales (WLS) 1 Austin Lockwood

Total: 32 31 0 1 0

32

Tournament Medals and Certificates – Awards Presentation

Individual Tournaments

World Champions Engraved Plates to:-

27th World Champion – Dronov, Aleksandr Surenovich (RUS)

World Championship 27 Final

Gold Dronov, Aleksandr Surenovich RUSSilver Kribben, Dr. Matthias GERBronze Mahling, Thomas GER

67th European Championship Final

Gold Carlos Cruzado Dueñas ESPSilver Bojan Fajs SLOBronze Dr. Fred Kunzelmann GER

11th Africa-Asia Championship Final

Silver Noble, Mark F. NZLBronze Hiçdönmez, Hakan TUR

Gold for Tugsavul was presented at the ICCF Congress 2013

12th Africa-Asia Championship Final

Gold Noble, Mark F. NZLSilver Tsang, Hon-ki HKGBronze Taner, Dr. Harun TUR

CADAP XXII Zonal Etapa Final

Gold Barria, Víctor Adrián ARGSilver Macayo, Ricardo Luis ARGBronze Dorner, Joaquin GUA

33

ICCF Officials Diamond Jubilee Tournaments (In Memory of George Stibal)

“A” Tournament

Gold Noble, Mark F. NZLSilver Murden, Clive AUSBronze Avotinš, Maigonis LAT

Medals for B, C & D tournaments were presented at the ICCF Congress 2013

9th Ladies World Championship Final

Gold Perevertkina, Irina Vladimirovna RUSSilver Sukhareva, Maria Aleksandrovna RUSBronze Dambrauskaitè, Vilma LTU

2nd Veterans World Cup Final

Gold Sergeev, Vladimir Stepanovich RUSSilver Sutkus, Vytautas LTUBronze Enricci, Juan Andrés ARG

34

Team Tournaments

Olympiad 16 Final (postal)

Gold Czech Republic1 Chytilek, Roman CZE2 Dufek, Jiří CZE3 Vrkoč, David CZE4 Vošahlík, Jiří CZE

TC Mrkvička, Josef CZE

Silver Germany1 Baumbach, Dr. Fritz GER

2&TC Kribben, Dr. Matthias GER3 Weizsäcker, Prof. Dr. Robert K. Frhr. Von GER4 Kreuzer, Dr. Martin GER

Bronze still to be decided.

8th European Team Championship Final

Gold Sweden1 Fagerström, Björn SWE2 Persson, Conny SWE3 Olofsson, Dan SWE4 Lindh, Stefan SWE5 Forslöf, Lars SWE6 Dahlström, Rickard SWE7 Degerhammar, Rune SWE8 Colin, Sonny SWE

TC Söderberg, Per SWE

Silver Italy1 Giuliani, Sante ITA2 Riccio, Eros ITA3 Cesetti, Claudio ITA4 Petrolo, Mauro ITA5 Dosi, Alberto ITA6 Pezzica, Giuseppe ITA7 Gerola, Giorgio ITA8 Cattani, Marco ITA

TC Mastrojeni, Gianni ITA

35

Bronze Russia1 Voll, Aleksey Borisovich RUS2 Turkov, Vladimir Sergeevich RUS3 Borzenko, Aleksandr Mikhailovich RUS4 Galanov, Sergey Igorevich RUS5 Poleshchuk, Nikolay Nikolaevich RUS6 Shpakovsky, Aleksandr Nikolaevich RUS7 Shulman, Boris Yakovlevich RUS8 Zakharov, Viktor Borisovich RUS

TC Pinkovetsky, Semen Usherovich RUS

Champions League 5

Gold ChessOKcom (RUS)1&TC Emelyanov, Mikhail Nikolaevich RUS

2 Kochemasov, Andrey Leonidovich RUS3 Oreopoulos, Kostas GRE4 Zakharov, Viktor Borisovich RUS

Silver & Bronze still to be decided

10th Pan-American Team Championship

Silver USA1 Siefring, Dr. Carl L. USA2 Biedermann, Thomas USA3 Ballow, John USA4 Kain, Tony USA

TC Schakel, Corky USA

Bronze Argentina (Celeste)1 Jacquin, Roberto Juan ARG

2&TC Diaz, Sergio ARG3 Mary, Patrick ARG4 Saglione, Eduardo ARG

Gold for PERU was presented at the ICCF Congress 2013

36

Grandmaster (GM) Titles awarded since the 2013 Congress

Applications under Rule 10.4 (c) - Medals/Certificates to be presented to:-

CZE 131128 Lounek, Jan GMCZE 130432 Moučka, Jiří GMCZE 130142 Pospíšil, Ludvík GMCZE 139151 Stalmach, Kamil GMCZE 130597 Sváček, Pavel GMESP 160793 Rodríguez Amezqueta, Carlos GMFRA 181158 Roubaud, David GMGER 85725 Bauer, Robert GMGER 83246 Mahling, Thomas GMIND 280176 Dhanish, P. B. GMITA 241054 Pezzica, Giuseppe GMTUR 490165 Akdag, Murad GM

SIM Titles awarded since the 2013 Congress

Applications under Rule 10.5 (a) - Medals/Certificates to be presented to:-

ARG 20634 Etchechoury, Guillermo Augusto SIMARG 20915 Pappier, Carlos G. SIMARG 20964 Saglione, Eduardo SIMAUT 10518 Pöhr, Adolf SIMBLR 750083 Dubko, Vladislav Cheslavovich SIMBRA 70981 Bolívar Ribeiro Gonzalez SIMBUL 50366 Borislav Emilov Kalchev SIMBUL 50453 Stoyanov, Zlatin SIMENG 210753 Dearnley, Andrew SIMENG 211501 Wharam, Dr. John SIMFIN 460965 Ylönen, Olli SIMFRA 189069 Tinture, Laurent SIMGER 85905 Heiko Neß SIMGER 85849 Kraft, Dieter SIMGER 81342 Märten, Thomas SIMGER 81024 Nickel, Reiner-Gert SIMGER 85063 Rook, Detlef SIMGER 85854 Schilcher, Adrian SIMGER 85915 Schmidt, Matthias SIMGER 81212 Staroske, Dr. Uwe SIMGER 81313 Windhausen, Georg SIMGRE 220173 Oreopoulos, Kostas SIMITA 241206 Gueci, Alberto SIM

37

LAT 910100 Roze, Andris SIMLUX 579036 Mertens, Marc SIMPER 400215 Solari, Aldo SIMROU 440499 Epure, Cristian-Ion SIMROU 440105 Florea, Mihail SIMROU 440505 Văluţanu, Marius SIMRUS 141633 Batrakov, Aleksandr Pavlovich SIMRUS 141604 Churkin, Mikhail Mikhailovich SIMRUS 141599 Fedorov, Sergey Yurievich SIMRUS 141809 Kuznetsov, Aleksandr Leonidovich SIMRUS 514634 Oseledets, Kirill Valerievich SIMRUS 141665 Pligin, Sergey Aleksandrovich SIMRUS 141722 Sekretaryov, Roman Viktorovich SIMRUS 140593 Sergeev, Vladimir Stepanovich SIMRUS 141853 Tleptsok, Ruslan Aslanovich SIMSUI 81213 Betker, Jörg SIMSUI 100378 Pfiffner, Peter SIMSVK 950003 Čavajda, Ivan SIMSVK 950053 Fečo, Ján SIMSVK 950238 Marek, Ing. Stanislav SIMSVK 950192 Würschner, Miroslav SIMSWE 451307 Nilsson, Sebastian SIMTUR 490190 Selen, Dinçer SIMUKR 940095 Terelya, Ivan SIM

IM Titles awarded since the 2013 Congress

Applications under Rule 10.6 (d) - Medals/Certificates to be presented to:-

ARG 21117 Barria, Víctor Adrián IMARG 20709 Domancich, Ezequiel Martín IMARG 20951 Macayo, Ricardo Luis IMARG 20937 Magallanes, Fabricio Iván IMAUT 10228 Rada, Hannes IMBLR 750087 Blitsko, Boris Mikhailovich IMBRA 70645 Silva, Ruy Castro Monteiro da IMBUL 50532 Antonov, Nikola IMBUL 50472 Petkov, Stoyan IMBUL 50479 Petrov, Milen IMCZE 131099 Buček, Jiří IMENG 211765 Brewer, Shaun IMENG 210753 Dearnley, Andrew IMESP 169141 Márquez Abreu, Carlos Javier IMESP 160875 Martín Sánchez, Carlos IM

38

FRA 181038 Claude LePage IMFRA 181233 Merrheim, Xavier IMFRA 181108 Standaert, Stéphane IMGER 85267 Bißmann, Stefan IMGER 84833 Bock, Dr. Steffen IMGER 85903 Jaeckel, Constanze IMGER 85849 Kraft, Dieter IMGER 80209 Meyer, Klaus-Dieter IMGER 85918 Piecusch, Ralf IMGER 85825 Priepke, Wolfgang IMGER 85915 Schmidt, Matthias IMITA 241109 De Bari, Vito IMLAT 910286 Istlajevs, Vladimirs IMLAT 910100 Roze, Andris IMLTU 920371 Samerdokas, Alfredas IMLTU 920036 Vaitonis, Vytautas IMROU 440529 Câmpian, Cristian IMROU 440557 Zarnescu, Marius IMRUS 141770 Aleksandr Stepanovich Martynov IMRUS 141633 Batrakov, Aleksandr Pavlovich IMRUS 141819 Budkin, Gennady Aleksandrovich IMRUS 141997 Chamaev, Aleksandr Viktorovich IMRUS 141604 Churkin, Mikhail Mikhailovich IMRUS 141529 Ermolaev, Andrey Stanislavovich IMRUS 141196 Lobanov, Evgeny Vasilievich IMRUS 141392 Mikheev, Stanislav Valerievich IMRUS 141943 Moskvichev, Valery Ivanovich IMRUS 514634 Oseledets, Kirill Valerievich IMRUS 141684 Pereverzev, Rostislav Alekseevich IMRUS 141446 Rudyak, Ivan Dmitrievich IMRUS 141826 Terekhov, Andrey Andreevich IMRUS 141185 Trofimov, Vladimir Markovich IMRUS 141983 Tsygankov, Evgeny Georgievich IMRUS 141788 Verenev, Yury Vladimirovich IMSLO 480115 Jemec, Viktor IMSLO 480082 Šivic, Dr. Klemen IMSWE 451395 Andersson, Magnus IMSWE 450552 Sandström, Ludvig IMUKR 940659 Felytin, Leonid IMUKR 940808 Lifanov, Vasily IMUSA 514688 Fuller, William E. IMUSA 514757 Johnson, Bobby IMUSA 514643 Wolff Morrow IM

LGM Titles awarded since the 2013 Congress

Applications under Rule 10.7 (c)- Medals/Certificates to be presented to:-

AUS 30091 Carmelita V. Henri LGMBUL 50498 Rosenova Marinova, Kremena LGMCZE 131246 Valinová, Jana LGM

39

ENG 212018 Halliwell, Toni LGMESP 160808 Pino Muñoz, Francisca LGMGER 85932 Svetlana Kloster LGMRUS 141878 Lobanova, Svetlana Vladimirovna LGMKAZ 990044 Litvinenko, Natalia LGMUKR 940652 Saenko, Alla Pavlivna LGM

LIM Titles awarded since the 2013 Congress

Applications under Rule 10.8 (c) - Medals/Certificates to be presented to:-

ARG 20506 Hilda Noemí Abdala LIMBUL 50498 Rosenova Marinova, Kremena LIMGER 85938 Bolz, Barbara LIMLUX 570085 Berend, Elvira LIMPOL 421395 Wójcik-Wojtkowiak, Bożena LIMRUS 142034 Dmitrieva, Galina Vladimirovna LIMRUS 141172 Kuteneva, Galina Viktorovna LIMRUS 141879 Lisetskaya, Larisa Viktorovna LIMSVK 950428 Alena Lukásová LIMUKR 940785 Matushkina, Lyudmyla LIMUKR 940924 Sheretyuk, Oksana LIM

IA Titles awarded since the 2013 Congress

Applications under Rule 10.9 – Medals/Certificates to be presented to:-

ENG 210454 Beckett, Phillip J. IAFRA 180455 Chazalette, Jean-Christophe IAGER 81523 Bartsch, Andreas IANED 370325 Jansen, Joop IAPOL 420969 Wojnar, Mariusz IARUS 141590 Pavlikov, Andrey Nikolaevich IASCO 620500 Anderson, Gordon M. IASCO 620623 Paine, Dr. Kevin IAUSA 511454 Avery, Bryce IA

Approval of 2013 Congress Minutes

Proposal to approve the 2013 Congress Minutes to Congress

40

Proposal: To approve the ICCF 2013 Minutes


































Total: 32 32 0 0 0

The Congress Minutes of 2013 were approved and signed by ICCF President, Eric Ruch (FRA) and ICCF General Secretary, Michael Millstone (USA).

41

Membership MattersMichael Millstone - General Secretary

Dismissals and Suspensions

ICCF General Secretary, Michael Millstone (USA) reported the following Member Federations were suspended in 2013 for non-payment of dues:

None

42

Qualifications Commissioner ReportMariusz Wojnar (POL)

IntroductionWelcome to my first report as ICCF Qualifications Commissioner! I have received a lot of support and encouragement from various people over the past year and I would like to thank particularly Eric Ruch, Michael Millstone, Gerhard Binder, Martin Bennedik, Austin Lockwood, and Neil Limbert for their help and advice. As a reminder, please find QC duties in Appendix 1. One of my duties is to propose improvement of rules and regulations.

Tournament Rules - Proposal for RevisionRevision required to the Tournament Rules Extensive revision of basic document for QC, which is Tournament Rules, was done and internal inconsistency in few paragraphs was found. It needs to be reorganized and some definitions renamed or added. For example, article "10.Titles" says about ICCF Title tournaments, so it means about tournaments listed under article 1 only ("1.Title Tournaments"). Few event categories, which are titled at some stage, are missing like World Cup Tournaments (art.3), Norm Tournaments (art.4), Champions’ League (art.5), and some Special Tournaments (art.6). Therefore, there is an impression that these events should not be considered for titles purposes. My proposal is that QC is to work out a draft document after congress meeting (until the end of 2014) with close cooperation within MC and to be decided during next congress meeting in 2015. Congress approved plan without a formal vote.

Tournament Rules - Editorial CorrectionRevision Required to the Tournament Rules Norm Table. Probably nobody revisited norm table since 2000! My findings are placed in norm tables presented in Appendix 2. Because of wrong rounding minimum score is inflated in few cases. Please verify my calculations and if they are correct please accept my proposal for 2015 Congress to correct rounding or find another solution for norm calculations. Plan is for Mariusz to revise the norm tables, the Tournament Rules Commission will verify the revised tables, and send to the Services Director for implementation by January 1, 2015. Congress approved the plan without a formal vote. However, a question was raised that since titles dating back 15+ years were based on an incorrect norm tables, would ICCF consider appeals for title awards and modifications based on the new norm tables. Congress voted in favour of the proposal (see voting record below).

43

Proposal: Allow Retroactive Application for Titles Based On Revised Norm Table


































Total: 32 17 9 6 0

44

Tournament Rules – Proposal – Minimum Score for Titles.Normally there is requirement for minimum score for all international titles, for example 30% in Poland or 35% in FIDE. Currently there is no minimum for ICCF events, so in extreme cases it is enough 10% or even less. The minimum required to be discussed and possibly decided during congress meeting. The QC asks Congress to support this proposal (to be implemented from 2016-01-01). After conversation, it was decided more data would be needed to determine if this is a significant problem. It was agreed that Mariusz (QC Commissioner) and Austin (SD Director) would provide data/statistics of norms achieved with less than 30%, for both men and women to Congress to consider in 2015.

Tournament Rules – Proposal - Titles Achieved in National Championships FinalThe final stage of the national individual or team championship shall be exempt and international title norms possible if other requirements fulfilled. However, at least one of the norms has to be achieved under normal foreigner requirement. In my opinion, ICCF can implement this FIDE standard. The QC asks Congress to support this proposal (to be implemented from 2016-01-01). This proposal was defeated (please see voting record below).

Proposal: Titles Achieved in National Championships Final


































Total: 32 13 16 3 0

45

Tournament Rules - Editorial Correction - Tournament Rules – Unexpected Substantial Change during Update Process

Being QC, I am responsible for ICCF title tournaments in terms of providing guarantee that ICCF rules are observed by both players & TOs. I did not realize that requirements for title tournaments, valid for several years, were changed substantially until worried organizers pointed that out. The issue is that at some stage of TR update somebody, probably believing that an error existed, replaced expression "C = the maximum number of players being members of one and the same federation" with "C = the minimum number of players not belonging to one and the same federation". In fact, these are two different expressions with very different meanings. Three numbers in column C were mixed as well, and are still incompatible with the column description. I investigated the issue and clarified with Eric Ruch, one of previous QCs. Correct wording and numbers for column C are supported by ICCF Congress 2002 minutes, Appendix D. There were no further changes to that rules from that time. Editorial correction is needed to all previous documents (e.g. TR 2014, 2013, 2012). The QC asks Congress to support this proposal (to be implemented immediately). Congress approved this editorial change without a formal vote.

Tournament Rules – Reminder - Tournament Director for Title TournamentsThis proposal was reviewed prior to the Awards presentation and Congress approved this proposal.

Special Applications

The QC Commissioner presented 3 special applications for Congress to consider. (Note: a reminder that ICCF policy states that if an active Member Federation has not formally applied for an award of a title on behalf of a player, the title will not be awarded).

UKR940932Lesko, Andrei (IM)

Andrei Lesko has achieved 2 IM Norms as follows: - 2013-12-14 WCCC36PR03 (Category 3) with 10½ out of 14. - 2014-09-01 FINJUB-50, Semi Final, group 04 (Category 3) with at least 7 out of 10. He is therefore fully qualified for the IM Title. Ukraine has an active CC federation, but player is not a member of NF. No application from ND, the more ND is against because of his bad behaviour.

An extended discussion took place regarding this special application. The Ukrainian delegate read a letter prepared by the President of CCFU (Mr. Koshmak) especially for this application. Mr. Koshmak presented the letter as the URK Delegate Designee:

46

ФЕДЕРАЦІЯ ЗАОЧНИХ ШАХІВ УКРАЇНИCORRESPONDENCE CHESS FEDERATION of UKRAINE02222 м.Київ, пр-т Маяковcького 32, к.166. Тел. (098) 361-80-83, факс (044) 541-22-04

e-mail: [email protected] www.ccfu.org.ua

To: President ICCF Eric Ruch

Dear mr. Eric Ruch, Correspondence Chess Federation of Ukraine (CCFU) having great respect for the ICCF, asks to refrain from

bestowing any title to Lesko, Andrei (ID 940932) and to disqualify him for the life term due to below presented facts. Lesko, Andrei has been the member of CCFU until November 8, 2013. Beginning from July 2013, he has started to lie away the activity of CCFU and the reputation of its leaders at various internet chess sites and in personal e-mail messages. There is no doubt that during the same period he has made numerous hacker attacks of CCFU site www.ccfu.org.ua, cracked mailboxes of chess players, deleted accounts at internet forums, falsified e-mail messages on behalf of different chess players. More over, beginning from this August he has started to spread misinformation about the activity of the ICCF, indicating, in particular, that the ICCF cashes in on retired persons, agitating against participation in the ICCF tournaments, etc. The above is realized by means of mass-scale personal e-mail messages. In 2013-2014 CCFU revealed 5 cases of unauthorized tampering in the play of chess players Yeremenko(940056), Yaroshenko(511731), Koshmak(940981) Dudyev (940089), Gudok( 940097). We are sure that the above was made by Lesko. In all cases, the TDs canceled the moves made by intruder, except for the case of Y.Yaroshenko in Slav Cup IV. As a result, our team got 4 undeserved losses, thus losing any chance to fight for medal place, due to TD’s decision not to cancel illegal moves. Our Federation made respective appeal. Besides, we would like to focus your attention at the following facts of disgraceful and immoral behavior of A.Lesko.

1. In 2012 in his first tournament (EU/WS/M/031) he had a conflict with Ilken Zafer (ID 490182) and got a warning.2. In the same year in WCCC36pr03 his opponent Eckert (ID 510672) committed a stupid 37 th move leading to a loss. At

first, the American player made a statement about unauthorized intrusion in the game but then changed his mind. In this tournamentA.Lesko achieved IM title.

3. In 2013 A.Lesko deceived organizers of Dick van Geet Memorial and Silvian Zinser Memorial(B), having included himself in both tournaments instead of players nominated by our Federation. The fraud was discovered in 2 weeks and A.Lesko was excluded from both tournaments.

4. In 2014 he hacked the site of Russian Association of Correspondence Chess (www/rcca-ru.com). Representatives of Russian Association may provide more detailed information about this.

5. On July 12, 2013 A.Lesko presented anti-Semitic assaults against leaders of CCFU at www:Ukraine-chess. This information is still on the site.

Materials about criminal activities of A.Lesko were taken to court and law-enforcement authorities at his place of residence.

Yours sincerely, I.Koshmak,President of CCFU

47

Other official participants discussed code of conduct aspects of the case. In conclusion, although there is a preponderance of evidence against Mr. Lesko, it was determined that bad behaviour, in itself, is not cause for the withholding of a title; however, clear evidence of misconduct through intentionally altering games would be. In the end, it was decided that two votes would be taken (provisionally). The first vote would be to determine if Congress was to decide on this special application as is. If approved, the second vote would be to approve/disapprove the special application. The first vote by Congress was not to decide, i.e., postpone any decision. Nine delegates abstained from this vote, thus deciding not to vote to not vote. The voting record shows that Congress decided to postpone making a decision and will wait for further evidence of possible wrongdoing from either the Ukrainian law enforcement authorities or elsewhere.

Proposal: to vote to postpone action on Lesko's application


































Total: 32 13 10 9 0

48

UKR940827Podgursky, Artur, IMArtur Podgursky has achieved 2 IM Norms as follows: - 2011-02-27 Vsevolod Rauzer Memorial (Category 5) with 8½ out of 12. 2011-06-07 WCCC34SF11 (Category 8) with 7 out of 12. He is therefore fully qualified for the IM Title. Application submitted by NF. Player was suspended until 2014-06-05 because of unacceptable behaviour towards an ICCF officer (3 years). However, there is no formal obstacle to award international title after penalty quarantine.

A good discussion ensured as to whether past bad behaviour was sufficient cause to prevent award of a title. It was noted that Mr. Podgursky served his two-year suspension and the quarantine period is now over.

Proposal: To award Artur Podgursky an IM title.


































Total: 32 28 0 4 0

49

SWE451416Johansson, Thomas, IMThomas Johansson has achieved 2 IM Norms as follows: - 2010-10-19 Champions League 2010 C Group 2 (Category 1) with 10 out of 12. - 2013-12-06 Champions League 2012 B2 (Category 9) with 7 out of 12. He is therefore fully qualified for the IM Title. Sweden has an active CC federation, but player is not a member of the NF (SSKK). No application was submitted from the delegate.

The delegate from Sweden spoke on this issue and told Congress; it is in the federation’s statutes that if there is a Swedish player, qualified for a title and not being a member of the Swedish Correspondence Chess Federation (SSKK), then those players will not be nominated by SSKK for an ICCF title. It is a service SSKK have for the members. Further the delegate said that SSKK would be equally happy if the title is awarded.

Proposal: for Thomas Johansson to be awarded the title of IM


































Total: 32 1 12 19 0

50

Financial Report & Accounts to 31.12.2013

George Pyrich – Finance Director

ICCF President, Eric Ruch presented the financial reports prepared by the Finance Director, George Pyrich. There were no comments from Congress on this report and Congress participants expressed their wholehearted appreciation for all the excellent work George has done in the Financial Director position.

ICCF Congress 2014 Sydney, Australia

Report of the Finance Director

Glenrothes, Scotland Sydney, Australia 27 July 2014 12 to 18 October 2014

Dear friends and delegates,

Firstly, owing to health considerations, I should like to express my regret at being unable to join you at Congress this year. However, I should like to wish you all a constructive and rewarding Congress, the first ever held “down under”!

1. ICCF Financial Accounts 2013

Delegates are requested to note the audited Financial Accounts for 2013 contained within the document “ICCF Accounts 2013” distributed separately. Delegates are also requested to note the surplus for the year of 25,039.70 EUR resulting in an increase in the Capital Account to 313,173.71 EUR. Delegates are respectfully requested to approve these Accounts.

Delegates are requested to note also that whilst the surplus recorded during 2013 is slightly higher than that recorded for 2012 (22,406.86 EUR), it is considerably higher than that anticipated in the Financial Plan for 2013, (10,120.20 EUR) Whilst Income received during 2013 rose by some 6% over the previous year, Expenditure over the same period rose by only some 4.1%. Further comparisons against the Financial Plan reveal an increase in anticipated Income of some 7,000 EUR (increased Entries) but a reduction of some 12,000 in anticipated Expenditure (Congress and Other Meetings, Marketing and Tournament Directors Expenses).

Closer comparison between Income received during 2013 and the previous year confirms the variation in Income caused by the holding of several significant events during alternate years as mentioned my Report last year. Other notable features are the overall increase in the total number of entries received during 2013 from the previous year of some 10.7% (note that the Summary of these at Appendix B excludes Zone entries) and the very substantial and unexpected increase in the yield obtained from the investment portfolio. Similar comparisons against the previous year with regard to Expenditure confirm the substantial increases to Prizes approved at the 2012 Congress and to Depreciation Costs arising from increased Expenditure with regard to Webserver Development.

Finally, during 2013 the Direct Entry scheme was expanded to permit players from Zones 1 and 3 to enter directly Individual Zone events for the first time. Direct Entry fees paid by players were then refunded to the Zones.

51

2. ICCF Tournament Fees

Delegates will be aware of reductions of Tournament Fees of some 20% effective from 1 January 2014 as approved at last year’s Congress in Krakow. Whilst our Accumulated Funds continue to increase each year we can reasonably anticipate another similar such reduction to Fees at some point in the future. However, I consider that to implement such a measure at this time would be imprudent, request the Congress to await confirmation of entry numbers for 2014 and Income therefrom, and then reconsider the situation at the 2015 Congress.

3. Direct Entries & Rebates to Federations

Delegates may also recollect the measure approved at the 2011 Congress in Finland whereby, effective from 1 January 2012, the proportion of Direct Entry fees received and then paid as Rebates to Member Federations was increased from 30% of Direct Entry fees to 50%. It is now clearly apparent that since this measure was implemented that the number of Direct Entries as a proportion of Total Entries has consistently increased as confirmed by the increase of some 15.9% to the amounts repaid as Rebates to Member Federations in 2013 over the previous year. Further confirmation of this situation is provided in the 2013 Financial Accounts where, arising from situation whereby some Member Federations now accumulate more in Rebates than that owing in respect of ICCF fees, for the first time Liabilities include an amount in respect of “Accounts Payable Member Federations”. More evidence of this trend is contained by a comparison of the daily average between the number of Direct Entries received during 2014 to date (7.55) and that for the whole of 2013 (4.98), an increase in excess of 50%.

4. “Free Entries” at Discretion of Zone Directors

Several years ago the Congress approved a scheme whereby each of the 4 Zone Directors were granted discretion to submit up to 20 entries annually to ICCF events on behalf of players from their Zones “free of charge” in order to promote increased activity.

According to my records, there has been a very limited response to this scheme with only 10 such entries during 2013 (Zone 1 (1), Zone 2 (7), Zone 3 (1) and Zone 4 (1). In view of this situation, Congress may now wish to reconsider its continuing support for this scheme.

5. ICCF Fees per Annual Statement of Accounts

As a condition of ICCF membership, all Member Federations are obliged to arrange prompt payment of the membership fees and tournament charges imposed as per the Annual Statement of Accounts. I am pleased to report to Congress that, with 1 exception, all fees due for 2012 were paid timeously and that to date (23 July) only 5 Federations have yet make payment in respect of fees for 2013. Consequently, the ICCF General Secretary will not be required to impose any sanctions in terms of withdrawal of voting rights and tournament entry entitlements.

George PyrichICCF Finance Director

52

Summary of Postal Entries

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

Annual TotalsWorld Ch.Final 1 World Ch. Cand. World Ch. SF. 13 World Ch. Prelim.

World - Master 35 57 45 29 30 38World - Higher 28 28 13 18 20 27World - Open 42 58 36 36 48 35Olympiads 24 World Cup 99 Thematics 58 46 50 43 30 41MN Events 13 13 14

176 202 172 249 128 141

53

Summary of Server Entries

2010 2011 2012 2013

NF DE

Total NF DE Tot

al NF DE Total NF DE Tot

alWorld Ch. Final 33 0 33 28 0 28 0 0

World Ch. Cand. 119 4 123 78 0 78 48 0 48 49 3 52

World Ch. SF. 154 2 156 201 5 206 136 7 143 138 5 143

World Ch. Prelim. 149 7 156 201 10 211 199 26 225 175 12 187

World - Master 504 80 584 514 132 646 435 149 584 406 167 573

World - Higher 228 96 324 240 110 350 242 129 371 249 157 406

World - Open 275 30

3 578 275 327 602 309 329 638 347 458 805

World - Aspirers 11 24 35

Olympiads 46 46 0

World Cup 0 0 0 621 227 848 0 719 282 1001

Thematics 131 51 182 139 40 179 109 70 179 112 70 182Master Norm 136 19 155 150 34 184 123 60 183 141 68 209

GM Norm 51 8 59 65 25 90 34 18 52 23 29 52Ch. League 179 46 225 0Vets. WC 319 44 363 347 56 403 378 90 468 446 96 542Junior WC 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

WS Open 448 129 577 0 0 0 423 215 638 0

DE5A 0 360 360 0 0

Chess 960 80 23 103 6 14 20 53 34 872,547

743

3,290

2,939

1,349

4,288

2,667

1,153

3,820

2,869

1,405

4,274

54

Auditor ReportJosef Mrkvička – ICCF Auditor

Josef presented his auditor report. There were no comments from Congress on this report. There were no comments from Congress on this report and Congress participants expressed their wholehearted appreciation for all the excellent work Josef has done in the ICCF auditor position.

ICCF Congress 2014 Sydney, Australia

The ICCF Auditor’s ReportOn Financial Statements 2013

Plzen, Czech Republic Parramatta, Sydney, Australia31 July 2014 12 October to 17 October 2014

Introduction

I, Josef Mrkvička, ICCF Auditor have audited the financial statements of the International Correspondence Chess Federation (thereinafter “ICCF”), which comprise the Balance Sheet as at 31 December 2013, and the Profit & Loss Statement for the year then ended. These audited financial statements form part of the Finance Director ’s Report to this Congress.

ICCF Executive Board’s Responsibility for the Financial Statements

The ICCF Executive Board, in particular the ICCF Finance Director George Pyrich, is responsible for the preparation and true and fair view of these financial statements. This responsibility includes designing, implementing and maintaining internal control relevant to the preparation and fair presentation of financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error; selecting and applying appropriate accounting policies, and making accounting estimates that are reasonable in the circumstances.

Auditor’s Responsibility

My responsibility is to express an opinion on these financial statements based upon my audit. I have conducted my audit in accordance with the International Standards on Auditing, where appropriated and/or applicable. Those standards require that I comply with ethical requirements and plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance whether the financial statements are free from material misstatement.

An audit involves performing procedures to obtain audit evidence about the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. The procedures selected depend on the auditor’s judgment. An audit also includes evaluating the appropriateness of accounting policies used and the reasonableness of accounting estimates made by the ICCF Finance Director, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the financial statements.I set the level of materiality at EUR 17.00, which is the usual limit from which receipts are required for a cost reimbursement.

Audit Procedures Performed

I performed the following audit procedures:

55

I checked if all ledger accounts had been opened by correct opening balances, equalling to closing balances as at 31st December 2012.

I checked the formal correctness of all book entries made on various ledger accounts during the year 2013. I checked if the closing balances of ledger accounts as at 31st December 2013 had been allocated correctly

to particular items of the Balance Sheet and the Profit & Loss Statement. I compared the issued MF’s Statements of Accounts for the year 2013 with the respective book entries. In a detailed way, I analysed the accounts receivables and accounts payables as at 31st December 2013. I checked the vouchers and bank statements provided by the Finance Director and compared them with the

respective book entries in the Day Book.

The discovered discrepancies were submitted to the Finance Director, together with my proposals how these should be rectified. I am pleased to report that all my proposals were welcomed and accepted by the Finance Director, and that appropriate adjustments were made in the final version of the Financial Statements.

Material Findings

Based on my recommendation from the year 2013, the ICCF Finance Director amended the annual Member Federations Statement of Accounts by introducing a new template, which is now in compliance with the definitions stated in the Articles 6 and 7 of the Statutes.

Just as in my Auditor’s Report for the year 2010, I recommended general reductions to ICCF’s annual surpluses and the utilization of the funds accumulated from previous years for the benefit of ICCF players. In 2013, the ICCF Finance Director made other provisions for future prizes and herewith reduced the reported yearly income. Rebates for DE entries were considerably higher than in 2012 – probably, Member Federations are encouraging players to use Direct Entry in order to obtain more rebates.

Nevertheless, given the high income from the World Cup 20, the yearly profit was even higher than in 2012, namely by 11.75 %. On the other side, and as I stressed in my Report in Cracow, non-profit organizations should not make too high profits. In this respect, my recommendation from 2010 to reduce yearly profits remains in power.

Because of the abovementioned increased Direct Entry rebates, many Member Federations just have a “credit” towards ICCF. The total credit in the year 2013 was as high as 2.5 thousands euro. The ICCF Finance Director always deducts these credits from the next Statement, which is correct in terms of the business between ICCF and Member Federations. However, regarding the formal layout of the Financial Statements, the International Financial Reporting Standards do not allow offsets between accounts receivable and accounts payable when the debtors and creditors are different subjects, which is exactly ICCF’s case. For that reason, I recommended to report the credits as ICCF’s liabilities and not to deduct them from the accounts receivable. This recommendation was accepted by the ICCF Finance Director.

Again, the payment culture of Member Federations improved in 2013 and the ICCF Finance Director did not have to impose any interest surcharges for late payments in the last year.

The bad debt of Algeria amounting to € 266.04 had to be written off in 2013, also two minor debts of Malta and Turkmenistan. The total amount of the written-off debts is € 333.04. No new allowances for bad debts needed to be created in the financial year 2013.

Again, there was a positive development in the market value of the ICCF investments which increased during the year by € 4 984.72, much more than in 2013.

The ICCF’s cash position remains strong and sound. The net cash balance of ICCF increased during the year by 6.4 % and amounted to more than € 220 thousand at the end of 2013. However, I have to stress that a part of these funds belongs to the Zone 1, as the Zone 1 Member Federations were allowed to pay for their ICCF and Zone 1 Statements by one payment to the ICCF bank account.

Recommendations and proposals

Apart from my still valid proposal to continue reducing the yearly profits as expressed above, I have no other recommendations and proposals. In my opinion, the financial year 2014 will be critical for further financial decisions, as this will be the first year, which will show the impact of the reduction of start fees as from 1.1.2014 on the ICCF’s income and profit. If the trend of increasing profits continued, ICCF probably should think of a further reduction of fees.

56

Other than this I should only like to add that ICCF’s finances continue to enjoy a healthy condition and that I do not foresee at this time any possibility of a substantial financial deficit for the year 2015 and subsequent years.

Conclusions – Auditor’s Opinion

I believe that the audit evidence I have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for my audit opinion.

Opinion

In my opinion, the financial statements give a true and fair view of assets, liabilities and accumulated fund of ICCF as of 31 December 2013, and of costs and earnings for the year then ended.

Finally, I should like to express my appreciation of the dedicated and good work of the Finance Director, George Pyrich, during the whole year 2013 and also to express my thanks to him for his perfect co-operation during the course of this audit.

AMICI SUMUS!

Date of preparation:31st July, 2014

Name and address of the Auditor:Josef MrkvičkaHouškova 32326 00 Plzeň, Czech Republic

Auditor’s signature:

Appendices: Financial statements of ICCF as of December 31, 2013 (Balance Sheet, Profit & Loss Account) – attached to the Finance Director’s Report

After a presentation of his report, the ICCF Auditor broached the following proposal to be discussed at a future Congress:

There are some traditional team tournaments that are organized by National Federations such as Mare Nostrum, Slav Cup, Danube Cup, and others. An unwritten rule says that there is a moral obligation for the winner of the last edition to organize the next edition. The tournament organization includes hard work before and during the tournament to the benefit of the participating countries. However, the organizing federation is “rewarded” by the obligation to pay fees to ICCF. Why not exempt the organizing federation from these fees?

57

Proposal: To approve the Financial Reports and Auditors Report.


































Total: 32 32 0 0 0

Financial Plan

Next, Eric Ruch reviewed the Financial Plan.

Two comments were received:- A question was raised as to whether cash prizes are subject to withholding tax. Eric explained that this matter

was examined in detail in previous years and there was no risk to ICCF in this area.- It was recommended that line item 44 (website costs) and the associated figures are rolled into other

webserver line items.

(Note: Because of the sensitive nature of the financial plan, it will not be included in the Congress minutes).

58

Direct Entry

Michael Millstone presented the Direct Entry report prepared by Ian M. Pheby, the Direct Entry Commissioner. There were no comments from Congress on this report and Congress participants expressed their wholehearted appreciation for all the excellent work Ian has done in the Direct Entry Commissioner position.

International Correspondence Chess FederationIan M Pheby

Direct Entry [email protected]

[email protected]

Report to the 2014 Congress Direct Entry Programme

17th August 2014

Dear Chessfriends,

Introduction

I would like to apologise for not being able to present this report in person. As you may know, I have a total fear of flying, and I am thus unable to attend Congress unless it is held within mainland United Kingdom. I did have the pleasure of meeting many of you at the Leeds Congress in 2009, which I attended.

I am pleased to submit my third report as Direct Entry Commissioner to the 2014 ICCF Congress regarding the Direct Entry Programme. The period of this report will be from the programme start on 5th April 2006 through to 31st July 2013.

Direct Entry Programme

The Direct Entry Programme enables players to register for ICCF events subject to holding the appropriate qualifications for that event by making a payment through PayPal. Unfortunately, some countries are not part of the Direct Entry Programme; I sincerely hope that they join as soon as possible.

The Programme benefits from the automation of the process for entries on the webserver. This process is being continually reviewed to seek possible improvements, and I extend my thanks to all those involved in ensuring this system works so efficiently.

I am pleased to report that the Direct Entry Programme has received its 10,000th eligible entry in July 2014. Since its introduction in 2006, the programme has received an average of about 100 entries per month. The greatest number of entries in a month was in May 2014 when 341 entries were received.

Information about the Direct Entry Programme

59

From January to December 2013, 1816 entries for ICCF tournaments were registered, that is 4.98 entries per day, representing an increase of about 44% compared with 2013 (1260 entries, 3.44 per day). This is to date a record number of entries in a year. However, from January to July 2014, 1555 entries were registered, that is 7.33 entries per day. We are therefore well on the way to breaking the record set in 2013.

Appendix 1 contains details of the entries to the varied tournaments available by Direct Entry, and the level of activity in each tournament.

Rejected entries

Unfortunately, there are occasions when the Direct Entry Office has to reject entries, and this can occur for a variety of reasons. Whilst a small number of rejections can be expected, 2014 has to July of this year seen a very large number of rejections, some 95 in total. Appendix 2 contains details of these rejections.

Delegates are kindly requested to remind those players within their Federation of their need to be qualified to enter the event of their choice. The qualification criteria for the various events appear on the webserver. It would save the players’ disappointment and the Direct Entry Office a lot of work if the number of rejections could be dramatically reduced.

Direct Entry 5th Webserver Anniversary Tournament

To celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Direct Entry Programme, a tournament was organized by Jean-Christophe Chazalette (FRA). The current situation is that the final is taking place with play officially having started on 5th April 2014. The final is a Category VIII event contested by 15 players, and play will cease on 5th April 2016. The prizes for the event are:

1st prize: DE 5th Anniversary Tournament trophy, plus 450 €

2nd prize: 330 €

3rd prize: 220 €

By winning their semi-final groups, the following players are entitled to 3 free entries in any Direct Entry tournament of their choice. The free entries must be used before 31 st March, 2016 :

ICCF NUMBERNAME FEDERATION

181193 Broudin, Melissa FRA390491 Pessoa, Francisco Azevedo POR141826 Terekhov, Andrey Andreevich RUS100129 Terreaux, Gilles SUI142089 Beilin, Sergey Mikhailovich RUS371050 Westera, Bert NED380073 Noble, Mark F. NZL

To date, one free entry has been used.

Should those appearing in this list wish to take up their free entries, they must submit their entry to the Direct Entry Commissioner at [email protected] by no later than 31st March 2016 giving their name, their ICCF number, the name of the DE5A semi-final group they won, and the tournament they wish to enter.

Delegates are kindly requested to remind those players within their Federation of their option of free entries for events for which they are qualified to participate.

mailto:[email protected]

60

Appreciation

I want to thank:

Jean-Christophe Chazalette (FRA) for his continued organization of DE5A. All Tournament Organisers for their continued support of the Direct Entry Office and the Programme. All National Federations with whom the Direct Entry Office has had contact for their cooperation.

----------------------------

It has been and continues to be an honour to serve the ICCF as Direct Entry Commissioner, and I hope to continue to serve the ICCF for many years as your Direct Entry Commissioner.

Ian M PhebyDirect Entry Commissioner

Appendix 1 – Entries to Direct Entry Programme

2006* 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014**DE Applications 393 728 821 1038 1070 1368 1260 1816 1555Average Applications per day 1.46 1.99 2.25 2.84 2.93 3.75 3.44 4.98 7.33

World ChampionshipsWCCC - Preliminaries 3 6 23 10 3 10 33 28 19WCCC - Semifinals 1 2 5 2 1 5 7 12 18WCCC - Candidates 1 6 10 6 1 0 0 4 4LWCCC - Semifinals N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 1 0 0 0World CupsWorld Cups 47 N/A N/A 95 N/A 224 1 279 0Veterans World Cups N/A N/A N/A 28 47 56 85 99 61Junior World Cup N/A N/A 6 N/A N/A 1 1 0 0Chess 960 N/R N/R N/R N/R N/R N/R N/R 23 39European ChampionshipsServer Championship Semifinals N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 5 0 27

Server Championship Candidates N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 4

Server Championship Open N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 33 111Server Championship Preliminaries N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 15 62

Postal Championship Open N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 2 3Postal Championship Semifinals N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 2 0

Norm TournamentsGrandmaster Norm 3 6 8 9 19 30 13 25 14Master Norm 8 16 22 18 25 39 53 78 34

61

Champions LeagueChampions League N/A 103 N/A 166 N/A 0 47 0 0Promotion TournamentsEuropean Open Class N/R N/R N/R N/R N/R N/R N/R 56 0European Higher Class N/R N/R N/R N/R N/R N/R N/R 28 0European Master Class N/R N/R N/R N/R N/R N/R N/R 37 0NAPZ Open Class N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 123 141NAPZ Higher Class N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 45 47NAPZ Master Class N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 48 25World Open Class 174 324 313 292 338 302 395 444 201World Higher Class 39 56 88 153 93 116 158 166 89World Master Class 45 66 63 63 89 137 173 165 109World Postal Open Class N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 7ThematicsThematics 11 30 14 22 47 73 59 63 50Jubilee TournamentsJubilee 960-1 N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 23 0 0 0Direct Entry EventsDE5A N/A N/A N/A N/A 139 350 0 0 0Money Prize TournamentsMoney Prize Tournaments N/A 113 169 131 102 N/A N/A N/A N/AFast Money Prize N/A N/A N/A 25 34 N/A N/A N/A N/ARapid TournamentsRapid Tournaments N/A N/A 4 10 N/A N/A N/A N/A N/ABlitz TournamentsBlitz Tournaments N/A N/A 7 8 N/A N/A N/A N/A N/AOpen TournamentsAspirer N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 28 92Webchess Open 61 N/A 89 N/A 132 0 216 0 384Chess 960 N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 1 14 13 14

* From 05/04/2006 to 31/12/2006

** From 01/01/2014 to 31/07/2014

62

Appendix 2 – Rejected Entries

COUNTRY TOTALArgentina 2Australia 7Austria 1Belarus 1Canada 5Croatia 1Denmark 2England 7Finland 1France 10Germany 5Israel 2Italy 2Netherlands 1Norway 1Panama 1Philippines 1Poland 1Portugal 1Romania 1Russia 7South Africa 1Switzerland 2Tunisia 1Turkey 1USA 30

95

REASONS FOR REJECTION TOTALEntered tournament after closing date 1No qualification 14Not eligible for EU events 14Not eligible for NAPZ events 17Player requested cancellation - did not mean to enter that event 13Qualification already used 3Quoted a qualification of winning an event when only in first place of an unfinished event 1Player suspended 4Rating too high 12

63

Rating too low 15Tournament Organiser declined entry 1

95

64

Services Director – Webserver, Website, and Internet Matters

Austin Lockwood, ICCF Services Director presented his report. The report was accepted in full and efforts were immediately underway to implement all Priority 1 tasks identified at the Services Director meeting held prior to Congress.

Dear friends,

I present my third annual report as ICCF Services Director.

Members of the ICCF Services Committee met in Bolton, England, in June to review progress with the Phase 11 plan, and to develop the proposed Phase 12 plan, which I present here for delegates approval at Congress.

I believe that with the support of all ICCF players and officials, we have made great progress with the webserver over the past 12 months, and I look forward to continuing this work for the remainder of 2014 and into 2015.

At our last Congress of 2013 in Krakow, delegates voted to allow claims to be made based on tablebase evaluations. We took this opportunity to implement a fully featured system for processing claims on the server, this involved a significant update, and we now have a system, which is clear and easy to use for both players and tournament directors. We also now have the facility easily to audit the performance of tournament directors; this represents a significant improvement in the server over the last twelve months.

Martin Bennedik has implemented extensive device support, server pages now adapt responsively to the device on which they are viewed; this includes desktop screens of all sizes, tablets and mobile phones (we appreciate that we made one or two mistakes with this implementation, and will restore the customisable games list as soon as we can!).

Following consultation with a well-known expert in the field, Troy Hunt AUS, we have also completed a review of server security and implemented a number of recommendations. As he is a native of Sydney, I hope to meet and personally thank Mr Hunt for his contribution during my time at Congress.

Unfortunately, there are still areas where the service in which we provide is inadequate; in particular, the online documentation for players is still poor; this remains a high priority.

Server updates 2013/14 (Phase 11)

Implemented (August 2014)

Performance optimisations: Bundling and minification Responsive design for specific pages Security updates Globalisation corrections (ongoing) Time calculation screen displays incorrect calculation for moves that started before start date but end after

start date Game screen shows time remaining incorrectly for stopped games Manual entry of historic and non-server games by TD and games archivists Direct Entry: Zonal restrictions for tournaments Direct Entry: Rating restrictions Standardise on iccf.com Changes to email notifications Improve performance of rating related stored procedures Buy a CK-Finder license for iccf.com domain Additional user preference for receiving 3rd party offers

65

Support for passwords with native characters Login should be valid across iccf.com and iccf-webchess.com Use an HTML template for all email notifications Prevent suspended players from entering events Run rating correction procedure as a background process Globalise mailings Sort achievements on the player details by year Display pairing rule on new events list When signing up for a postal event, require postal address Improvements to new events list Enforce age restrictions, when signing up for a tournament Structured tournament announcements Tie breaking rules displayed below cross table and in start list email Hyperlink to game in move notification email Review tables and results screen Add pending adjudications to time report Event list for TDs, TOs, and team captains Performance optimisations: Reduce number of round-trips for images of chess pieces Responsive design for dialogs Remove popup dialogs Hide inactive rating history Unconfirmed accounts list: Reduce width Ambiguous dates in emails to officials Pairing rule texts corrections Display PayPal in user preferred language Enable customisable white listing of IP addresses Multi group events: Add a link to player allocation to the list of all groups for the TO TD must enter reason, when adding/subtracting time Friendly URLs International Title Tournaments with category 7 or higher must have an IA as TO Take Back does not remove conditionals Last move not shown correctly for first move of a game Short display name on top of cross tables instead of short name Add additional countries Allow event entry only for events currently in new events list Error in coordinates for board from black's side in size 96 Valid email address not accepted Extend disk space monitoring to drive D Invisible mail dialog causes request to recaptcha even for logged in users List of norm tournaments Timeouts when downloading games archive Recaptcha does not work with SSL Hutton pairing system Game screen looks garbled after conditional moves Update text and links on the titles screen Do not send mailings to suspended players Performance issue with large team match cross tables Add PGN to notifications about finished games Add group name of multi group event to results report and my games

66

Add check for correct system time to help page diagnostics Update favicons Layout issue on country details

Not yet implemented (August 2014)

Change notifications to translators Multi group balancing by rating Drawing screen for team tournaments Multi group team events Multi group events: Highlight multiple participations of the same player in the same group Direct entry for team events Hide old registrations from registrations list Player message facilities remain open for 7 days Store player messages permanently Change order of first and last name Performance optimisations: Performance analysis Historically correct rating lists with regard to deaths of players Webmaster can change promotion games Games archive export: Include games based on game availability instead of on result date Additional player name with native characters Impressum (legal statement of ownership required by German law) Allow web master/MD to change the games shown on the front page Terms of use Emails should be sent from iccf.com domain Use a service instead of a local mail server Automated offsite backup Improved "My games" Unit tests for ICCF time control Update unit tests for chess rules Continuous integration including unit tests Extend free 2 game matches check Better support for event registrations in multi group events Display team captains to public

Proposed Server Updates for 2014/15 (Phase 12) Promotion games: More than 2 promotion games (like a gallery) Game log improvements DE role: can edit event registration tab of all events Appeal email improvements Recording ETLs Email to backup TD, once TD starts his leave Backup TD should be able to see the leave of the TD Tournament log (similar to game log but for tournaments) Responsive design: Increase button spacing for touch usage Display norms achieved in the tournament news on the home page Tagging system messages Appeals in national tournaments (just remove the menu item) Prevent TOs from mistakes when setting up events

67

Support browser history on Tables and Results Improvements to error screen Improvements to taking back a move Add reason why game ended to PGN export / archive Misleading option to send mailing to English speakers WTD should be able to enter TD leave Extend search: Find countries Photos of players on players details Delete a mailing Replay a game even if it is your turn Improved game replay Display time stamp of last move made by a player on the player details (to TDs and TOs) Usage statistics Transmission method for events on other servers Event registration details: Add custom text to "advise officials" Move the resign button away from the submit button Importing tournaments from 3rd party servers Player details can show empty achievement list Improvements to 40 day extension Multi group events: Option for rolling/parallel events Enable advertising statistics New player signup discount Team captain can see all games Automatic reminders about time report Trusted user should get a warning when changing another user's email address to a duplicate Prevent players playing in multiple teams in a team event Display team tie breaking rule on team cross tables Language drop down is displayed to logged in users in mobile view Performance optimisation: Use efficient server-side paging

Optional Allow players to see their own registrations Email to TD when all games are finished to send certificates National TOs and TDs Remove leave in several events Multi group balancing by other criteria Multi group international title tournaments Multi group events: sort players Rating history: Add rating forecast to diagram Automatically starting tournaments Social features Embeddable version of game screen Automatically stop games on end date in some national tournaments Additional historic events (pre Eloquery) Instructions for captcha Hall of fame Player bios Print a game Add exchanged messages to (personal) download of PGN file

68

Allow special characters in user input Automated email notification to players when event is promoted to international title tournaments Improve error message for pending claims Globalise event headers Globalise country and zone descriptions Globalise groups and positions of ICCF officials Globalise notation on the game screen Rating calculations: Rounding issue Avoid collision of ICCF IDs Import missing historic rating lists from paper Scheveningen international title tournaments RSS feeds from national federations Edit event: defaults for postal events Adding a player or a team to an already started event Access to role list for NDs Display player's leave on player details

Ratings Commissioner UpdatesThe ratings forecast will be improved to allow players to enter assumed results for running games and obtain a forecast based on these results.

All historic title events have been imported to the online database; the Ratings Commissioner has prepared a further batch of events containing promotional tournaments, importing these events is ongoing. It is now possible to import the full game score from postal events and we will start this work in collaboration with the Postal Games Archivist as an ongoing project.

There are several accounts on the database representing players who have registered but have remained inactive for at least six months; we will develop a system for identifying these accounts and ‘cleaning’ the database.Once again, sincere thanks are due to Gerhard Binder for his invaluable and ongoing work as Ratings Commissioner.

Hosting ArrangementsThe ICCF playing server and website are currently hosted on a dedicated server leased from domainbox.de in Germany. Some responses by the hosting company to recent problems have been disappointing, and it has proved to be difficult to get telephone support from the company, both in and out of hours. Alternative dedicated server hosting will be sought.

In the longer term, the expertise required to maintain a physical server has become increasingly complex in recent years. The server is currently maintained by our developer, Martin Bennedik, however it is not reasonable to expect Martin to maintain this expertise, which falls outside his area of speciality.

We will therefore examine hosting arrangements, which do not require ‘hands on’ server management; in particular, we will investigate the feasibility of migrating to a cloud service, for example Microsoft Azure. This; however, would require a significant software update, so this remains a long-term ambition.

Congress Proposals (relevant to server development)The ICCF Services Committee has discussed each of the proposals to the 2014 Congress in Sydney, which have some implication for the webserver. The scope of our discussion was simply the feasibility and cost of implementing each proposal on the webserver, no comment is offered about non-technical issues associated with each of the proposals, this is left for other relevant ICCF committees and commissions.

#1 Flag fall forfeit (USA)

69

Technically it is not a significant problem to implement automatic flags; this could be added as an option in the tournament setup screen; there is however an issue which will need to be addressed by Congress if this proposal is accepted. The FIDE Laws of Chess (6.9) state that:

Except where one of Articles 5.1.a, 5.1.b, 5.2.a, 5.2.b, 5.2.c applies, if a player does not complete the prescribed number of moves in the allotted time, the game is lost by that player. However, the game is drawn if the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of legal moves.

The server can identify simple drawn positions (for example lone kings); however, it is not technically feasible to identify all drawn positions without human intervention. If ICCF retain rule 6.9 exactly as written then there remains the possibility that a game, which is technically drawn, might be incorrectly awarded as a win by ‘auto flag’.

If Congress wishes to implement ‘auto flag’, then one of several possible solutions must be adopted (the advantages and disadvantages of each solution are not discussed here):

Congress may take the view that a player reaching a position under which mate is not possible by either player has the option to claim a draw under FIDE Rule 5.2b (The game is drawn when a position has arisen in which neither player can checkmate the opponent’s king with any series of legal moves. The game is said to end in a ‘dead position’. This immediately ends the game, provided that the move producing the position was in accordance with Article 3 and Articles 4.2 – 4.7.) If a claim is not made before the flag falls then the player forfeits his right to have the game scored as a draw. In this case, all flag falls would be scored as a loss and the server implementation would be simple. This solution however would require a departure from FIDE rules, as it’s conceivable that a position may be reached where the flagged player has a possible mate but the other player does not.

The flagged player may be given a period of (for example) one week between the flag falling and the result being set to prove to the TD that mate is not possible.

The flagged player’s opponent might be asked to submit a possible series of moves leading to mate, demonstrating that mate is possible, before the game is scored as a win.

#4 Server Claims and Roles of TD and TC (IND)The AICCF proposal is similar to the USA proposal, with the additional specification that games reaching a position containing six pieces should be paused for adjudication. If Congress wishes to accept this proposal, the additional feature can be implemented on the server at minimal expense.

#5 Game of Chess Rule Change – Piece Move (SWE)The basic laws of chess, in particular the way the pieces move on the board, form part of the core server code. To change this would require a significant rewrite, and require a lengthy period of testing. The cost of implementing this proposal cannot even be estimated without significant expense. If Congress wish to accept this proposal, it is very unlikely that it could be fully implemented and tested by 1.1.2015.

#6 Game of Chess Rule Change – End of Game – Move 75 (SWE)This could be implemented on the server quite easily, if it is the wish of Congress.#7 Game of Chess Rule Change – Draw Offers (SWE)The Services Committee assume that this proposal relates to FIDE Laws of Chess, Article 9.1a (The rules of a competition may specify that players cannot agree to a draw, whether in less than a specified number of moves or at all, without the consent of the arbiter.)An option could be added to the tournament set up screen “No draw offers allowed before move: []”, with a textbox to enter a number of moves. The ‘Offer Draw’ checkbox would be hidden in these tournaments and offers not possible before the specified move number.This could be implemented quite easily on the server if it is the wish of Congress.

#8 Three Letter Country Code (WLS)All countries on the ICCF webserver must be represented by a three-letter code.

70

ICCF now accept applications from federations, which do not represent FIDE, affiliated countries; additionally, players from any country may register on the ICCF webserver, not only countries that are affiliated to FIDE or ICCF. As FIDE codes are only available for affiliated countries, we are technically in violation of our own statutes by assigning three letter codes to these countries.

If Congress does not wish to approve this proposal, then an alternative system for recording players from non-FIDE affiliated countries will need to be designed.

#9 Role of Team Captain in Server Claims (WLS)If Congress wishes to accept this proposal, some work will need to be carried out on the claim form system, as the requirement for TCs to enter claims is already fully implemented. However, it is envisaged that this work will simplify the system, so the long-term cost implication will be negative.

#10 The ICCF Laws of Correspondence Chess (WLS)The Services Committee offer no opinion on this proposal as it is outside our remit, however if Congress accept the rules changes implemented by FIDE in 2014, then we must consider the implementation on the server of the new rules governing a draw (FIDE Laws of Chess 9.6):

If one or both of the following occur(s) then the game is drawn: a. the same position has appeared, as in 9.2b, for at least five consecutive alternate moves by each player. b. any consecutive series of 75 moves have been completed by each player without the movement of any pawn

and without any capture. If the last move resulted in checkmate, that shall take precedence.

If Congress wishes these rules to be implemented on the ICCF webserver, then this can be done relatively easily.#11 Minimum Score for Titles (POL)

If it is the wish of Congress, this proposal can be implemented by adjusting the norm table stored on the webserver (approximate cost €250).

#12 Titles Achieved in National Championships (POL)Some initial discussions have been made with the Qualifications Commissioner and proposer; further details of the specification would need to be provided, however this could be implemented on the webserver relatively easily if it is the wish of Congress (approximate cost €900).

#14 Team Captain Options – My Claims (POL)If the proposal to change the role of the team captain in team events is not accepted by Congress, it follows that it will be necessary to give team captains a better overview of outstanding claims in events for which they are TC.In this case, this feature will be implemented on the server as part of the 2014/15 development plan; this has been discussed with the proposer.

#15 Provide Capability to List Norm Events (POL)This has already been implemented and will be enhanced following feedback from the Qualifications Commissioner; the Services Committee will continue to work closely with all ICCF commissioners and officials to facilitate to smooth running of the organisation.#16 Modify Event Category DisplayThe current features available to the Qualifications Commissioner can be implemented following discussion and an agreed specification.

Testing ArrangementsTesting has remained a problem when implementing new server functions; there are two elements to testing, acceptability testing, and systematic testing.

Acceptability testing is how we evaluate how well new features on the server are likely to be received by players and officials. Acceptability testing is subjective and must be carried out by ICCF players and officials.

71

Systematic testing is a more methodical and objective process; when a new feature is introduced, all possible combinations of input must be tested and compared with the expected output.

It is possible to integrate continuous automatic testing with the development process, and Martin Bennedik has been working on the implementation of automatic tests; however, there is no complete replacement for human testing.Systematic testing is repetitive, tedious, and laborious; we have always had a problem recruiting volunteers to carry out these tasks. This has created a bottleneck in the process of rolling out server updates, as delays in testing have led to delays

A decision was taken by the ICCF Executive Board to employ a professional tester on a contractual basis.

A contract has been agreed with Neil Limbert ENG to carry out this work for one year; this contract commenced on 1/7/14 and may be extended by mutual agreement. We have already seen a marked increase in the efficiency with which we are able to roll out new updates as a direct consequence of this contract.

Unfortunately, this agreement is not without cost, as Neil is unable to work as a volunteer for ICCF whilst this contract is current.

Webmaster ReportNews80 news items were posted in the last 12 months or 6.6 per month.

I believe this should increase but I cannot do this myself due to lack of time.

It would be desirable to have another webmaster in a more exclusive journalist role, looking for news and posting more often.

It would have been desirable to include a question in the player’s survey asking to rate the quantity and quality of the news, and give feedback on the type of publication they like to read the most.

Webpage menu/organisationThe following nations have not provided yet a description of their federation to post under Nations & Zones: AUT, GRE, SVK, PAN, CPV, and TUN.

We currently post some tournament-related info under “Calendar of Events”. It would be desirable to have tournament pages for most if not all official ICCF tournaments.

It would be interesting to implement player’s comments to news items under a blog-structure.

In addition, a chessboard widget is desired to facilitate annotation of games posted in news items.Gino FiglioICCF Webmaster

Helpdesk ReportApproximately 150 help desk questions were fielded since the last congress. Among those, the majority came immediately after the major changes to the Webserver. While most were easily fielded, it became obvious that most were the same question repeatedly. I would, therefore like to suggest that we create a small addition to the FAQ - perhaps a "recently asked questions" list that can be checked by the user.

Otherwise, all questions were generally fielded within a day if not within a few hours, with coverage from both Europe and North America. In addition, special thanks to the National Directors and other board members who continue to provide help and guidance to all our players.Thanks and Amici Sumus,Jason Bokar (Help Desk Manager)

72

Help Files/Documentation UpdateThe quality of available online technical documentation for players, tournament directors, and other officials is still poor.

The server offers excellent content management facilities, so there is no reason for better documentation not to be made available.

A team has been assembled to work on the help files (see Services Committee Nominations, below); a number of documents have been written and proof read. This content will be available on the server by the time we meet in Sydney.

Maintaining this content will be a perpetual task, any ‘how to’ articles would be gratefully received by the help file team; this can include multi-media content, for example images and videos.

The webserver has full language support for the content management system, articles in the help files could be translated into any of the languages used by the server.

Services Committee Nominations 2014/15Chair: Austin Lockwood WLS (ICCF Services Director).Ex officio: Jason Bokar USA (Deputy Services Director), Eric Ruch FRA (ICCF President), Michael Millstone USA (ICCF General Secretary). Other ICCF officers to be co-opted on an ad-hoc basis for consultation where appropriate.Commissioners: Gerhard Binder GER (Ratings Commissioner), Mariusz Wojnar POL (Qualifications Commissioner), Gino Figlio PER (Webmaster).Testing Team: Austin Lockwood WLS (team lead), Michal Volf CZE. All ICCF officials are expected to contribute to testing updates which fall under their specific area of responsibility.Translation Team: Austin Lockwood WLS (team lead), Eric Ruch FRA, Gino Figlio PER (core team only listed here; other translators may be co-opted for specific tasks and languages).Web Content Team: Andrew Dearnley ENG (ICCF Marketing Director, team lead), Gino Figlio PER (Webmaster), Eric Ruch FRA, Arjen Oudheusden NED.Documentation Team (Help Files): Austin Lockwood WLS (team lead), Gino Figlio PER (Webmaster), Tony Kain USA, Rex Cristal USA, Jason Bokar USA, Jim Ramsden AUS (Proof reading), Dennis Doren USA, Russell Sherwood WLS.Accessibility Team: Austin Lockwood WLS (team lead), Peter Maylott AUS.Helpdesk Team: Jason Bokar USA (Helpdesk manager/team lead), Ian Pheby ENG, Austin Lockwood WLS.Professional Consultation: Martin Bennedik GER (development), Neil Limbert ENG (testing).

Hutton Pairing System Implementation (England)A request to implement the Hutton Pairing System for team events was received from BFCC (England). This was implemented on the server as requested and will be used by BFCC for their national events from September 2014 but, of course, will also be available for use by ICCF or any other member federation.

This work was not presented in Krakow as part of the 2013/14 plan, and was completed at the request of a member federation rather than ICCF directly.

This cost of this work will be approximately €1,000; this can either be billed directly to BFCC, or paid from the ICCF Services budget.

I would like to ask Congress to make the decision about the funding of this work. The voting for this request is presented on the next page.

There are implications for other tournament formats, which are used by member federations and not by ICCF, for example the Silli System, which is used by Italy and other member federations.

73

AcknowledgementsOnce again, I am grateful for the warm support I have received over the past year from all ICCF players, delegates, and officials. In particular, I am grateful to members of the ICCF Services Committee.

Michal Volf CZE has decided to stand down as testing lead; this will be a loss to the Services Committee and I am very grateful for his contribution to this important aspect of our work over the past twelve months, and very pleased that he will continue as a member of the team.

I am also grateful for the high quality of services offered by our professional contractors, Martin Bennedik and Neil Limbert.

Rydym yn FfrindiauAustin Lockwood WLS, Cyfarwyddwr Gwasanaethau ICCF, Awst 2014

Vote to approve the Services Director report and list of priorities.

74


































SubTotal: 32 31 0 1 0

75

Marketing Director Report

31st August 2014

ICCF MARKETING DIRECTOR’S REPORT FOR CONGRESS, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

In my first year as ICCF Marketing Director, I have had the opportunity to try to catch up on some issues that needed a dedicated MD. The post had been vacant within ICCF for a few years. I will outline some of the initiatives that I have (with the help of many ICCF colleagues) managed to put in place since the last congress in Poland.

Sponsorship/ICCF PartnersIt was time critical to implement the Tablebase claim system and find a reliable, trustworthy system to implement. After much hard work from our President and Services Director, we were able to not only find a provider but also negotiate a sponsorship deal with them. The providers of the system are ChessOK.com and their logo is now on the ICCF.com main page along with a toolbar entitled ‘Endgame Tablebases.’ As one of ICCF’s main sponsors, I would encourage all members to look at ChessOK’s products and services. They are a significant sponsor and partner. The Lomonosov Tablebase, which ICCF utilises, is amongst many other products that you can buy from their website.

After putting in place the above, next it was time to have dialogue with our long-standing partners New in Chess. Here, in every issue of their monthly magazine, ICCF feature an advert outlining our webserver for play and that amongst other tournaments, the World Championship is organised by ICCF. This deal was due for renewal this year and NIC wished to have some equalisation for ICCF placing the monthly advert, which is quite expensive. After negotiation, I offered NIC the ability to use ICCF’s webserver mail tool to market their special offers to ICCF players. This feature was very appealing to them and during the FIFA football world cup, the first ever commercial mailing was sent to our players offering discounted products throughout the duration of the football World cup. There was an opt-out of these mailing implemented, giving any player the right not to receive such commercial mailings. Very few of our players opted out, so this was beneficial not only to ICCF and NIC, but to our players receiving information about products at a discounted cost. This initiative has strengthened ICCF’s relationship with one of the World’s leading publications and chess suppliers. Furthermore, I placed a notice on the ICCF webserver informing all that NIC had brought out digital and kindle versions of their monthly magazine. I have the digital version subscription and being able to play through a game in a magazine with a chessboard on screen is revolutionary, making it so easy to use whilst travelling and not having to set up a physical chess set. I will outline further use of ICCF’s mail tool later in this report.

At the start of my office, I was introduced to an Indian ICCF player named Asim Pereira. He had developed a smart phone application that worked for viewing ICCF games on this type of device. After testing his application called ‘your move’, it was agreed that this application would be available for winners of the ICCF Promotion class tournaments. The application is very cheap anyway at $0.99 but winners of the promotion class tournaments can obtain a free version from me.

76

On these tournament pages, you will see the logo below which links to the application;

Feedback has been very positive regarding the features of ‘your move’

Finally, regarding sponsors/ICCF Partners I had intended with the help of Uwe Staroske, to make contact with Chess Base. For reasons given at the end of my report, I was not able to achieve this.

Going forward, I would also like to start to develop a relationship with The Week in Chess (TWIC) Mark Crowther, the man behind this well respected chess games and information site is worth contacting. ICCF then would have as partners many of the World’s top chess sites and retailers. I would request a budget from congress to help achieve this aim. (Note: Congress did approve a budget of 6.000 Euro for the year 2015).

ICCF Mail tool systemOutlining the ICCF Mail tool usage internally, at the time of writing, it has been used 120 times; with Netherlands, USA, and Australia being the most frequent Countries that take the opportunity to communicate to their players with it. The mail tool has also been very successful in informing all zones and Countries of upcoming ICCF tournaments. This has undoubtedly increased entries for events such as the annual webchess open. Any delegate that does not know how to use the system can contact me directly for support. It is a great way of publicising not only ICCF tournaments but also those of your own federation. Thanks to the Service Director and his team for improving the features and look of the mailing system, which is now very professional.

Social MediaThere is an unofficial ICCF Facebook page. I was granted administration privileges last year alongside two other members of ICCF. This group has over 800 members, many recently who do not have an ICCF profile but are interested in chess. From time to time, some ICCF players have posted live games, especially those trying to highlight players using dead man’s defence. I have had to monitor this closely and delete such posts. The group does have some good discussions but I feel it is best left as an unofficial group. Matters that are useful can be picked up and discussed with delegates or the most relevant party.

Twitter. I am now able to tweet and I will be using this facility more. Tweets are made when announcements are placed on the ICCF front page.

Promotional Games on the ICCF Front PageThanks to the Dutch federation for the wonderful match set up between ICCF World Champion, Ron Langeveld and FIDE IM Twan Burg and more recently another all Dutch match between GM David Hoeven and FIDE GM Robin Van Kampen. With FIDE GM Anish Giri providing comments to the first game, this created much interest and can only help raise the profile of ICCF.

Articles written for ICCF (formerly Amici)Thanks to Gino Figlio who posted an interview with the 25th ICCF World Champion Fabio Finocchiaro. I also was able to obtain an annotated game between SIM Harvey Williamson and former ICCF World Champion Tunc Hamarat. What was special here was that Harvey asked GM Vishy Anand to make to some comments about this game! For those of you who wish to still find these articles click ‘About ICCF’ then go to ICCF Amici. We need to think about how to make more players aware of this location and that of ‘Calendar of events’ where Champions League, World cups and Veterans World cups information can be found.

77

ICCF Aspirer sectionsAt the Polish congress last year, there was an interest in providing a place for 1600 and under rated players to play. I set up aspirer sections shortly after returning and they have proved to be successful. Thanks to Ian Pheby who agreed to be the tournament organiser for all these events. Ian has also a team of dedicated tournament directors, learning the TD role in this environment. At the time of writing, 23 sections have started since their concept.

Possible new member federations to ICCFI had some dialogue with a female player from Kazakhstan about re-joining ICCF as a member Federation. She has just gained her LGM norm and that is how I became in touch with her (There is a special application for her title at this congress) Kazakhstan was a good-sized member federation before and I obtained a list of their database of their previous CC players. I have sent 2 emails to their FIDE delegate, as yet with no response. I will now attempt to find out if there is a desire to find a possible delegate from the players and give them assistance should this become positive.

ICCF Digital BrochureI have spent some time, with the help of LGM Toni Halliwell, in bringing this more up to date. More work needs to take place and will do so, as soon as time permits.

960 chessEntries to the 960 World cup versions this year were disappointing but it maybe that players will enter more when ratings become more established. ICCF will need to promote this more and will need the support and help of all federations.

ICCF player surveyICCF conducted a player survey for the very first time. It is important to see how ICCF are perceived by its players and to keep up to date with their needs. I will leave it to our President to discuss this further at congress.

Finally, on a personal note and the main reason why I have not completed some tasks aforementioned or done much as I would have liked, is that I had a serious health issue in April. This has prevented me from continuing my work as Marketing Director since then. I am also sad to tell you I cannot be at congress in Sydney as planned. I have to follow my specialist’s advice not to travel at this time.

I would like to thank Eric Ruch for delivering not only this report on my behalf but for stepping in to my role when need be. I would also like to thank Gino Figlio, Austin Lockwood, and Martin Bennedik for their full support and implementation of any marketing initiatives.

I wish all officials, delegates, family, and friends a successful and enjoyable congress in Sydney.

Amici sumus,

Andrew DearnleyICCF Marketing DirectorHuddersfield, England

NBThe Marketing Committee; Gino Figlio, Uwe Staroske, Arjen Oudheusden, Brian Jones, Michael Millstone, Ron Langeveld, and the four zonal directors.

78

Archivist Report

Archivist Report

Utrecht, July 16th 2014

A major refresh of the server archives has been made available on the 1st of July including Chess960. The refresh was offered as one big collection of individual pgn files per period. Rebuilding personal databases based on this big collection was advised at the same time in order to ‘unlock’ previously hidden games.

Last year I ended my report with a proposal to change the export functionality:

“For future uploads I intend to propose an addition to the current export facility. The main point for such an enhancement would be facilitating exports based on availability date instead of end date of a game. Currently games that have ended in a specific month are excluded from the archive for that month when the tournament has set this visibility restriction. Upon completion of the tournament such games should be included in the monthly upload even though the games have ended in an earlier month. This enhancement would eliminate the need for a period refresh of the main archives.”

As of July 2014, this proposal has been accepted for a future update. Depending on priorities of other change requests, the July 2014 refresh of the game archive might be the last of its kind.

During the past year, monthly updates of standard CC archives have been uploaded. Due to the increased game load, archive exports have been plagued by timeout errors during the monthly uploads but especially while preparing the total refresh. These timeouts have been eliminated by changing the export process into one that can run in the server ‘background’. Thanks go out to Martin Bennedik for quickly fixing this issue.

Processing the backlog in older email- and postal archives has been put on hold as well as providing email- and postal archives with standardized player and tournament names. Currently I not only lack the time to process these archives but also the right software for normalizing the game data. Recently I discovered that my current software from Chessbase does not export pgn files in the right format. It uses UTF8 instead which is not conforming to the pgn standard. Since uploads in the propriety Chessbase format is not an option for ICCF, the email, and postal archives remain as they are now. I have not been in contact with the postal archivist last year but given my lack of time, I will ask him if he would like to take over the task of improving the old archive. Learning to use alternate software like Scid might well be necessary in order to get the right pgn exports.

Ron LangeveldICCF Archivist

79

World Tournament Director

Dear Delegates, Officials, and Friends of ICCF,

To my great regret, health problems prevent me from being amongst you at this Congress in Sydney. In my absence, the ICCF President, Eric Ruch, will represent me.This report includes the following:

1. Introduction2. Special Leave Office3. Disciplinary matters4. Tournaments Proposals (Appendix I)5. Calendar of Events (Appendix II)

1. IntroductionThe growth of the number of events played on the ICCF server continued this year (international tournaments, national events, as well as friendly matches).

2. Special Leave OfficeDuring the ICCF Congress in 2013, a decision was taken to withdraw the option of special leave. Special leave discontinued for all tournaments started after 01/01/2014 but it is still available under the current ICCF rules for all tournaments, which have been started before that date.

In November 2013, I succeeded Michael Millstone as Chairman of the Special Leave Office (SLO) for the management of these last tournaments where special leave is still available. I shall not comment upon the individual examples, explanation, and arguments, which Michael Millstone highlighted during Krakow Congress, but after my 1st years’ experience as Chairman of the SLO I, confirm their accuracy. I thank Michael Millstone and Ian M. Pheby (SLO Deputy Chairman) for the help, which they provide me in my responsibilities as Chairman of the SLO.

3. Disciplinary MattersAs a likely consequence of the growth of the number of events played on the ICCF server and its popularity, we unfortunately have had to deal with an increase in the number of instances of malpractice e.g. a proposal to buy result, account hacking, impersonation, etc. Some of these cases were Webserver games and were directly handled by the Chairman of the Disciplinary Committee in association with those with technical expertise. For other cases, the facts were simpler to establish, and did not require the intervention of the Disciplinary Committee.

The work of the Tournament Director and that of those responsible in charge of the investigations is often difficult. To help them it is necessary that the Arbiter Manual undergo a full revision to take into account all of the latest developments of the server.

4. Tournaments proposals(See Appendix I)

5. Calendar of Events(See Appendix II)I wish to thank all of the people who have helped me in my WTD duties. I should like to list all of their names but to do so would result in a never-ending list and also risk missing out someone.

Amici Sumus

Frank GeiderICCF World Tournament Director

80

Appendix I – Tournament Proposals

Many acceptable proposals for invitational individual and team tournaments have been received by the World Tournaments Director and the following have been confirmed:

Please, do not forget that according ICCF Tournament Rules (Paragraph 13.2, 13.3, 13.4, and 13.8):13.2 - Applications for ICCF recognition of international tournaments must be submitted to the World Tournament Director (WTD) who has delegated authority to approve such tournaments, or give recommendations to Congress. The WTD should report to the next Congress on all approved applications for formal ratification and inclusion in the Minutes. Where, in the opinion of the WTD, there could be a potential problem (for example, involving a breach of these guidelines or another ICCF member federation) he will have the right to refer the application to the next Congress for debate and possible approval. Approvals of applications for multiple tournaments/groups from any federation may be subject to a referral to the Congress if the WTD considers it appropriate.

13.3 - Applications for invitation tournaments should be submitted at least 6 months before the intended start date of the tournament and all approvals granted will lapse if a tournament has not been started within 6 months of the approved start date. In such a situation, a renewed approval application is required and invitations should not be issued until renewed approval has been granted.

13.4 - Applications for open tournaments must be submitted to the ICCF World Tournament Director (WTD) at least four months before it is due to start. It should not be advertised until ICCF approval has been formally confirmed. The WTD will consider the number of similar events, which are planned concurrently, and any ICCF open tournaments that are due to start, before giving formal ICCF approval.

13.8 - All approval requests must include details of the prizes offered, and the Source of the prize fund. Where a federation has previously met problems paying prizes promptly, it will be a condition of approval that the entire prize fund be deposited with ICCF prior to the start date. In these circumstances, the deposited monies will be invested securely and any interest accrued will be credited to the national federation, and the ICCF Financial Director will be responsible for the prompt payment of all prizes. All other financial details(Appearance fees...) must be included in the request sent to the WTD.

85th Anniversary Correspondence Chess League of Australia (AUS)ICCF Webserver,Invitational tournament,Cat. III, IV or V, 13 players,Start Date: 1 December 2014No entry fees or prize moneyTO: Brian Jones

Australian MastersICCF Webserver,Invitational tournament,Category VI or V, 13 players,Start Date: 1 July 2015No entry fees or prize moneyTO: Brian Jones

Australian Candidate MastersICCF Webserver,Invitational tournament,Category III, 13 players,Start Date: 1 July 2015No entry fees or prize moneyTO: Brian Jones

82

Belarus - Blue Lakes-3 (BLR)ICCF Webserver,Invitational tournament,Cat. VI - VIII, 15 Players (5 representatives of Belarus, 10 foreign participants),Start Date: December 2014

José Paredes Memorial (ESP)ICCF Webserver,Invitational tournament,

Section ACat. VI, 15 playersStart date: Spring 2014TO: Adrián de Blois

Section BCat. V, 15 playersStart date: Spring 2014TO: Adrián de Blois

2nd Coppa Latina World - CLW II (FRA)ICCF Webserver,Invitational team tournament,Team from Latin countries (ARG, BEL, BRA, CHI, CPV, CUB, ECU, FRA, GUA, ITA, LUX,NIC. PER, POR, ROU, SPA, SUI),6 boards per team,Start date: 1st quarter 2015

Germany Masters 03-1 (GER)Soon approved event in Krakow Congress 2013 (Category change and second group)ICCF Webserver,Invitational tournament (7 Germany, 8 other NF),Cat. VI, 15 players,Start date: Spring 2014

Germany Masters 03-2 (GER)ICCF Webserver,Invitational tournament (7 Germany, 8 other NF),Cat. VI, 15 players,Start date: Spring 2014

Germany Candidate Master 01-A (GER)ICCF Webserver,Invitational tournament,Cat. III, 13 players,Start date: September 2014

Germany Candidate Master 01-B (GER)ICCF Webserver,Invitational tournament,Cat. III, 13 players,Start date: September 2014

83

Germany Candidate Master 01-C (GER)ICCF Webserver,Invitational tournament,Cat. III, 13 players,Start date: September 2014

Germany Candidate Master 01-D (GER)ICCF Webserver,Invitational tournament,Cat. III, 13 players,Start date: September 2014

Germany Candidate Master 01-E (GER)ICCF Webserver,Invitational tournament,Cat. III, 13 players,Start date: September 2014

Germany Candidate Master 01-F (GER)ICCF Webserver,Invitational tournament,Cat. III, 13 players,Start date: September 2014

Germany Grandmasters 04 (GER)ICCF Webserver,Invitational tournament (7 Germany, 8 other NF),Cat. XII, 13-17 players,Start date: Spring 2015

Germany Masters 04 (GER)ICCF Webserver,Invitational tournament (7 Germany, 8 other NF),Cat. VIII, 13-17 players,Start date: Spring 2015

Germany Candidate Master 02-A (GER)ICCF Webserver,Invitational tournament,Cat. III, 13-17 players,Start date: Spring 2015

Germany Candidate Master 02-B (GER)ICCF Webserver,Invitational tournament,Cat. III, 13-17 players,Start date: Spring 2015

BdF Diamant 6 (GER)ICCF Webserver,Invitational tournament for Ladies (5 Germany and 10 other NF),Cat. XII, 13-17 players,Start date: Spring 2015

84

BdF Smaragd 6 (GER)ICCF Webserver,Invitational tournament for Ladies (5 Germany and 10 other NF),13-17 players,Start date: Spring 2015

Hessel Visser Memorial (NED)ICCF Webserver,Invitational tournament,ICCF standard rules for webserver play (10 moves in 50 days with duplication after 20 days is used)Start date: 01 March 2015,

Hessel Visser Memorial ACat. I (possibly II), 13 players,Players who wish to participate in the A tournament must have a maximum elo rating of 2299 (last rating list),No FeeNo money prizesTO: J van DoornTD:To be determined

Hessel Visser Memorial BCat. none, 13 players,Players who wish to participate in the B tournament must have a maximum elo rating of 2149 (last rating list),No FeeNo money prizesTO: J van DoornTD:To be determined

Hessel Visser Memorial CCat. none, 13 players,Players who wish to participate in the C tournament must have a maximum elo rating of 1999 (last rating list),No FeeNo money prizesTO: J van DoornTD:To be determined

Vayser Memorial (RUS)ICCF Webserver,Invitational tournament,Cat. X+, 13-17 players,Start date: 01 quarter 2014Vladimir Vayser (1944-2013) – Grandmaster ICCF.

Tolush Memorial (RUS)ICCF Webserver,Invitational tournament,.Cat. VII+, 13-17 players,Start date: 01 quarter 2014.Aleksander Tolush (1910-1969) – International ICCF, Grandmaster FIDE, he took part in 4th World Correspondence chess.

85

Latash Memorial (RUS)ICCF Webserver,Invitational tournament,Cat. X+, 13-17 playersStart date: 01 December 2013.Albert Latash (1936-2013) – International Arbiter ICCF, International Arbiter FIDE.

Samarin Memorial (RUS)ICCF Webserver,Invitational tournament,Cat. X+, 13-17 players,Start date: IV quarter 2014.Igor Samarin (1956-2014) – Grandmaster ICCF.

Krystyna Radzikowska Memorial (POL)ICCF webserver,Invitational tournament,13-15 players, Cat. VII-XI,Start date: 2015,Prize fund: 1000€,TD: TBD,TO: Mariusz Wojnar.Krystyna Radzikowska (1931-2006) – LIM-1995, OTB WGM-1984; 9 (!) times OTB Lady Champion of Poland (1951, 1952, 1953, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1959, 1966, 1969); 4th Ladies Olympiad final (1992-1997), board 1 – bronze medal for Poland.

Jubilee 30 years Swiss CC (SUI)ICCF webserverInvitational tournament,Start Date: 2nd Quarter 2015,TO Ulrich Baumgartner.

Section A13-15 players, Cat. XII+,Prizes CHF 800, 500, 300.

Section B13-15 players,Cat. IX+, Prizes CHF 500, 400, 300

Section C13-15 players, Cat. V+,Prizes CHF 400, 300, 200

2015 USA Invitational (ICCF-US)ICCF webserver,Invitational tournament,Tie Breaks: 1) Baumbach, 2)SB, 3)Head-to-Head

Section ACat. XI+, 13-17 Players,Start Date: March 31 2015Prizes USD 1000, 500, 100,Sponsor: ICCF-USTO: Dennis Doren (510567).

86

Section BCat. VII+, 13-17 playersStart Date: August 31, 2015Prizes USD 300,Sponsoring ICCF-US,TO: Anthony Kain (514323)

Section CCat. IV+, 13-17 playersStart Date: August 31, 2015Prizes: NoneSponsor: ICCF-USTO: Anthony Kain (514323)

Congress voted unanimously to approve the World Tournament Director’s report and list of proposed tournaments.

87

Interzonal Report

INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENCE CHESS FEDERATION

SIM Everdinand Knol138 Blom Street0184 SilvertonSouth AfricaEmail: [email protected]

Report on the Interzonal Tournaments to the ICCF Congress of 2014Sydney – Australia

Mr President, Members of the Executive Board, Commissioners,Officials, Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen

It is my privilege to report on the Interzonal Tournaments since the Congress of 2013 held in Kraków – Poland

Interzonal Team Tournaments (IZTT)

Background

The IZTT, which were inaugurated by our former president Med Samraoui of Algeria, are held every two years as a team championship among the different geographical zones of ICCF and normally start during the month of December of each evenly numbered calendar year. Each team consists of eight players playing a double round robin event against at least four opponents. This makes it possible to qualify for title norms as at least eight games are being played. The purpose of these events is to play in the spirit of "amici sumus" (we are friends) and to give players in remote and less developed regions more exposure to competitive correspondence chess.

Completed Tournaments1st Interzonal Team Tournament – Start Date: 1 September 2000

Tournament Organiser Tournament DirectorMed Samraoui of Algeria (IA) IM Carlos Flores Gutiérrez of Spain (IA)

The event was started with five teams making it four opponents and eight games per participant.

1 Europe A 35½ out of 642 Africa/Asia 353 Europe B 334 Latin America 29½5 North America/Pacific 27

2nd Interzonal Team Tournament – Start Date: 15 September 2002

Tournament Organiser Tournament DirectorIM Med Samraoui of Algeria (IA) SIM Carlos Flores Gutiérrez of Spain (IA)

1 Europe A 44½ out of 642 North America/Pacific 343 Africa/Asia 314 Europe B 30

88

5 Latin America 20½

3rd Interzonal Team Tournament –Start Date: 15 December 2004

Tournament Organiser Tournament DirectorSIM Med Samraoui of Algeria (IA) SIM Carlos Flores Gutiérrez of Spain (IA)

The event was enlarged to six teams with five opponents and ten games per participant.

1 North America/Pacific 45½ out of 802 Europe A 43½3 Europe B 42½4 Africa/Asia 375 Latin America 36½6 Europe C 35

4th Interzonal Team Tournament – Start Date: 15 December 2006

Tournament Organiser Tournament DirectorSIM Everdinand Knol of South Africa SIM Carlos Flores Gutiérrez of Spain (IA)

1 Europe A 49 out of 802 Europe C 46½3 North America/Pacific 444 Europe B 425 Latin America 316 Africa/Asia 27½



1 Europe C 48 out of 802 Europe A 46½3 Latin America 414 North America/Pacific 385 Europe B 346 Africa/Asia 32½



One game is still in progress. The results so far are:

1 Europe A 51½2 Europe B 463 North America/Pacific 424 Europe C 35½6 Latin America 32½ 3 team points5 Africa/Asia 32½ 2 team points

89

Results of Ongoing Tournaments

7th Interzonal Team Tournament – Start Date: 28 January 2013

Tournament Organiser Tournament DirectorSIM Everdinand Knol of South Africa Iain Smuts of South Africa (IA) and Per Söderberg of Sweden (IA)

The event was now expanded to ten teams playing a single round robin format. This gives players the opportunity of meeting more opponents (from five to nine) without increasing the number of games (ten to nine). The feedback that I got from players is that they prefer the single game version with more opponents.

23 games are still in progress. The results so far are:

1 North America/Pacific B 39½2 Europe B 383 Europe D 37½4 Europe A 375 Europe C 376 North America/Pacific A 36½7 Latin America 33½8 Africa/Asia C 30½9 Africa/Asia B 24½10 Africa/Asia A 23

Future Tournaments

The 8th Interzonal Team Tournament is planned to start during December. Entries have been invited and must be submitted by the end of November.

To expand this event the number of teams could be increased to 13. The norms achieved would then be based on 12 games and would equate to half a title requirement.

Interzonal Individual Tournaments (IZIT)

At the Congress held in Kraków in Poland approval was given to organise an IZIT based on the following criteria:

A set number of players from each zone are entered. These are divided into groups playing for norms and to qualify for semi-finals and a final that will produce an interzonal champion or tournament winner. In order to concentrate on development a maximum playing strength in terms of rating points can be stipulated.

1st Interzonal Individual Tournament – Start Date: 28 February 2014

Tournament Organiser Tournament DirectorSIM Everdinand Knol of South Africa Marco Caressa of Italy (IA)

This event consists of 11 preliminary groups of 9 players each making title norms possible. The semi-finals and final will start as soon as all the qualifiers are known.

It is suggested to organise this event every second year with the next one starting in December 2015.

SIM Everdinand KnolAugust 2014

90

Non-Title Tournament Commissioner

Dear members of the EB, dear delegates, dear friends,

Here the report of the NTTC:

Let me start with my sincere excuses for not being present but life decides sometimes different. As my predecessor wrote in his report to the congress in South Africa after taking over this position, you immediately have to start to work. Directly after the congress in Poland, there were the preliminaries of the 20th World Cup to be organized. In close cooperation with our friends from Russia (esp. Andrey Nikolaevich Pavlikov) we came to a nice result. A record participation of 816 different players for 1001 entries. 4 GMs (1 FIDE), 20 SIMs 31 IMs, 1 LGM, 1 LM and 1 FIDE FM. Maximum ELO is 2571 and the most players were “surprisingly” from Russia, 156.

Beginning 2014, there was the 6 Web Chess Open to be organized (as usual with the CTO Dr Guido Bresadola and again a record participation with 966 entries.

As soon as this was done, there was the 7th Veterans World Cup.

At the moment (1st September, minor changes are still possible, there is a short waiting list) we have: 32 groups, 30 with 13 players 2 with 15 which equals 420 entries for 333 players Max ELO 2439 GM 2 SIM 9 IM 22 LGM 1 (only participating female player) Max entries per player 10 (!) Highest number of entries per country: (entries/players) GER 79/60 RUS 64/59 CZE 32/20

The semifinals of the 18th World Cup are well advanced here the report of Mariusz Wojnar:

ICCF Diamond Jubilee World Cup 18ICCF Diamond Jubilee Webserver World Cup 18 Event in tribute to Witold Bielecki (1947-2008) - former president of the Polish Correspondence Chess Federation and Polish delegate to ICCF - started on 2011-10-30 with 844 entries (685 players from 53 countries) distributed to 65 groups.

Preliminaries were played from 2011-10-30 to 2014-03-30. Semi-finals started on 2013-08-30 with closing date of 2015-04-01 with 156 entries (from 33 countries) distributed to 12 groups.

The section winner will qualify for a 15-17 player final (including former World Cup winners). Special invitation was addressed to winners of the ICCF Golden Jubilee Final tournaments (“ICCF 50 Jubilee Email Final” and “ICCF 50 Jubilee Postal Final“) in order to bridge both 50th and 60th Anniversaries of ICCF.

Completed games about 75% (end of August 2014).

Unfinished games until closing date 2015-04-01 will be adjudicated by TD. Games which have no influence on promotion might be allowed to be continued. All qualified players should be known by 15.05.2015. The final is expected to start on 2015-08-30 at the latest.

91

Our permanent promotional tournaments

In 2013, we had: Absolute/average per month M:566/47 H:396/33 O:765/64

In 2014, we had until the 31 of August: M: 375/47 H: 224/28 O: 395/49

The decline in the participation of class O could be explained by the newly implemented Aspirer tournament

It would like to thank all of those who helped, organized, and took the lead the lead in the above-mentioned tournaments: Andrey Nikolaevich, Guido, Mariusz, Uwe, Hans-Jürgen, Willy, Andreas, and Ian.

I hope I have forgotten nothing, so now I will take a deep breath, play some CC and then I will start with the 6th season of Champions League.

Wish you all a nice, funny, and successful Congress.

Hope I can attend in 2015.

Kind regards,

Markus Hömske

92

Thematic Tournament Office Report

THEMATICTOURNAMENT

OFFICE

THE INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENCE CHESS FEDERATION

Leonardo Madoniavia Leandro Alberti 54IT-40137 BolognaItaly

E -mail: [email protected]

Bologna, August 3rd, 2014.

Dear Chessfriends,

As in previous years, more than 200 players participated in thematic tournaments. I am very satisfied with this level of entry, so I will again propose 12 themes (5 by post and 7 on the server) for 2015. Obviously, entries to the series of themes will continue to be always available.

Chess 960 tournaments

After a difficult start of the tournaments in 2012, the last year saw a good interest from players for Chess 960. I have started 7 new sections with 5 of those in the first 7 months of 2014. Congress could consider the idea to introduce free 2-game matches for those players who are new to Chess 960, giving them the possibility to play 1 or 2 free matches.

The 3rd Chess 960 World Cup saw the participation of 100 players of which there were 16 titled players. The 1st Chess 960 World Cup had 103 players and the 2nd Chess 960 World Cup had 72 players so in the Chess 960 World Cup series we have had this year an increase of players. The Final of 1st Chess 960 World Cup, the Semifinals of 2nd

Chess 960 World Cup and the preliminaries of 3rd Chess 960 World Cup are currently running. The 4th Chess 960 World Cup will start in March 2015.

As usual, I ask all the National Federations to publish the information about 2014 themes and Chess 960 events on their websites and magazines.

Amici sumus.

The TT OfficeLeonardo Madonia

93

Webserver Thematic Themes for 2015

I.C.C.F.Thematic Tournament Office

Leonardo Madoniavia Leandro Alberti 54IT - 40137 BOLOGNA

E-mail: [email protected]

WEBSERVER THEMATIC TOURNAMENTS 2015

Theme N° Entries not later than... Startdate

1 1.01.2015 15.01.2015 2 15.02.2015 1.03.2015 3 1.04.2015 15.04.20154 15.05.2015 1.06.20155 1.09.2015 15.09.20156 15.10.2015 1.11.20157 1.12.2015 15.12.2015

Themes:

1 Slav Defence, Chebanenko Variation, D15 1. 4244 4745 2. 3234 3736 3. 7163 7866 4. 2133 1716 5. 3435

2 French Defence, Exchange Variation, C01 1. 5254 5756 2. 4244 4745 3. 5445 5645

3 Myers Opening, A10 1. 3234 7775 2. 4244 6877

4 Alekhine, B02 1. 5254 7866 2. 5455 6645 3. 4244 4746

5 Dory Defence, E10 1. 4244 7866 2. 3234 5756 3. 7163 6654

6 Three Knights, Canal Variation C56 1. 5254 5755 2. 7163 2836 3. 6134 7866 4. 4244 5544 5. 5171 6654 6. 6151 4745 7. 2133

7 Sicilian Accelerated, Breyer Variation, B39

1. 5254 3735 2. 7163 2836 3. 4244 3544 4. 6344 7776 5. 3234 6877 6. 3153 7866 7. 2133 6674 8. 4174 3644

95

Postal Thematic Themes for 2015

I.C.C.F.Thematic Tournament Office

Leonardo Madoniavia Leandro Alberti 54IT - 40137 BOLOGNA

E-mail: [email protected]

POSTAL THEMATIC TOURNAMENTS 2015

Theme N° Entries not later than... Startdate

1 15.01.2015 1.02.2015 2 1.03.2015 15.03.2015 3 15.04.2015 1.05.20154 15.09.2015 1.10.20155 15.11.2015 1.12.2015

Themes:

1 King's Gambit, Hungarian Defence, C39 1. 5254 5755 2. 6264 5564 3. 7163 7775 4. 8284 7574 5. 6355 4746

2 Grünfeld Defence, Exchange Variation, D85

1. 4244 7866 2. 3234 7776 3. 2133 6877 4. 7163 4745 5. 3445 6645 6. 5254 4533 7. 2233 3735 8.1121

3 Sicilian Defence - Wing Gambit, B21 1. 5254 3735 2. 2224

4 Ruy Lopez, Exchange Variation, C68 1. 5254 5755 2. 7163 2836 3. 6125 1716 4. 2536

5 From Gambit, A02 1. 6264 5755 2. 6455 4746 3. 5546 6846 4. 7163

Congress voted unanimously to approve the Thematic Theme’s proposed for 2015.

96

Aspirer Tournament Organiser Report

International Correspondence Chess FederationIan M Pheby

Aspirer Tournament [email protected]

Report to the 2014 CongressAspirer Tournaments

11th August 2014

Dear Chessfriends,

Introduction

I would like to apologise for not being able to present this report in person. As you may know, I have a total fear of flying, and I am thus unable to attend Congress unless it is held within mainland United Kingdom. I did have the pleasure of meeting many of you at the Leeds Congress in 2009, which I attended. I am pleased to submit my first report as Tournament Organiser of the Aspirer tournaments to the 2014 ICCF Congress. The period of this report will be from the start of these events in November 2013 through to 11th August 2014.

Aspirer Tournaments

The Aspirer tournaments enables players who are new to the ICCF, without an ICCF rating or have ICCF ratings of less than 1600 to participate within ICCF events where they are not likely to be outclassed. They therefore should get some enjoyable games and hopefully become quite active within the ICCF family. Players may register either via their National Federation or through the Direct Entry Programme.

Aspirer Tournament Entries

Since these tournaments were introduced in November 2013, I have to date received 154 entries, which have been split into 22 separate events. This is an excellent return in the first year of this tournament. Of these 22 events, some 9 are already complete.

Appendix 1 contains details of the breakdown of the entries.

Recommendation

It is recommended that the ICCF continue to offer Aspirer events in the future. I am sure they will continue to be successful.

Appreciation

97

I wish to thank Andrew Dearnley (ENG) for seeking the agreement of the ICCF to hold this type of tournament. Finally, I would like to thank my Tournament Directors for their hard work in these events. The Tournament Directors are:

SIM Biedermann, Thomas (USA); Kain, Tony (USA); Sherwood, Russell (WLS); Tseng, Wilbur (USA)

Ian M PhebyTO, Aspirer tournaments

Appendix 1 – Aspirer Entries

1. Entries

Total entries though National Federations = 33

Total entries through the Direct Entry Programme = 120

Total entries by Zonal Director = 1

Total = 154

2. Entries by National Federation

Number of National Federations = 31

Australia = 11 Austria = 2 Belgium = 1 Canada = 11

Chile = 2 Cape Verde = 1 Egypt = 1 England = 15

Finland = 1 France = 4 Germany = 6 Ireland = 4

Italy = 2 Japan = 1 Jordan = 1 Luxembourg = 3

Mexico = 1 Netherlands = 2 Norway = 2 Panama = 1

Poland = 3 Russia = 1 Scotland = 8 South Africa = 1

Spain = 3 Sweden = 1 Switzerland = 6 Turkey = 4

USA = 52 Venezuela = 1 Wales = 2

98

Postal Tournament Office Report

POSTALTOURNAMENT

OFFICECOMMISSIONER


Gian-Maria Tani via Tripoli 20 I-10136 Torino Italia

tel.: +39-3495519830


REPORT OF THE PTO COMMISSIONER

Year 2013The number of postal correspondence players is always very low, but 2013 was a good year for Promotional Postal Tournaments. In 2013, I started 22 sections (6 WT/M, 7 WT/H, and 9 WT/O) with 100 players, while in 2012 the players were 98.

Year 2014In the first 8 months of 2014, I started 14 sections (2 WT/M, 5 WT/H, and 7 WT/O) with 50 players.I expect to have in the whole 2014 the same number of tournaments and players as in 2013 and 2012.

Countries and ZonesThe players of 2013 postal world tournaments came from 19 different countries (while in 2012 the number of countries was 16). As usual, most of the players were from Europe (78%); the other ones come from NAPZ (21%) and Africa/Asia (1%). Unfortunately, we had no players from Latin/America. The most players came from Germany (44); the second and the third most players came from the USA (14) and Italy (7), while in 2012 the third country was France.

ICCF Diamond Jubilee Postal World Cup 19The Final of this important tournament was started on 1/07/2014 (T.D.: Laurent Tinture -FRA- with 13 players (7 from Germany, 1 from Czech Rep., England, Italy, Poland, Romania, and Spain).

Tournament DirectorsAs usual, many thanks to “my” Tournament Directors (Rubens Battistini, Bjørn Brobakken and Thed Klauner for the Promotional Tournaments; Rubens Battistini, Bjørn Brobakken, Markus Hömske, Joop Jansen, Thed Klauner, Leo Lahdenmàki, Ian Pheby and Laurent Tinture for the Preliminaries and the Final of the Diamond Jubilee) for their excellent work!

Amici sumus!

Gian-Maria Tani

99

ICCF Promotion Tournament Entries

ICCF entries received until 31 August 2014

Year Number2007 8792008 15482009 15682010 15762011 15732012 15982013 17272014 994 (*)

Year Class O Class H Class M2007 330 213 3362008 563 343 6422009 565 394 6092010 604 325 6472011 604 366 6032012 647 358 5932013 765 396 5662014 395 (*) 224 (*) 375 (*)

(*) 2014 only from 01.01.2014 to 31.08.2014

100

Title Tournament Commissioner

TITLETOURNAMENT

COMMISSIONER


Gian-Maria Tani via Tripoli 20 I-10136 Torino Italia

tel.: +39-3495519830


1. WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

1.1 WCCC FinalsThe Final of the 27th WCCC ended on 9/05/2014. The new World Champion is Aleksandr Surenovich Dronov (RUS), who was already the 22nd World Champion; Matthias Kribben (GER) was the runner-up and Thomas Mahling (GER) got the third place.

There is still one running game in the Final of the 26th WCCC. The winner, Ron Langeveld (NED), is already known. The runner-up is Florin Şerban (ROU) and Rafael Leitão has the third place.

The Final of the 28th WCCC, started on 10/06/2013, is going on regularly, with 60% of the games already finished.

1.2 WCCC Candidates’ TournamentsThe Sections of the 31st, the 32nd, and the 33rd WCCC (started in 2011, 2012, and 2013) are going on regularly.The 2014 Sections (34th WCCC) are regularly starting on 20/09/2014 (4 Sections with 44 players).

1.3 WCCC SemifinalsThe Sections of the 36th and the 37th WCCC (started in 2012 and 2013) are going on regularly.The 2014 Sections (38th WCCC) were started on 20/06/2014 (9 Sections with 117 players).

1.4 WCCC PreliminariesThe Sections of the 36th and the 37th WCCC (started in 2012 and 2013) are going on regularly.The 2014 Sections (38th WCCC) were started on 20/03/2014 (15 Sections with 195 players).

2. LADIES’ WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

2.1 LWCCC FinalsThere are still 3 running games in the Final of the 9th LWCCC.They have been sent to adjudication: the name of the new Ladies’ World Champion will be soon known.

2.2 LWCCC SemifinalsAll the Semifinals of the 10th LWCCC have ended in 2013.It was not possible to start the Final because the qualified players from 9th LWCCC Final were not known.

101

3. OLYMPIADS

3.1 CC Olympiads FinalsThe Final of the 16th Olympiad (postal) is still ongoing. There are still 6 running games, but the winner team is already known: the Czech Republic. The runner-up is Germany, while many teams are fighting for the third place.The Final of the 18th Olympiad (webserver), started on 10/12/2012, is going on regularly.

3.2 CC Olympiads PreliminariesThe Semifinals of the 19th Olympiad (postal) are still ongoing, with a lot of running games.The Semifinals of the 20th Olympiad (webserver), started on 10/12/2012, are going on regularly.

4. LADIES’ OLYMPIADS

The 9th Ladies’ Olympiad ended on 11/01/2014. The team winner was Russia, Lithuania was the runner-up, and Germany got the third place.

5. GRAND MASTER NORM TOURNAMENTS

4 GMN Sections were started in 2013, the same as in 2012.3 GMN Sections have been started in the first 8 months of 2014.Unfortunately, the waiting time is very high.

6. MASTER NORM TOURNAMENTS

16 MN Sections were started in 2013 (in 2012 the MN Sections were 14).9 MN Sections have been started in the first 8 months of 2014.The waiting time is quite low.

7. NEXT NORM TOURNAMENTS TO BE STARTED

7.1 WCCC FinalThe Final of the 29th WCCC is planned to start on June 2015.

7.2 WCCC Candidates’ TournamentsThe Candidates’ Tournament of the 35th WCCC is planned to start on September 2015.

7.3 WCCC SemifinalesThe Semifinals of the 39th WCCC are planned to start on June 2015.

7.4 WCCC PreliminariesThe Preliminaries of the 39th WCCC are planned to start on March 2015.

7.5 Ladies’ World ChampionshipsThe Final of the 10th LWCCC is planned to start on 20/11/2014 together with the Semifinals of the 11th LWCCC.

102

7.6 OlympiadsThe Final of the 19th Olympiad, played by post, will start when the Final of the 16th Olympiad will be ended and the qualified teams will be known.

The Congress is requested to confirm or to dismiss the 21st Olympiad played by post.

A proposal could be to start the Postal Olympiad in 2016, together with the Semifinals of the 22nd Olympiad played on ICCF webserver.

Proposal: 21st Olympiad (Next) by Post

MF Yes (Post) No (Webserver) ABS NP Member

































SubTotal: 32 8 17 7 0

103

7.7 Ladies’ OlympiadsThe 10th Ladies’ Olympiad is planned to start on the second quarter of 2015.

8. THANKSAt the end of my report, I would like to thanks all the friends who help me in this important and difficult work, especially “my” deputy, Neil Limbert and the Direct Entry Commissioner, Ian M. Pheby.

A special and warm thank to my great friend Carlos Flores Gutiérrez, who decided to retire from his office of TD for health reasons. His excellent work as one of our best Postal TDs will be sorely missed.

In addition, finally yet importantly, I want to thank all the Tournament Directors: without their daily work, it would not be possible for our players to enjoy their favourite hobby!

Amici sumus!

Torino, 28/08/2014.

104

Tournament Rules CommissionTHE INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENCE CHESS FEDERATION

Chairman of the Rules Commission: Per SöderbergHolbergsgatan 72, S-16849 Bromma

: [email protected]

Report – Tournament Rules Commission

ICCF Congress Sydney (Australia) 2014

List of the members of the PRC:

Per Söderberg (SWE) Acting ChairmanDuncan Chambers (ENG) Vice ChairmanGian-Maria Tani (ITA)Sergey Grodzensky (RUS)Leonardo Madonia (ITA)Gerhard Binder (GER)Eric Ruch (FRA) ICCF President, member in all CommissionsMichael Millstone (USA) General Secretary, member in all Commissions

Since last, Ralph Marconi and Gianni Mastrojeni have asked to step down from the Commission. Ralph and Gianni are heartily thanked for their dedicated work for the Commission during a long time of service. As there is a proposal to join the two Rules Commission into one, no replacement has been sought.

Duncan Chambers asked to be relieved from the duty as Chairman of this Commission, he will stay on the Commission, and I took over the Chair for this report. We give our appreciated thanks to Duncan for his years as Chairman of the Commission, great work!

Discussions:

There are 5 Tournament Rules Proposals for ICCF Congress 2014:

1)Flag Fall Forfeit

United States

Replace the following section of 8.7

(a) Exceeding the time limit is valid only if it is confirmed by the Tournament Director (if a player agrees that he has exceeded the first time limit, this takes effect only after confirmation by The Tournament Director).

With

(a) Exceeding the time limit is valid only if it is confirmed by the ICCF server.

Title: Flag FallScope: Tournament Rules, WebserverProposed by: United StatesProposal:Replace the following section of 8.7

105

(a) Exceeding the time limit is valid only if it is confirmed by the Tournament Director (if a player agrees that he has exceeded the first time limit, this takes effect only after confirmation by The Tournament Director).With(a) Exceeding the time limit is valid only if it is confirmed by the ICCF server. Rationale:ICCF Playing Rules Server 6) Time Allowed and Penalties d. A competitor who has exceeded the time allowed shall forfeit the game.The proposal would make the Playing Rules and Tournament Rules consistent. There is no need to involve the TD or create delays when the server can simply set the score for the game.Comments:Appeal procedures allow for exceptional circumstances, like a health emergency.Another possible concern is the IMR (Insufficient Material Rule), an important part of blitz competition or in a time scramble heading to time control in normal OTB. In such positions, there may only be seconds to make 10-20 moves. In blitz, you will see people play into the IMR, giving up material to take the last pawn (or a Rook) when short on time.

Part of the reason for the IMR is the difficulty in stopping play to get a decision. An OTB player is allowed to stop the clocks and seek an arbitrator (see below). However, this is almost never done unless the arbitrator is standing over monitoring the game, because there is a penalty provision. The penalty would logically be the time wasted searching for the arbitrator or a proscribed penalty time in blitz. Thus, flag falls in IMR positions are more common as the player tend play on until time control or a flag-fall.

FIDE 6.12d: If a player stops the chess clock in order to seek the arbiter’s assistance, the arbiter shall determine whether the player had any valid reason for doing so. If the player had no valid reason for stopping the chess clock, the player shall be penalised in accordance with Article 12.9.

Time rules in ICCF are already much different, for example, no time expires in the first 24 hours, giving plenty of time to get the TDs attention in unusual situations. In addition, IMR positions are relatively simple so playing a couple moves "short on time" is not hard while waiting for a decision. It is also unlikely to occur in CC, where a player can offer a draw to an opponent with insufficient mating material, rather than allowing his own flag to fall.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Comments:

The Tournament Rules Commission did vote on this proposal as 4 against and one in favour. One problem is that Tournament Rules are general for all ICCF events, and in postal events, it will be necessary with a TD as the games are not monitored by the server. Further, it was identified that the case where a player has withdrawn – as discussed in Cracow – it is necessary for him to claim the win. If he does not, the result will be scored as 0-0. The TD is also responsible for the play in the event and this will make it difficult to change any “decision” made by the server and as Appeals Instance shall only check if the TD has made a mistake an ETL decision by the server will not be possible to appeal. Please check the Playing Rules recommendation on the subject of automation. The TRC recommendation is against this proposal.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

106

2)Minimum Score for Titles

Poland Normally there is requirement for minimum score for all international titles, for example 30% in Poland or 35% in FIDE. For ICCF events currently there is no minimum, so in extreme cases it is enough 10% or even less. The minimum required to be discussed and possibly decided during congress meeting.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Comments:

This proposal had an even vote in the TRC. And thus it seems to be an issue for the Congress to decide. The TRC will not give a recommendation.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

3)Titles Achieved in National Championships

Poland The final stage of the national individual or team championship shall be exempt and international title norms possible if other requirements fulfilled. However, at least one of the norms has to be achieved under normal foreigner requirement. In my opinion, ICCF can implement this FIDE standard.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Comments:

This proposal received 3 votes against and one in favour. The idea as such is possible, but we also have the case of Myanmar (Burma) in FIDE where one federation fixed their games to get a very high rating not corresponding to the player’s actual skill. We do not wish that to happen that a player gets a title by playing only domestic players do we.It also came up a proposal that if a national federation do wish to have a titled championship, then a format of playing with 10 domestic players and 5 invited players from other federations would work.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

4)Tournament Rules – Unexpected Substantial Change During Update Process

Poland

Appendix II, International Correspondence Chess Title Regulations [1.e) & 3.]An international tournament shall have the following requirements:e) not more than two thirds of the participating players shall be members of one and the same ICCF affiliated federation

3. The minimum game scores for title results shall be by virtue of the following table of points, where C = the maximum number of players being members of one and the same federation.

Title of Proposal: Tournament Rules – Unexpected Substantial Change during Update ProcessProposed By: Poland/Qualification CommissionerProposal and Comments:

Appendix II, International Correspondence Chess Title Regulations [1.e) & 3.]1. An international tournament shall have the following requirements:e) not more than two thirds of the participating players shall be members of one and the same ICCF affiliated federation

3. The minimum game scores for title results shall be by virtue of the following table of points, where

107

C = the maximum number of players being members of one and the same federation,

Being QC I am responsible for ICCF title tournaments in terms of providing guarantee that ICCF rules are observed by both players & TOs.I didn't realize that requirements for title tournaments, valid for several years, were changed substantially until worried organizers pointed that out. I investigated the issue and present my findings below (see also details in separate pdf file attached).

The issue is that at some stage of TR update in 2011 somebody, probably believing that an error existed, replaced expression "C = The minimum number of players not belonging to one and the same federation" with "C = the maximum number of players being members of one and the same federation". In fact these are two different expressions with totally different meanings. Numbers in column C were mixed as well and are still incompatible with column description.Some people may say that this was just update to eliminate a double negative and that these expressions mean the same or the first one is nonsense, because the minimum is 1! You couldn't be more wrong!"The minimum number of players not belonging to one and the same federation" actually means the minimum number of different federations represented in an event!Moreover, I could not find in the minutes authorization for that substantial change.

See just few examples:

-MT-Tolush (http://www.iccf-webchess.com/event?id=41401) started in 2014 -> 11xRUS; TR 2014 says in para 1.e) max 11, but in para 3 (norm table, column C): max 6! -MT-Paredes/A (http://www.iccf-webchess.com/event?id=43536) started in 2014 -> 6xESP; TR 2014 says in para 1.e) max 10, but in para 3 (norm table, column C): max 5!-MT-Hawley (http://www.iccf-webchess.com/event?id=40274) started in 2013 -> 7xENG; TR 2013 says in para 1.e) max 10, but in para 3 (norm table, column C): max 5!-RUS/Gold-2013 (http://iccf-webchess.com/event?id=39862) started in 2013 -> 10xRUS; TR 2013 says in para 1.e) max 10, but in para 3 (norm table, column C): max 5!-MT-Crusi/A (http://www.iccf.com/event?id=37645) started in 2013 -> 6xESP; TR 2013 says in para 1.e) max 10, but in para 3 (norm table, column C): max 5!-MT-Crusi/B (http://www.iccf.com/event?id=37646) started in 2013 -> 6xESP; TR 2013 says in para 1.e) max 10, but in para 3 (norm table, column C): max 5!-RUS/Gold-2012 (http://iccf-webchess.com/event?id=32258) started in 2012 -> 9xRUS; TR 2014 says in para 1.e) max 10, but in para 3 (norm table, column C): max 5! However, exceptionally for TR 2012 para 3 (norm table, column C) says about: (page 21) min or (page 19) max 10 depending on page you are looking at!My advice as QC is to correct table description for column C as following "C = The minimum number of players not belonging to one and the same federation" (for all editions TR 2014, 2013, 2012-including numbers in column C), so like was previously.

Whatever you decide all title tournaments starting from 2012 have to be verified with regard to that issue and norms for international titles to be validated (or not).

If you insist anyway to follow rules as it is, several events need to be corrected and downgraded to rated only. In result, title norms have to be cancelled, if applicable.

http://iccf-webchess.com/event?id=32258

http://www.iccf.com/event?id=37646

http://www.iccf.com/event?id=37645

http://iccf-webchess.com/event?id=39862

http://www.iccf-webchess.com/event?id=40274



108

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Comments:

This editorial issue has been taken care of by updating the table on the server.No action from TRC is needed.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

5)Team Captain Options – My Claims

Poland "My claims" - claim to be accepted (or rejected) by TC is missing. Contact possibility TC with another TC in team events is missing. This prevents TC from his basic privilege and obligation to solve problem before reporting it to TD.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Comments:

The Tournament Rules Commission feels that this is an issue for the server commission. It has no impact to the Tournament Rules.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

109

_________________________________________________________

I would like to thank all members of the TRC for their dedicated and cooperative work and input!

Kind Regards and Amici Sumus

Per Söderberg, Acting Chairman of the TRC

Bromma, Sept 1st 2014

Flag Fall Proposal

The first proposal was the Flag Fall Proposal proposed by the United States federation. Games ending on time will be scored as an automatic loss by the webserver without a claim step.

Proposal Specifics A new option should be offered “Automatic Flag” on the tournament setup page for TOs. All ICCF tournaments starting from 01.01.2015 must have this option set (will be forced). When a flag falls in an event in which this option is set, the result is automatically set as a loss for the

flagged player. A special code will be appended to the crosstable result to indicate a loss by ETL. While there may be an isolated instance in which the board position is a draw (example, lone King) and the

webserver can be programmed to detect such situations, this resolution will be covered by allowing the flagged player 14-days to appeal a server decision and claim a draw.

DiscussionsThe Rules Commissioner presented the recommendation on the proposal, as described in the Tournament Rules report .

The Polish Delegate spoke about that it is necessary to have an automated Flag Fall, and it was confirmed by the EB, that a "gentlemen's agreement" to allow players to agree to continue after an ETL, is not acceptable.

110

Following the ICCF Tournament Rules Commissioner presentation to Congress on this proposal, two more presentations were offered for the voting members. First presenter was Dr. Dennis Doren, representing the United States.

“The USA proposal concerning flag falls is to automate what happens in each server-based game when a player's time expires. This proposal was discussed among the ICCF-US board members, with a unanimous view of support. There were numerous reasons mentioned during that discussion. I will be presenting five reasons that I ask for your support today in favour of this change in our procedures. These five include what was discussed by the USA board, but also some added by me.

The first of these reasons is pertinent for every Delegate who believes that the ICCF should follow FIDE rules to the extent possible. I am aware of the arguments against such a view, and for those who do not believe such, this reason will not apply. For those who believe in our basing our rules and procedures on FIDE's, this reason is the most important. I say this because the FIDE rules actually mandate that we adopt this proposal.

If you will indulge me, let me read the relevant FIDE rules, from July 2014: Rule 6.8 reads, "A flag is considered to have fallen when the arbiter observes the fact or when ether player has made a valid claim to that effect." I point out that the word "or" is contained in this rule. There is no requirement in FIDE for any player to make a claim for there to be a determination of a win through a flag fall - not if the arbiter has already observed that fact. Further in the rules, at 12.3, "The arbiter shall observe the games, especially when the players are short of time, enforce decisions he has made, and impose penalties on players where appropriate." Here I point out the word "shall" - meaning, "Must". The arbiter must observe the games, especially when the players are short of time. In addition, in rule 12.4: "The arbiter may appoint assistants to observe games, for example, when several players are short of time." Of course, in postal chess, arbiters cannot observe any of the games directly. Likewise, there is no realistic option for appointing assistants to observe the games. Therefore, players must make claims to win by time expiration. That was why our rules were what they were - to reflect the reality of postal play. Now, in server play, however, all TDs have the assistance of the server itself. The server always watching every game and knows exactly when each flag falls. The server is the TD's assistant, thereby fulfilling the FIDE requirement (from 12.3) that arbiters "shall observe the games". Through this assistant, the TD becomes aware of each flag fall without any player needing to make a claim. In other words, in order to fulfil the FIDE rules, TDs in server-based ICCF games are required to use the server as their assistant, and through doing so, never require the player to make a claim related to a flag fall.

The second reason for supporting this proposal applies even for those Delegates who do not believe the ICCF need follow the FIDE rules. In our own Arbiter's Manual, in section 2.4.1.1 entitled Player's Claims, it says, "If a TD becomes aware of a problem, he may act on it without waiting for a player to first make a claim." I am aware of the rules pertaining to players making claims to win by flag fall, but our own Manual for TDs does not mandate this procedure if, and I stress if, the TD is already aware of the issue. Again, in postal play, there is almost no way that TDs can know of a flag fall without a player making a claim. However, in server play, the TD, through his assistant (the server) always knows. Therefore, we need to pass this proposal in support of our existing TD rule as it applies to all server games instead of postal games.

The third reason is the incredible waste of time and effort that currently exists for players, TCs, and TDs related to flag fall claims. I am a data oriented person. I conducted an informal (non-random) survey of all the TDs from 5 countries of my choosing to find out how many had ever had a flag fall they ruled to be a draw. Over half of the TDs responded to the survey. In total, none, I emphasize no one had ever ruled a flag fall to be a draw in a server game. For the record, one and only one TD had ever ruled such in any postal games. He reported having done so twice, both over 10 years ago. One involved a "crazy guy" and as not based on the material left in the game. Only the one other one involved a draw determination based on insufficient mating material. When Austin Lockwood heard of my survey, he, through his kind initiative, decided to look at all the server data possible. What he found was that over the past nearly 6 years (since January 2009) there have been over 275,000 games played on the server. Of those, just shy of 20,000 (specifically 19,572) games involved flag falls. That is about 7.5% of all server games. Do you know how many resulted in a proper determination of a draw at the time of the flag fall? One. One out of nearly 20,000 games. That means for all the other games, players had to make claims, TDs had to respond to these claims and in many cases, TCs had to be involved in these emails as well, all to determine what the server already

111

knew: the flags had fallen and the game was a win for the side still with time. Our players, TCs, and TDs, have been wasting a great deal of time and effort.

The fourth reason is the fact that the TDs are not as accurate as they might be. I am not saying anything here except that TDs are human and people make errors. Specifically, besides that one case of an accurate determination of a draw at the time of a flag fall, TDs ruled draws in 11 other cases. Those 11 were all inaccurately determined to be draws. Of course, 11 out of nearly 20,000 is a small error rate, but the server would have made none of these errors. Put another way, when TDs made the determination of a draw at the time of a flag fall, they were incorrect 11 of 12 times. The server will not make this error.

Finally, there is another human factor. Again, I wish to emphasize that I am not criticizing the vast majority of TDs who do a fine job. The fact is, however, that there are regular instances when TDs do not respond in a timely way to claims that are made, sometimes not at all. These situations require many emails by players, TCs, and sometimes-other officials. The server will finalize flag fall results immediately, such that none of these problems will exist.

In summary, there does not appear to be any good reason not to support this proposal. If it matters to you, the FIDE rules require we make this change in our procedures. Even if FIDE rules do not matter to you, our own rules already allow it. The amount of time and effort through the claim procedures being wasted now can be eliminated. TDs errors can also be eliminated. We will also have far fewer instances of TD non-responsiveness, given they will have far fewer calls on their time. With all of these reasons, I ask for your support for this proposal.

Next was Dr. Ambar Chatterjee, our ICCF delegate from India with a presentation that addressed not just the Flag Fall Proposal, but the topic of automation as well.

113

A vote was then called on the Flag Fall Proposal. If this vote passes, then a subsequent vote would determine if Congress wishes to allow a 14-day appeal window for automated server results.

Proposal: (Principal) Exceeding the time limit is valid (declared a loss) only if it is confirmed by the ICCF server and subject to appeal.


































SubTotal: 32 23 6 3 0

114

Proposal: Modify Playing Rules 11c to allow either player to appeal an automated webserver decision within 14-days.


































Total: 32 24 1 7 0

115

Playing Rules Commission

Report – Playing Rules Commissioner

ICCF Congress Sydney (Australia) 2014

List of the members of the PRC:

Per Söderberg (SWE) ChairmanLeo Lahdenmäki (FIN) Vice ChairmanDuncan Chambers (ENG)Kristo Miettinen (USA)Nikolay Poleshchuk (RUS)Kenneth Reinhart (USA)Uwe Staroske (GER)Wim van Vugt (NLD)Ragnar Wikman (FIN)Eric Ruch (FRA) ICCF President, member in all CommissionsMichael Millstone (USA) General Secretary, member in all Commissions

Since last, Ralph Marconi has asked to step down from the Commission. Ralph is heartily thanked for all his dedicated work for the Commission during a long time of service. As there is a proposal to join the two Rules Commission into one, no replacement has been sought.

General Secretary Note to All: the first two proposals listed in this report were (a) not submitted properly (i.e., by a national federation delegate and to the General Secretary) and (b) will not be voted on in the 2015 Congress. They are included in this report to encourage further discussion on topics.

Discussions:

This year we had 5 proposals to be considered:

1) Reflection Time Modification Proposal: “Wealth Tax”

By Rolf Knobel, ICCF Grandmaster, SwitzerlandTo support the spirit of AMICI SUMUS a discussion proposal is made.Goal:In order to reduce the stockpiling of reflection time to delay the result a change proposal for the reflection time rules for correspondence chess is made. The goal is to keep the opportunity to carry forward reflection time for the critical phases of a game to some extent while reducing the extensive accumulation of reflection time especially in the late phase of a game. This should be reached with a small change of the existing rules keeping the reflection time similar for most of the games.

116

Proposal:Extend the statement to the carried forward time in Rule 6b.as follows:„Time remaining on a player's clock, when reaching a time control, is carried forward. “ To be replaced by

Half of the time remaining on a player's clock, when reaching a time control, is carried forward.

Rationale:The approach is similar to a wealth tax. As it is not intended the players to stockpile too much reflection time (*accumulate instead of invest“) several approaches are possible (to „tax“):

6. The capitalistic approach („no taxes“) - full carriage forward as in the present rules.7. The communistic approach („equal wealth for all“) - limit maximal accumulated carriage forward.8. The socialistic approach („higher taxes for rich people“) - the present proposal.9.

The proposal reduces reflection time carried forward from long ago several times leading to a shorter maximal game duration when reflection time is not used. This reduces the room for the so called „dead man defense“while keeping enough reflection time for the critical stages of the game.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Playing Rules Commission Comments:There were 6 votes against and 2 in favour of this proposal. The mayor issues are that this can change the behavior of the player in that to avoid taxation the games may be prolonged in calendar time and the fact that the so-called DMD is taken care of by the Code of Conduct amendment of last year. I have had a few reports where players has complained to the TD and their opponents has got the picture and rather than risking penalties resigned their games in the next move. The PRC do not recommend this proposal.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

2) To introduce a deferred move transmission.

By Bo Bredenhof, Sweden

Goal: To help players who are stressed by the “immediate” reply on the server games.

Proposal: To have as an option to delay the sending of the move with 2 days. That is the move I make will not be presented to the opponent until 48 hours later. The idea is to have an extra click box next to the draw offer making the move to be kept for 2 days. However, those 2 days will be counted on the sending player’s time, and thus it will not affect the calendar time of the event. (It should not be a big problem to introduce this function.)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Playing Rules Commission Comments:There was only one in favour of this proposal, 7 against. Even though the PRC do recognize that the quick answer, in an hour or so is perceived by many just as annoying as the so-called DMD.However, one idea is to have less reflection time like 40 days/10 moves and then have a 48 hours not showing of the move to the opponent. However, in the period no discussion on the subject was made. The reason for saying no is that a player can wait the days himself, without ICCF put money and efforts to add this feature to the server and thus the PRC does not recommend this proposal.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

3) Server Claims and Roles of TD and TC

India Modify the server rules 1e, 1f, 1fTEAM, 3b, 3bTEAM, 5c, 5f, 10a to reduce the role of a human TD.

117

Title of Proposal: Server Claims and roles of TD and TCScope of Proposal: ICCF Playing Rules, ServerProposed by: All India Correspondence Chess FederationProposal: Modify the server rules 1e, 1f, 1fTEAM, 3b, 3bTEAM, 5c, 5f, 10a to reduce the role of a human TD.

Principle:Human TDs have limitations. They are slow to respond, could be on vacation etc. The work is clerical in nature and requires no human decision making. Actions are better automated in the server and would completely avoid controversy. Shift responsibilities to players and leave the persons appointed as TDs to do other useful work for ICCF.

Rule 1e: If a player should lose internet access and is unable, for whatever reason, to re-establish access within 30 days, he/she will be considered to have withdrawn from the tournament. The period of 30 days is allowed once a year.Replace by: Maintaining internet access is the responsibility of the player and no considerations will granted for any failure in this regard.

Rationale:In today’s day and age, internet access is available to the average person through multiple devices including mobile phones. While travelling, public Wi-Fi (hotels, airports), Data enabled mobile phones and tablets, USB dongles etc. are in widespread use.

Rule 1f and 1f TEAM:Results of games which progress to their normal conclusion, will be automatically recorded and the Tournament Director will be informed, through the system. In all other circumstances, players are responsible for making claims or communicating with the Tournament Director, for the resolution of problems or disputes.f. TEAM: Results of games, which progress to their normal conclusion, will be automatically recorded and the Tournament Director will be informed, through the system. In all other circumstances, Team Captains are responsible for making claims or communicating with the Tournament Director, for the resolution of problems or disputes.Replace by: Results of games will be recorded by the server. There are no claims. If a player exceeds the time limit or the silence period, the server would score the result without any human intervention. If the position reached is a 6-men table-base, the TD would automatically be informed and he would adjudicate the game. In such cases, the game would be frozen pending table-base adjudication with no move possible by either player.

Rationale:Asking a player to lodge a claim of the opponent having exceed the time limit or silence period and then having TDs and TCs check, is needless clerical work. It is better checked by a computer than a human is. With properly formulated rules, there is no question of dispute or problem. Only if the server acted incorrectly (software failure or technical failure) one could appeal. TDs and TCs presently sending emails back and forth should become free to do work more beneficial to the growth of ICCF. (As TC, I receive an email stating that one of my players is about to exceed the silence period. What do you want me to do? I can at most send the same email again to the player. However, what is the use of that, he would already have got the email from ICCF).

3b, 3bTEAM:When a player is sent a final reminder after 35 days of response time, he/she must either move or report to the Tournament Director and to his/her opponent, the intention to continue the game, within 5 days of that reminder. If a player does not move or otherwise report his/her intention to continue, during the 40 days of response time for the same move, the game may be scored as lost by the Tournament Director. b. TEAM: When a player is sent a final reminder after 35 days of response time, he/ she must either move or report to the Tournament Director, via the Team Captain, and to his/her opponent, the intention to continue the game, within 5 days of that reminder. If a player does not move or otherwise report his/her intention to continue, during the 40 days of response time for the same move, the game may be scored as lost by the Tournament Director.

118

Replace by: Reminders are sent by the server. It is the player’s responsibility to stay within the time limit and the silence period. If a player does not do so, the game will scored as lost by server action.Rule 5c: If a player does not answer enquiries from the Tournament Director, that player may be deemed to have withdrawn from the tournament.Delete this ruleRationale: Monitoring of games is done by the server. That is what computers are for. Humans are not required here. We do not need any enquiry from a TD.

Rule 5f: The Tournament Director and opponents must be notified immediately if any substantial failure of hardware or software occurs.Delete this rule

Rule 10a: The Tournament Director may penalise or disqualify players who break these rules.Delete this rule

Rationale: Any action taken by a human TD will be subjective. Anyway, what is the rule that a player can break? He can exceed the time limit or he can be silent. Then the server acts. No TD needed. (Only place a TD might act is if the opponent is sending offensive messages, but I do not see any rule for that).>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Playing Rules Commission Comments:There were no votes in favour of this proposal in complete. The mayor issue is that if there is a not well working TD he should be removed rather than every TD is released from his duties. A tournament has a TD who is responsible for that the event goes well and fair. In addition, to keep the human touch is the wish of the PRC. However, a few things reached a couple of votes in favour, the removal of 1e about losing connection. This must be the player’s own responsibility. 3b and 11a (Used to be 10 before the TB came into the rules) are advised to not be changed. 5c and 5f got one or two votes in favour, but as a principle, the PRC does not recommend this proposal to Congress.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>4)Role of Team Captain in Server Claims

Wales

Replace the following section of 1ff. TEAM: Results of games, which progress to their normal conclusion, will be automatically recorded and the Tournament Director will be informed, through the system. In all other circumstances, Team Captains are responsible for making claims or communicating with the Tournament Director, for the resolution of problems or disputes.Withf. TEAM: Results of games, which progress to their normal conclusion, will be automatically recorded and the Tournament Director will be informed, through the system, claims will be made directly by players to the Tournament Director. In all other circumstances, Team Captains are responsible for communicating with the Tournament Director, for the resolution of problems or disputes.Remove the following from 1bb. TEAM: When a player is sent a final reminder after 35 days of response time, he/ she must either move or report to the Tournament Director, via the Team Captain, and to his/her opponent, the intention to continue the game, within 5 days of that reminder. If a player does not move or otherwise report his/her intention to continue, during the 40 days of response time for the same move, the game may be scored as lost by the Tournament Director.

Scope of Proposal: ICCF Playing Rules, ServerProposed by: Welsh Correspondence Chess FederationProposal: Replace the following section of 1f

119

f. TEAM: Results of games, which progress to their normal conclusion, will be automatically recorded and the Tournament Director will be informed, through the system. In all other circumstances, Team Captains are responsible for making claims or communicating with the Tournament Director, for the resolution of problems or disputes.Withf. TEAM: Results of games, which progress to their normal conclusion, will be automatically recorded and the Tournament Director will be informed, through the system, claims will be made directly by players to the Tournament Director. In all other circumstances, Team Captains are responsible for communicating with the Tournament Director, for the resolution of problems or disputes.Remove the following from 1bb. TEAM: When a player is sent a final reminder after 35 days of response time, he/ she must either move or report to the Tournament Director, via the Team Captain, and to his/her opponent, the intention to continue the game, within 5 days of that reminder. If a player does not move or otherwise report his/her intention to continue, during the 40 days of response time for the same move, the game may be scored as lost by the Tournament Director.

Rationale:A structured system for processing claims was introduced on the server in 2014, this system requires the player to complete an online form, stating the details of the claim; this form is then either evaluated automatically by the system, or forwarded to the Tournament Director for processing.In the case of games in team events, the claim cannot be processed by the Tournament Director until it has been validated by the Team Captain; this is consistent with the current rules, however it introduces a high level of complexity into the claim process for team events; this has resulted in confusion amongst players, Team Captains, and Tournament Directors. There have been several help desk incidents from Tournament Directors who could not understand why it was not possible to evaluate a claim sent directly from a player. It is proposed that the claim system would be simplified and usability enhanced if players were able to make claims directly to the TD in team events.

Other Considerations:It could be argued that Team Captains should retain control over claims, because there may be significant situations in team games where a decision must be made whether to claim a draw or play on for a win in a particular game.

Our responses to this argument would be that:i. If a Team Captain wishes his players to consult on claims, this is an internal matter of team discipline

and not the concern of the Tournament Director. This proposal does not remove the possibility for players to confer with their captains; it only removes the requirement for them to do so.

ii. Following the same argument, the Team Captain should be responsible for offering and accepting draw offers. This is not currently the case, and the rule is therefore inconsistent. We are proposing to remove this inconsistency.

Secondly, it might be argued that by having a single point of contact, communication between the team and the Tournament Director is more efficient. We accept and support this argument for the resolution of conflict and disputes, and for general management issues, however in the case of claims we believe that communication would be made more efficient by allowing players to make claims directly.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Playing Rules Commission Comments:There were 4 votes against and 3 in favour of this proposal. The question here to be identified is whether we shall have Team Captains. It seems that the issue arises because of the new procedure for claims that was introduced last

120

year. It was not communicated very well to the players and team captains who had to ask a lot on how it works and this caused more work for the HelpDesk. It could also be argued that the player shall always go to the team captain with whatever he has on his mind, claims, conflicts, questions, etc. Now, if the proposal is accepted, he will need to write his claims directly to the TD. In addition, what if he can’t make the claim in any of the 5 supported languages? This is also an important matter for the TC! With the present system, he can write his claim to the TC in his own language, and the TC can translate it into a language known by the TD! And the TC can withdraw a claim that he finds to be in error. If the TD receives it, it is bound to be a warning or other penalties.However, with 4-3 I would not say that the recommendation is clear.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

5)The ICCF Laws of Correspondence Chess

Wales 1. It is proposed that the ICCF Rules Commission establishes a document entitled The ICCF Laws of Correspondence Chess.2. Initially the ICCF Laws of Correspondence Chess should be taken from the current FIDE Laws of Chess, with the following simple amendments:a. The first line of the introduction should be amended to “ICCF Laws of Correspondence Chess cover correspondence play”,b. All references to FIDE should be replaced with ICCF,c. Any reference to OTB play, for example the touch move rule, is either removed or amended for relevance.3. From 1.1.2015, all references to the “FIDE Laws of Chess” in the ICCF rules will be replaced with a reference to the “ICCF Laws of Correspondence Chess”.4. ICCF Congress is empowered to make changes to the ICCF Laws of Correspondence Chess by simple majority vote.5. Changes in the FIDE Laws of Chess will only be cascaded to the ICCF Laws of Correspondence Chess with the approval of ICCF Congress by simple majority vote.

Title of Proposal: The ICCF Laws of Correspondence Chess“FIDE Laws of Chess cover over-the-board play.”(FIDE Laws of Chess, introduction)Scope of Proposal: All ICCF Playing RulesProposed By: The Welsh Correspondence Chess Federation

1. It is proposed that the ICCF Rules Commission establishes a document entitled The ICCF Laws of Correspondence Chess.

2. Initially the ICCF Laws of Correspondence Chess should be taken from the current FIDE Laws of Chess, with the following simple amendments:

a. The first line of the introduction should be amended to “ICCF Laws of Correspondence Chess cover correspondence play”,

b. All references to FIDE should be replaced with ICCF,c. Any reference to OTB play, for example the touch move rule, is either removed or amended for

relevance.3. From 1.1.2015, all references to the “FIDE Laws of Chess” in the ICCF rules will be replaced with a

reference to the “ICCF Laws of Correspondence Chess”.4. ICCF Congress is empowered to make changes to the ICCF Laws of Correspondence Chess by simple

majority vote.5. Changes in the FIDE Laws of Chess will only be cascaded to the ICCF Laws of Correspondence Chess

with the approval of ICCF Congress by simple majority vote.

Rationale

121

The FIDE laws of Chess are maintained by the FIDE Rules Commission to govern over the board chess; these rules are specifically designed by FIDE to cover situations that occur in OTB tournaments. FIDE have no responsibility for organising correspondence chess events and no interest in the rules of correspondence chess. It is fully acknowledged by FIDE that the FIDE Laws of Chess do not apply to any form of chess other than OTB chess. It is therefore inappropriate for ICCF to use a rulebook, which specifically excludes correspondence chess from its scope.

The ICCF Rules Commissioner does not sit on the FIDE Rules Commission, ICCF therefore have no influence over the FIDE Laws of Chess. It is possible for FIDE to amend any rule at any time, without consideration of the implications for correspondence chess, and without giving any notice to ICCF.

This is not just a hypothetical situation. From July 2014, two new rules were added to the FIDE Laws of Chess (9.6a and 9.6b) which could affect the outcome of a correspondence chess game under particular circumstances. No notification was given to either the ICCF Rules Commissioner, the ICCF Arbiters Committee, or the ICCF Services Director; no guidance, therefore, was given to ICCF Tournament Directors, and no update was applied to the ICCF server to accommodate these rules.

This is a completely unacceptable situation. The rules governing correspondence chess must be under the complete control of ICCF if we wish continue to offer a professional and high quality level of service to our members and players.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Playing Rules Commission Comments:The PRC did not really get a discussion saying yes or no to this issue, it is a bit complex. It could also affect the status of our affiliation to FIDE. We do recognize the last paragraph in the proposal. It would not be acceptable. What happened was that FIDE changed the definition of draw to have 2 more definitions of draw:

1) If a game is played 75 moves, without capture or pawn move, and neither player claiming draw, then the arbiter will score the game as draw.

2) If a position is the same for 5 times and neither player claiming draw, then the arbiter will score the game as draw.

It is also argued that we still have the “where applicable” paragraph, which for instance interprets that “touched piece” is not valid in ICCF. Usually FIDE does not change their basic laws of chess, even though they do sometimes change the definition of draw. The situation was discussed with the Service Director and we decided that the changes above would not make any change in the server application. It will be an issue for the TD to recognize if these positions have arisen. It will be treated similar to the case of dead position. The positions cannot be identified automatically. To my knowledge, it has not caused any problem in the past.

The PRC do recommend that the EB take a wider perspective on this issue. A working group could be considered. One question in particular is how far can ICCF go from FIDE Laws of Chess and still call our play chess? We already have the table base that makes an identical game that is draw in FIDE to be a win in ICCF.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

_________________________________________________________

I would like to thank all members of the PRC for their dedicated and cooperative work and input!

Kind Regards and Amici Sumus

122

Per Söderberg, Chairman of the PRC

Bromma, Sept 1st 2014

Proposal from India - Playing Rule 1e - Games shall be played by using the ICCF Webserver. If a player should lose internet access and is unable, for whatever reason, to re-establish access within 30 days, he/she will be considered to have withdrawn from the tournament. The period of 30 days is allowed once a year.

123

Proposal: Playing Rules 1(e) - delete 2nd and 3rd sentence.


































Total: 32 28 3 1 0

124

Proposal from Wales - Replace the following section of 1f

f. TEAM: Results of games, which progress to their normal conclusion, will be automatically recorded and the Tournament Director will be informed, through the system. In all other circumstances, Team Captains are responsible for making claims or communicating with the Tournament Director, for the resolution of problems or disputes.

With

f. TEAM: Results of games, which progress to their normal conclusion, will be automatically recorded and the Tournament Director will be informed, through the system, claims will be made directly by players to the Tournament Director. In all other circumstances, Team Captains are responsible for communicating with the Tournament Director, for the resolution of problems or disputes.

Remove the following from 1b

b. TEAM: When a player is sent a final reminder after 35 days of response time, he/ she must either move or report to the Tournament Director, via the Team Captain, and to his/her opponent, the intention to continue the game, within 5 days of that reminder. If a player does not move or otherwise report his/her intention to continue, during the 40 days of response time for the same move, the game may be scored as lost by the Tournament Director.

Rationale:

A structured system for processing claims was introduced on the server in 2014, this system requires the player to complete an online form, stating the details of the claim; this form is then either evaluated automatically by the system, or forwarded to the Tournament Director for processing.

In the case of games in team events, the claim cannot be processed by the Tournament Director until it has been validated by the Team Captain; this is consistent with the current rules, however it introduces a high level of complexity into the claim process for team events; this has resulted in confusion amongst players, Team Captains, and Tournament Directors. Several help desk incidents from Tournament Directors who could not understand why it was not possible to evaluate a claim sent directly from a player. It is proposed that the claim system would be simplified and usability enhanced if players were able to make claims directly to the TD in team events.

Responses to this argument:

If a Team Captain wishes his players to consult on claims, this is an internal matter of team discipline and not the concern of the Tournament Director. This proposal does not remove the possibility for players to confer with their captains; it only removes the requirement for them to do so.

Following the same argument, the Team Captain should be responsible for offering and accepting draw offers. This is not currently the case, and the rule is therefore inconsistent. We are proposing to remove this inconsistency.

Secondly, it might be argued that by having a single point of contact, communication between the team and the Tournament Director is more efficient. We accept and support this argument for the resolution of conflict and disputes, and for general management issues, however in the case of claims we believe that communication would be made more efficient by allowing players to make claims directly.

The proposal was clarified: Replace Playing Rules 1(f) with: "Results of games, which progress to their normal conclusion, will be automatically recorded and the Tournament Director will be informed, through the system, claims will be made directly by players to the Tournament Director. In all other circumstances, Team Captains are responsible for communicating with the Tournament Director, for the resolution of problems or disputes."

See next page for voting results.

125

Proposal: Replace Playing Rules 1(f) with: "Results of games, which progress to their normal conclusion, will be automatically recorded and the Tournament Director will be informed, through the system, claims will be made directly by players to the Tournament Director. In all other circumstances, Team Captains are responsible for communicating with the Tournament Director, for the resolution of problems or disputes."


































SubTotal: 32 21 10 1 0

126

A request from the Services Director to implement the now approved changes to rule 1(f) to be effective immediately for all running ICCF tournaments instead of tournaments starting after 01.01.2015. This proposal would greatly streamline the implementation.

Proposal: with approval of changes to 1(f), changes will be applicable to all running ICCF tournaments when implemented on the webserver.


































Total: 32 29 3 0 0

127

Following was a proposal of the Playing Rules (3b) (Team) that removed the portion of wording that directs players to advise a TC and his or her opponent of the intention to continue a game after a 35-days final reminder.

Proposal: Player Rules 3b (Team) - remove portion that direct player to advise TC


































Total: 32 29 3 0 0

128

The proposal from Wales:

1. It is proposed that the ICCF Rules Commission establishes a document entitled The ICCF Laws of Correspondence Chess.

2. Initially the ICCF Laws of Correspondence Chess should be taken from the current FIDE Laws of Chess, with the following simple amendments:

a. The first line of the introduction should be amended to “ICCF Laws of Correspondence Chess cover correspondence play”,

b. All references to FIDE should be replaced with ICCF,c. Any reference to OTB play, for example the touch move rule, is either removed or amended for

relevance.3. From 1.1.2015, all references to the “FIDE Laws of Chess” in the ICCF rules will be replaced with a

reference to the “ICCF Laws of Correspondence Chess”.4. ICCF Congress is empowered to make changes to the ICCF Laws of Correspondence Chess by simple

majority vote.

Changes in the FIDE Laws of Chess will only be cascaded to the ICCF Laws of Correspondence Chess with the approval of ICCF Congress by simple majority vote.

Proposal: (in Principle) - The ICCF Rules Commission will establish a document entitled The ICCF Laws of Correspondence Chess.


































Total: 32 32 0 0 0

The motion passed (in principal) and the completed document will be presented at the 2015 Congress for consideration.

129

The last Rules proposal was submitted by the Welsh Federation.

Remove Article 15 of the ICCF StatutesThe designation of each country in ICCF will be in accordance with the 3-letter code system used by FIDE.

This is primarily a webserver coding issue and allows new countries to be added much more quickly, if needed. This proposal does require a change to the ICCF statutes.

Proposal: Remove Article 15 of the ICCF Statutes -- Statutes will be updates after the 2015 Congress


































Total: 32 30 2 0 0

130

Arbiter’s Committee (ACO)

Many of the playing and tournament rules changes will affect how Tournament Director’s do their jobs as well as some inaccuracies observed by the Qualifications Commissioner, it was decided to devote the remainder of Day 2 discussing the Arbiter’s Committee (ACO). The Arbiter Committee has been relatively stagnant in the past three years and the Arbiter’s Manual is out-of-date.

The following general tasks and responsibilities of the committee were outlined: Revise the Arbiter’s Manual to reflect current policies and procedures. Redefine the role of TD/IA Establish standard and consistent lines of communications between TDs and TCs. Propose/create a qualification ladder from a beginning TD to a certified IA with considerations of training

and testing included. Establish a periodic training and communication standard for all TDs. Re-assess the present TD list under new guidelines. Develop automated TD monitoring/assessment of performance.

Recognizing the importance of this committee and the responsibilities, the United States Federation proposed that Dr. Dennis Doren assume leadership of the committee.

Dennis was present at Congress and provided a brief personal introduction.

With full EB support, Congress gave Dennis a show of appreciation and welcome to the ICCF team.

Dennis has started to assemble the ACO team with members from the present committee as well as others who have shown interest and experience.

131

Rating Commissioner

Dear friends,

Since last year’s Congress, four rating lists were published, on time. Currently I am working on the list 2014/4, which will be published on September 15 and will be valid from October 1, business as usual, no problems but I want to mention one significant improvement, which was realized shortly after the Congress in Krakow:

Special rating system for Chess960The Congress in Krakow decided to set up a special rating system for Chess960. Chess960-Tournaments started from 01/01/2014 onwards can and should be created as rated. So far, this was 27 groups in ICCF and 3 national events.

With rating list 2014/3, we had already six players with a published 960 rating (based on at least 12 results). 109 players at that time had evaluated results. Since a few days, these lists can be seen and downloaded from the server. With rating list 2014/4, the numbers will surely grow.

Maintaining Players’ DatabaseHistorically ICCF had no catalogue of players; this was the task of the national federations. For the introduction of the rating system in 1988, Nol van t’Riet collected a list of 8.752 players who played in rated tournaments and he published a paper list with 2.353 players. The rating software required at that time a dbase-table which was continuously extended in the following years and for the first time completely published with Eloquery in 1995 (with 22.876 players). It was always the task of the RC to maintain this table.

In 2004, it became mandatory to have this table on the ICCF webserver as a requirement for creating tournaments. It was imported from Eloquery (with 31.990 players). New entries could be created by Tournament Organizers, but had always to be confirmed by the RC. With the increase of server tournaments and the administration of postal tournaments on the server, this task became more and more time consumable and awkward. Until the end of 2011, the number grew to 39.349 players. Since 2012, the server allows everybody in the world to sign up for the ICCF server. These entries are more or less carefully checked by the national delegates or zonal directors, accepted or rejected, and finally confirmed or removed by the RC. Today we have now 43.858 names in the database.

Since the last Congress, 2.874 persons used the signup possibility. 978 of them were rejected, 1.896 were confirmed and got a password. I am sure that there are a lot of them who do not really intend to become active and play. Currently the server does not offer a possibility to identify those groups of “uninterested guests”. However, we should have such a feature and a concept to clean our database from time to time.

In my opinion, there is no need to give Congress a share in this matter. It is still the task and authority of the RC in cooperation with the Service Committee. However, I would be interested in the opinions of delegates and officials. My current idea is to remove names who did not register within 6 months after they got a password and to remove names that did not start play within two years after their registration. Of course, players with results in historic tournaments will not be removed.

Looking forward to seeing you in Sydney!

Amici sumus

Gerhard BinderICCF Ratings Commissioner

Congress voted unanimously to approve the Ratings Commissioner report and recommendations.

132

Gerhard provide a supplementary report, which is provided below.

Some new statistics to the Chess-960-Ratinglist 25 players with published rating (12 and more results) from 11 countries 10 from Russia 1082 results evaluated 151 players with at least 1 result from 34 countries amongst them 5 GM, 18 SIM, 11 IM 29 ICCF tournaments / groups, 2 from Europe, 5 national Players’ interest in these rating lists seems to be low – so far no comment, no query, no complaint.

Players’ database – Signup procedureSince last Congress (8/2013)

3150 Signups from 111 countries 2085 accepted and password sent (not known how many of them have registered) 1065 rejected by delegates / zonal directors

o no answer / no interesto duplicateso 271 not our membero 258 of them from India (only 28 from India were accepted)

Not included which were deleted after 35 days or because of fakes or duplicates by me ( ca. 500). They leave no track in the system or in my mails.

Need: Statistics about the activity of these new players. Identify a group of „uninterested guests which got a password and did not register or who registered and

did not start a tournament. Send a reminder mail every three months. Delete not registered after 6 months, not playing after two years.

Import of old tournamentsIn 2013, all in Eloquery available title tournaments were imported, total number was 1,103. Norms achieved from these tournaments were checked and registered in the player’s profile by the QCs Neil and Mariusz, a long-lasting and difficult task.

Recently we imported 2,055 ICCF nontitle tournaments with 20,348 entries and 60,000 of 98,261 results (not all due to a misunderstanding between Martin and me). We will complete this soon.

Some more tournaments are available and will be imported gradually: 1,351 zonal tournaments 297 regional team tournaments 1,000 national tournaments 438 friendly matches.

This would complete information about rated tournaments from 1993 and the details in rating history. With this action, Eloquery will definitely become superfluous.

133

Appeals Committee – Playing Rules

Last year I started my report with these four paragraphs;

"Because of the very nature of server play it is obvious that most of the appeals related to server games are based upon trivial misunderstandings of the rules, and such appeals are customarily dealt with directly by the Chairman, according to §3 of our working procedure. (This was quoted in its entirety in our report for the 2004 Congress). Only a few server appeals had to be dealt with using the reviewing procedure, and not even one needed the attendance of a full plenary session. [This year - 2013-14 - we have had a few.]

Still there are quite a few emails directed to Appeals that clearly belong to the TD level. In most cases, this is not a deliberate attempt to bypass the TD; it is simply unfamiliarity with the terminology, sometimes combined with unfamiliarity with computers, and with the English language.

Consequently, the task of the Chairman could be made much easier (though of course cases like this can be solved in a matter of minutes) if the national federations were to explain the difference between TD and Appeals (and how to make the proper contacts via the server!) to their players, for example on their own websites.

Obviously, this has not triggered much (if any?) response in the national federations, because I still get the silliest messages to the appeals address. So this year I will present you with a 'top ten' list of these messages in the hope that at least some federations will react to the plain absurdity of the situation and publish guidelines for their players!"

Even that "top ten" list has not made much of a dent in the steady flow of mis-addressed emails, so I now repeat my plea to all national federations to explain the difference between a TD and Appeals!

This year I have also noticed an increase in another type of mis-addressed appeals - quite a few appeals came from players in purely *national* events! Our Committee deals only with appeals in international events - dealing with dissatisfied players in national events and in friendly team matches is on the national federations' responsibility! Even two of the zones (2 and 3) have arranged to handle appeals in purely zonal events themselves, and for this reduction in our workload, I am quite grateful.

Dear tournament organisers, when you enter a new national event on the webserver, do not automatically hit "default" on Appeals - make sure you enter your national appeal handler! Moreover, if you have not appointed one, make sure you do so ASAP!

Despite this, our Committee has had some "real" work to do as well. The nastiest appeal involved several accounts which had been "hacked" and in whose names a sequence of losing moves was entered. The TDs decided to "undo" these hacked moves, upon which the players who benefitted from the losing moves promptly appealed! In these cases, our Committee unanimously rejected the appeals.

Still, also, most of the "real" appeals are handled by me, without my having to bother the entire Committee - a clear majority of them is still based on misunderstandings of the Rules. Unfortunately a few of these "misunderstanders" seem to work from the assumption that either they are right or I am wrong – as a consequence one player received a 6-month ban due to foul language.

Apart from these kinds of incidents, our (and my) work proceeds quite smoothly.

The current member list is given in the Appendix. No changes have occurred during the year.

Finally, I wish to express my sincere thanks to all members of the Committee for your valuable input during the past year, especially to "my right hand" Leo Lahdenmäki, who has to bear the main burden in the - fortunately rather few cases needing review!

134

Amici sumus, Ragnar WikmanChairman of the ICCF Appeals Committee (Playing Rules)Appeals Committee – Other

The Committee ruled on two cases since the last Congress. The first was a player appealing a ruling that an announced tiebreak procedure does not apply to prize money and only to position for advancement in rounds before the Final. The appeal was denied, based on precedent that all past events with prize money shared equally among tied places. Future announcements should be written to make this clear.

The other appeal was that a player whose WCCC Prelim qualification had expired was not notified by ICCF, so he should be allowed entry to the current cycle. The appeal was denied, based on the list of all open qualifications with expiration dates sent to each National Delegate.

A few notes sent to this office directly from players were referred to either the proper committee or their National Delegates.

Sincere thanks go to Committee members Artis Gaujens (LAT), Ing. Pablo Salcedo Mederos (CUB), and Alok Saxena (IND).

Corky Schakel (USA)Committee Chair

135

Arbitration Committee

I am pleased to report that that the services of the Committee have rarely been needed since the last Congress. Some referrals have been made in relation to disputes within member Federations. I wish to emphasise that ICCF cannot get involved with internal disputes.

I continue to give informal advice and assistance from time to time.

Georg Walker (SUI) decided to leave the Committee during the year. He had been a member since the Committee's inception and is thanked for his hard work and contribution during those nine years. I am pleased to report that Brian Jones (AUS) agreed to take Georg's place so we now have a non-European member.

The Committee members, Brian, Alan Borwell (SCO), Ragnar Wikman (FIN) and Fritz Baumbach (GER) and I remain ready, willing, and able to deal with all referrals during the coming year.

RICHARD HALL

136

Appeals Committee – Other – Special Presentation

Dr. Fritz Baumbach (GER) then provided a special presentation to Congress.

139

After the presentation, the BFCC wanted it to be known that they experienced extreme displeasure at the decision.

140

Zone 1 Report

Dear EU Officials and Delegates,

As I am unable to attend ICCF Congress 2014, Sergey Grodzenskiy, Deputy Zonal Director, will lead Zone 1 meeting.

Appeals Committee

Appeals Committee has had some "real" work to do as well. The nastiest appeal involved several accounts, which had been "hacked" and in whose names a sequence of losing moves was entered. The TDs decided to "undo" these hacked moves, upon which the players who benefitted from the losing moves promptly appealed! In these cases, Appeals Committee unanimously rejected the appeals.

Still also, most of the "real" appeals are handled by the Chairman Ragnar Wikman, without having to bother the entire Committee - a clear majority of them is still based on misunderstandings of the Rules. Unfortunately a few of these "misunderstanders" seem to work from the assumption that either they are right or AC is wrong – as a consequence one player received a 6-month ban due to foul language.

Apart from these kinds of incidents, Committee’s work proceeds quite smoothly.

European Team Championships

The Final of the 8th E.T.C. Final started on 01.02.2012 with 13 teams and finished on 08.08.2014. The new European Team Champion is Sweden followed by Italy and Russia.

The Final of the 9th E.T.C. started on 10th June 2014 with 13 teams.

TD for EU T.C. Finals is Thed Klauner from Luxembourg.

The Semi-finals of the 9th E.T.C. began on 15.07.2011 with 34 teams divided in 3 preliminary groups. Only 1 game is still in progress in SF 1 (TD Karel Glaser - CZE).

The Semi-finals of the 10th E.T.C. began on 10.06.2014 with 31 teams divided in 3 preliminary groups. 50 games finished (out of 1240).

TD for EU T.C. Semi-Finals is Karel Glaser from Czech Republic.

European Individual Championships

FinalsThe Final of 67th E.I.C., finished on 06.08.2013. New EU champion is GM Carlos Cruzado Dueñas from Spain.The Final of the 68th E.I.C. started on 15.12.2013 with 17 players (3 GM, 11 SIM and 2 IM). 74 games are still ongoing.TD for EU I.C. Finals is Valery Myakutin from Russia.

Candidate’s TournamentThe first EU WS Candidate’s Tournament started on 15.03.2014.4 sections with 15 players each, all Cat. 8.

TD for EU I.C. Candidate’s Tournament is Valery Myakutin from Russia.

Semi-Finals4 groups of the Semifinals of the 69th E.I.C., which started on 01.06.2012 (on ICCF webserver) are still ongoing. (EU/C69/sf01 – TD Marco Caressa - ITA, EU/C69/sf04-06-07 - TD Valery Myakutin – RUS).

141

6 Postal Semifinals of the 70th E.I.C. (new EIC structure) started in 2014 with 6 players each one (TD Ian Pheby from England).

Preliminaries + Open Round

See Appendix 2 Old O-H-M Class

See Appendix 2

Gerhard Radosztics MemorialThe Final began on 15.09.2012 with 7 teams. (TD Ian Pheby – ENG). The tournament is played by postal mail. There are 15 unfinished games.

Thor Løvholt Memorial1st Thor Lovholt Memorial tournament - Final.The Final of the 1st event got underway in March 2013 with 11 Countries who all qualified through the Preliminary sections. As at today’s date (August 18, 2014), only 4 teams are now contesting the Medal positions: Ukraine, France, Sweden & Slovakia. There are 14 games remaining, which will decide the final places.

2nd Thor Lovholt Memorial tournament - Semi-FinalsThree Semi-Finals got underway in September 2013 comprising teams from 30 federations in total (10 teams per semi-final).The first 3 Teams from each of the three Semi-Finals will qualify for the Final, together with the 2 best 4th-placed teams, to make an 11-Team Final. No team has definitely qualified for the Final yet. The End-Date for play is 30 September 2015 so there is still a possible year of play before the 2nd Final can get underway.

A big thank you to Andrew Dearnley & Karel Glaser for acting as TD for these events.

Neil LimbertTournament Organiser

Witold Bielecki MemorialThis European national team tournament is the second edition of a team event for players with low ELO (with average rating not higher than 2000) began on 25/01/2012 5 with 22 teams divided in 3 preliminary groups Preliminaries were played from 25/01/2012 to 07/12/2013. Promotion to the final stage achieved teams from: Belarus, Austria, Finland, Russia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, Poland, and Romania. Final started on 08/09/2013. Completed games about 50%.

TO and TD for this event is Mariusz Wojnar from Poland

European Postal Cup 92 players from 15 countries entered this postal tournament.23 teams of 4 players each started to play on 15.07.2011 in 3 Preliminary Groups. (T.D.: M. Hömske -FRA). 19 games are unfinished, qualification decided only in Group 2.

Baltic Sea CupThe 9th Baltic Sea Team Tournament is organized by Germany and started on 30/03/2014.13 teams are playing this event (Estonia 2 teams, Finland, Germany 3 teams, Latvia, Poland 2 teams, Russia 3 teams, and 1 International Team with layers from Germany, Russia, and Sweden.

TD for this event is Thomas Mirbach from Germany.

Chess 960 Team Cup for Europe

142

See Appendix 2

In addition, we propose the organization of the “2nd Chess 960 European Team Cup” in the 4th quarter of 2015.

Friendly match “One country vs Rest of Europe”As it was agreed such a match “One country vs Rest of Europe” would be organized annually. Match “Ukraine vs Rest of Europe” started on 19.12.2011 on 66 boards. Ukraine has won the match, final score is 75,5 : 56,5 .Match “Russia vs Rest of Europe” started on 15.12.2012 on 100 boards. Russia has won the match, current score is 118 : 77 .Match “Germany vs Rest of Europe” started on 17.03.2014 on 265 boards. Germany leads the match, current score is 149 : 119 .This year we are going to organize a match «Italy vs Rest of Europe”. The match is to be started in December 2014. TD Carlos Cranbourne (ARG).The next year we are going to organize a match “Czech Republic vs. Rest of Europe“in December 2015. Financial Matters

See Appendix 1

Auditor

See Appendix 3

Proposals

a) proposal of Zone 1 Auditor

Zone 1 Auditor, Josef Mrkvicka, proposes that the General Meeting of the Zone 1 in Sydney approves the following amendments of the ICCF EUROPE Regulation: 3.1. The Senior Officers of ICCF-Europa are the Zonal Director, the Deputy Zonal Director, the Finance Director, and the European Tournament Director. and the Auditor.

4.3. Proxies may be conferred to an ICCF-Europa member federation or to an ICCF-Europa Senior Officer. (With exception of the Auditor).

b) proposal of Zone 1 Tournament Office

Zone 1 Tournament Office Director, Leonardo Madonia, proposes the following amendment of the “Rules for European Webserver Championship”.

The following players have the right to participate in European Championship Semi-Finals: (a.1) the holders of the Senior International Master Title with a rating lower than 2400 at the time of application.(a.2) the holders of the International Master Title with a rating lower than 2449 at the time of application.

2015 Congress – it is confirmed that Zone 1 will donate 1.000 EUR to support the 2015 Congress in Wales.

Finally, I would like to thank all the friends who actively worked in European Zone Executive Board and all Tournament Directors.

Thank you all.

Marco Caressa Sergey Grodzenskiy

143

Zonal Director for Europe Deputy Zonal Director for Europe

144

Zone 1 – European Tournament Office

EUROPEANTOURNAMENT

OFFICE


Leonardo Madoniavia Leandro Alberti 54I-40137 BolognaItaly


Dear Chessfriends,I send you my report about the EU Office.

Old O-H-M Class

In 2013 I have started 23 O-Class tournaments (20 servers + 3 postals = 161 players), 14 H-Class tournaments (12 servers + 2 postals = 98 players) and 13 M-Class tournaments (12 servers + 1 postal = 143 players) for a total of 402 players. No tournament has started in December so to permit the change with the new serie of Open Rounds and Preliminaries.

OR + PR + SF postals

During the first 7 months of 2014 I have started 65 Open Round tournaments (49 servers + 16 postals = 407 players), 24 Preliminary tournaments (264 players) and 6 Semi-Final tournaments (postals = 36 players) for a total of 707 players.As you can see, the new serie started at the beginning of the year has been a great success.

1st Chess 960 European Team Cup

9 Teams have started the tournament on November 2013, we have now the 4 Teams qualified for the Final who will start on September: Germany, Slovenia, Russia, and Lithuania. Unfortunately, many players withdrew from the tournament without finding a replace.

amici sumusLeonardo Madonia

145

Zone 2 Report

CADAP Calendar Events

Latin American Tournaments (ongoing) 2014CADAP XXIII Zonal (Cat. 10) – Final stage

Programmed Latin American Tournaments for the next year 2015 Latin American CADAP 24 Zonal Tournament (Final Section)

o Start date December 2015 Latin American 2015 Master Norm Tournament

o Start date between September & November 2015

Carlos Leon CranbourneCADAP ICCF Zone 2 Zonal Director

146

Zone 3 Report

INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENCE CHESS FEDERATIONOffice of the Zonal Director for North Atlantic Pacific Zone – Zone 3

GM Dr. Jason BokarGreenville, SC USA

Report of the North American Pacific Zone to the ICCF Congress, 2014Sydney - Australia

Dear Colleagues,It is my pleasure to report the activities of the North Atlantic Pacific Zone (NAPZ) since the 2013 congress held in Krakow – Poland.Zonal Leadership and StructureThe structure for NAPZ is as follows:NAPZ Director: Jason BokarNAPZ Deputy Director: Valer Eugen DemianNAPZ Tournament Organizer: Glen ShieldsWith additional help from the following people: Tom Biedermann (accounts and tournament set-up), Dennis Doren (tournament set-up)

Country ReportsUSA National Federation Report 2014:By Corky Schakel and team2014 has been a great year for ICCF-US. Treasurer Tom Biedermann processes all entries, and his latest monthly financial report shows an increase in assets, after accounting for prize fund commitments for invitationals. Webmaster Dan Perry maintains the iccfus.com website including an entry fee page. Friendly Match Organizer Dennis Doren has started thirteen Friendly Matches this year, and has sent out four Friendly Post newsletters, link on iccfus.com. Titles officer Robert Rizzo reports that the following titles will be recognized at the Congress in Sydney: IA, Bryce Avery; IM, Liam Fuller, Bobby Johnson, Wolff Morrow. Dennis Doren will represent ICCF-US in Sydney so will accept these awards, along with the silver medals for Pan Team Championship 10. Kristo Miettinen volunteers as a TD and TC. Glen Shields is TO for NAPZ events, and liaison to CCLA. Carl Siefring has joined the Board to help with invitations, both from other NFs and for our annual invitational. Tony Kain provides hardware and software consultation. We have had five volunteers added to the approved TD list.USCCC19 Final was completed with Wolff Morrow and Carl Siefring as co-champs. USCCC20 Final started March 1, 2013. USCCC 21 Semis started July 4, 2014.

The ICCF-US Olympiad 20 Prelim team won the section, earning a qualification for the Olympiad 20 Finals. Congratulations to Jon Ostriker, Carl Siefring, Ken Reinhart, Dan Perry, Tom Biedermann, and Tony Kain! The first ever ICCF-US invitational, the Walter Muir Memorial with 8 GMs of 15 players in Section A, and 15 players in Section B Category 7 is now complete and cash prizes are being distributed. The Hans Berliner invitational started a year ago, and is ongoing. The Viktor Palciauskus Invitational recently started with ten GMs of fifteen players in section A, a Category 13 event. Thanks to Dennis Doren and Tony Kain for organizing these two events!

From 405 membership applications from the webserver we have confirmed 211 new players, including fifteen applicants in 2014 directed to CCLA opting for no computer play. For 2013, ICCF-US accounted for 548 Direct Entries, up from 325. CCLA events accounted for 912 games on the ICCF server and USCF another 735, both up 25%.

Thank you all volunteers, and all players! Corky Schakel, USA NF Representative

Australia National Federation Report 2014:By Brian Jones and teamThe 2014 was a busy one for the CCLA Council. Apart from the upcoming ICCF Congress, Council will be working hard on the rules and regulations of the CCLA, especially as they relate to Internet Chess. One pleasing

147

development for the Association is the good numbers who have entered this year’s Major Events. Most events have a full field, with the Championship events fully subscribed. And to show that members enjoy both the new and the old, there are plenty of online and postal players in their respective events. The 2013 Australian Championship is nearing completion (only 3 unfinished games). However, former ACCQ Games Editor Colin McKenzie leads the tournament by 1.5 points and none of the chasing pack can catch him. Therefore, it is congratulations to Colin McKenzie for becoming the 2013 Australian Correspondence Chess Champion.

Internationally, Australia is participating in many events:

World Championship 36IM John-Paul Fenwick scored 7.5/12 to finish third on tiebreak in WCCC36SF06 thus failing to qualify for the World Championship Candidates. As a consolation prize, after two years of play, John-Paul scored his first SIM title norm.

PATT-6The sixth Pacific Area Teams Tournament (PATT-6) will start on the webserver on 10 September 2014. Australia has a strong team consisting of:

Board 1: IM John-Paul Fenwick (2439)Board 2: IM Clive Murden (2435)Board 3: Gordon Dunlop (2444)Board 4: Simon Jenkinson (2288)Board 5: LGM Carmelita Henri (2300)Board 6: Barrie Mulligan (2225)

6th WebChess Open

7th Veterans World Cup

AspirersICCF Aspirer sections are ideal for players new to webserver chess and typically rated below 1600. Congratulations to Michael Allies who scored 6/6 to win ICCF Aspirers Group 3.

NAPZ EventsThe North American Pacific Zone promotional events (Open, Higher and Master Class) have proven to be very popular. Australia has submitted a creditable 50 out of almost 300 entries in the past two years. Congratulations to Adam Wilkes who scored 5/6 to win NAPZ/WS/O/11. Congratulations also to Anne Ramsden who won NAPZ/O/18 with 5/6. Both gain promotion to an NAPZ Higher class event

85th Anniversary Correspondence Chess League of AustraliaAustralia is planning a 13-player ICCF Category IV Invitational Tournament starting 1 December 2014 to celebrate our 85th Anniversary.

Friendly Matches: Australia continues to participate in many ICCF Friendly Matches and continues in its popularity.

NAPZ Events and StatsBy Glen ShieldsThe NAPZ Tournament Office oversees two tournament types:The NAPZ Promotional Tournaments The NAPZ Championship

1. NAPZ Promotional TournamentsThe NAPZ Promotional tournaments provide a means for NAPZ players to increase their playing strength and to qualify ultimately for the NAPZ Championship and other highly rated ICCF tournaments. The NAPZ

148

Championship, in turn, offers high-ranking NAPZ players a chance to qualify for titles and possible entry into the World Championship cycle.

The NAPZ Promotional series, dormant for several years, was reinstated March 2013. This popular series has generated 1407 game starts in sixteen months. This includes 672 game starts the last 9 months of 2013, and 735 games the first half of 2014.

Some notable accomplishments by the NAPZ since our 2013 Promotional Tournament reinstatement: 40 Open Class, 15 Higher Class and 12 Master Class events started. An average of 4.2 events started per month over a 16 month period. 24 Open Class to Higher Class promotions; 4 Higher Class to Master class promotions; and 2 Master Class

to NAPZ Championship promotions awarded to-date. A TD training exchange program initiated with the EU zone – one NAPZ TD (Seifring) sent to the EU

zone and one EU TD (Sherwood) sent to the NAPZ to broaden and strengthen our ICCF TD base. One NAPZ TD (Biedermann) reached sufficient games to qualify for future IA consideration. He was

replaced by a new TD (Realyea) to expand NAPZ’s TD capability. Regular mass mailings sent to the zone. These communicate tournament accomplishments and generate

increased player involvement throughout Zone 3. NAPZ Director free entries awarded to three players from the Caribbean and Mexico. These allow

underprivileged players to participate in NAPZ events. Participation from all NAPZ federations contributed to tournament game starts (see table).

Entries by NF (March, 2013 - Present)

AUS CANHKG JPN MEX NZL PUR TRI USA

Master 12 8 1 1 1 2 0 0 59

Higher 17 12 1 1 3 1 0 0 70

Open 30 21 1 3 3 3 1 3 215

Total 59 41 3 5 7 6 1 3 344

% of Total 12.6 8.7 0.6 1.1 1.5 1.3 0.2 0.6 73.4

2. NAPZ Championship TournamentThe 12th North American Invitational Championship (NAIC) began August 2013. This event currently serves as the Zone 3 Championship until a regularly scheduled event based on Master Class promotions and NF Championships is established.

The 12th NAIC event is a 17 player, Category 6 tournament that includes 2 GMs, 3 SIMs, and 7 IMs. Seven NFs are represented in the event. The winner of this event will earn the title of NAPZ Champion and be granted the opportunity to enter the WCCC cycle as the Zone champion.

Event cross table:https://www.iccf.com/event?id=38007

https://www.iccf.com/event?id=38007

149

A proposal for a regular scheduled NAPZ Championship is in development by the Zone ND, the Zone TO, and the member nation NDs.

150

Zone 4 Report

INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENCE CHESS FEDERATION

Office of the Zonal Director for Africa/Asia – Zone 4SIM Everdinand Knol

138 Blom Street0184 SilvertonSouth Africa

Email: [email protected]

Report on the Zone's Activities to the ICCF Congress of 2014Sydney - Australia

Mr President, Members of the Executive Board, Commissioners,Officials, Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen

It is my privilege to report on our zone’s activities over the past yearsince the Congress of 2013 held in Kraków – Poland

The Zonal Team

The zonal team consists of the following officials:

Zonal Director (ZD): SIM Everdinand Knol of South Africa. Deputy Zonal Director (DZD) and Tournament Organiser (TO):

Iain Smuts of South Africa (IA).Unfortunately, Iain emigrated to Spain and left a void that was difficult to fill.

Tournament Directors: GM Mark Noble of New Zealand.Francisco Carapinha of Cape Verde.Alok Saxena of India.Dr Amber Chatterjee of India.

Tournaments

The following tournament was started during the past year:

The TO for all these groups is SIM Everdinand Knol:

On 31 July 2014: The 17th Africa/Asia Zonal Championship Preliminary Sections A to D – TD Francisco Carapinha. The 17th Africa/Asia Zonal Championship Preliminary Sections E to H – TD Alok Saxena. The 17th Africa/Asia Zonal Championship Preliminary Sections I and J – TD Dr Amber Chatterjee.

151

The following tournaments are still in progress:

The 12th Africa/Asia Zonal Championship Final. The 14th Africa/Asia Zonal Championship Semi Final Section C. The 16th Africa/Asia Zonal Championship Preliminary Section G.

The following tournaments have been completed during this year:

The TO for all these events is Iain Smuts (IA):

The 11th Africa/Asia Zonal Championship Final. The 13th Africa/Asia Zonal Championship Semi Final Sections A, C and D. The 14th Africa/Asia Zonal Championship Semi Final Sections A, B and D. The 15th Africa/Asia Zonal Championship Preliminary Sections C, E, G, J and O. The 16th Africa/Asia Zonal Championship Preliminary Sections A to F and H to I.

This zone intends to start the following tournaments during the coming year – the format will depend on the amount of entries received.

The start dates will depend on the completion of previous cycles:

The 6th Africa Continental Championship. The 6th Asia Continental Championship.

The interest in the two above mentioned continental championships is not very encouraging and the matter will receive attention.

The 13th Africa/Asia Zonal Championship Final. The 15th Africa/Asia Zonal Championship Semi Final. The 18th Africa/Asia Zonal Championship Preliminary.

Appreciations

In conclusion, I thank all the people that are mentioned in this report as well as everybody else that assisted with the administration and development of CC in our zone.

A special word of thanks goes to all the players from our zone many of whom are still participating in cc events under various forms of difficult economic and political circumstances.

SIM Everdinand KnolZonal Director for Africa/AsiaAugust 2014

152

External Matters

FIDE Congress

Our FIDE Liason, Eric Ruch attended several days of the 85th FIDE Congress. Eric reported on progress made meeting with ICCF delegates and obtaining contacts for further membership and marketing activities.

Internal Matters

FIDE Liaison

ICCF President, Eric Ruch shared additional information and details about the ICCF survey sent to officials. Eric emphasized that a majority of officials felt that ICCF was going in the right direction. There were no specific comments or questions from Congress members.

General Secretary, Michael Millstone, shared a detailed timeline deadline to Congress that will include for 2015 a proposal and general election for EB and Auditor positions.

Deadlines Timelines to 2015 Congress

Deadlines+ for Congress – 2015 (Cardiff, Wales)+ dead-line (noun)dead.line [‘ded,lain] (dead.lines)Time limit – the time by which something must be done or completed

Most etymologists agree that the word “deadline” first appeared during the American Civil War (1861-1865).According to author Christine Ammer, deadline was coined at the hellish Andersonville, GA prison camp, and first appeared in writing in the report of Confederate Inspector-General, Colonel D.T. Chandler, on July 5, 1864. In describing the horrific conditions, he famously wrote:

153

The Federal prisoners of war are confined within a stockade 15 feet high, of roughly hewn pine logs, about 8 inches in diameter, inserted 5 feet into the ground, enclosing, including the recent extension, an area of 540 by 260 yards. A railing around the inside of the stockade, and about 20 feet from it, constitutes the “deadline,” beyond which the prisoners are not allowed to pass . . . [as a large portion is] at present unfit for occupation . . . [this] gives somewhat less than 6 square feet to each prisoner . . .

An even earlier writing of the term in an inspection report on Andersonville from Confederate Captain Walter Bowie on May 10, 1864:

On the inside of the stockade and twenty feet from it there is a dead-line established, over which no prisoner is allowed to go, day or night, under penalty of being shot.

An October 31, 1865 Report of the Secretary of War that was introduced in the Trial of Henry Wirz (the prison keeper at Andersonville):

And he, the said Wirz, still wickedly pursuing his evil purpose, did establish and cause to be designated within the prison enclosures containing said prisoners a “dead line,” being a line around the inner face of the stockade or wall enclosing said prison and about twenty feet distant from and within said stockade; and so established said dead line, which was in many places an imaginary line, in many other places marked by insecure and shifting strips of [boards nailed] upon the tops of small and insecure stakes or posts, he, the said Wirz, instructed the prison guard stationed around the top of said stockade to fire upon and kill any of the prisoners aforesaid who might touch, fall upon, pass over or under [or] across said “dead line” . . .

Tasks (weeks before Congress) Deadline Description

Congress Documents (T-20) March 15 Invitations, programme, agenda distributed.

Proposals Deadline (T-14) May 10

All proposals to be considered for the 2105 Congress voting must have be submitted to the General Secretary by either a National Delegate or ICCF Official.

EB and Auditor Nominations (T-8) June 21 Nominations by the National Federations for all EB positions plus Auditor

are due to the General Secretary with :cc to Auditor.Delegate and substitute delegate selections due (T-6)

July 05All Delegates, Honorary Presidents, and Honorary Members must register as voting members with the ICCF General Secretary. No voting member will be accepted after this deadline.

Officials Reports Due (T-6) July 05 All EB/MC Reports due to the General Secretary for Distribution

EB and Auditor Nominations Distributed to all Member Federations (T-5)

July 12

When all nominations have been received, the information shall be issued by the ICCF General Secretary to all Member Federations at least 1-month before the start of Congress where the elections take place, to enable them to consider all the candidates and decide upon voting preferences, prior to the respective ICCF Congress.

Personal statements of candidates shall not be published in commercial magazines / internet sites, etc. until after they have all been circulated by the ICCF General Secretary to the official delegates of Member Federations. These statements will also be published on a special election page on www.iccf.com.

Election campaigning/soliciting for votes, etc. shall not take place until after the complete list of candidates, accompanied by their personal statements, has been officially released by the ICCF General Secretary.

Voting Member Distribution (T-4) July 19 The ICCF General Secretary will distribute to the Member Federation

Delegates the list of voting members attending Congress.

154

Proxy Nominations Due (T-2) August 02

Member Federations wishing to assign a proxy must send their written declaration to the ICCF General Secretary. No new proxy nominations or change in proxy nominations will be accepted after this deadline.

Medals (T-2) August 02 Officials responsible for collecting medals/certificates of players/teams will be identified.

Voting Member and Proxy Distributions (T-1)

August 09 The list of voting members and proxies will be distributed by the ICCF General Secretary.

Congress Starts (T-0) August 16 EB/MC Meetings on August 16Full Congress starts on August 17

Zonal Director Election Process Starts (T+1) August 23

The election of Zonal Directors is arranged within each Zone, normally, immediately following the respective Congress. Procedures for Zonal Director elections shall be agreed within each Zone, with advice available from the ICCF President and/or General Secretary, as required.

155

Commissions and Committees

All ICCF Committees and Commissions Members were reviewed. The present membership along with any changes from 2013 Congress is identified below. Deletions are identified by a strikeout and additions by yellow highlight.

[General Secretary Note: Shortly after Congress, but before the minutes were published, Per Söderberg (SWE) resigned as chair of the newly created Rules Commission.Playing Rules Commission Per Söderberg (SWE), (Chair), Leo Lahdenmäki (FIN), Nikolay Poleshchuk (Vice) (RUS), Ragnar Wikman (FIN), Ralph Marconi (CAN), Duncan Chambers (ENG), Kenneth Reinhart (USA), Kristo Miettinen (USA), Dr. Uwe Staroske (GER), Wim H. van Vugt (NED)[After discussion, the EB has decided to merge the PRC and TRC into one commission – Rules Commission]

Tournament Rules Commission Duncan Chambers (ENG) (Chair), Gerhard Binder (GER), Sergey Grodzensky (RUS), Leonardo Madonia (ITA), Ralph Marconi (CAN), Gian-Maria Tani (ITA), Per Söderberg (SWE), Marco Caressa (ITA), Gianni Mastrojeni (ITA), Markus Hömske (FRA)[After discussion, the EB has decided to merge the PRC and TRC into one commission – Rules Commission]

Rules CommissionEric Ruch (FRA) (Acting Chair), Nikolay Poleshuk (RUS), Ragnar Wikman (FIN), Duncan Chambers (ENG), Kenneth Reinhart (USA), Dr. Uwe Staroske (GER), Gerhard Binder (GER), Sergey Groszensky (RUS), Leonardo Madonia (ITA), Leo Lädenmaki (FIN)

Rating Rules Commission Gerhard Binder (GER), (Chair), George Pyrich (SCO), Jo Wharrier (ENG), Ragnar Wikman (FIN), Valery Myakutin (RUS), Mariusz Wojnar (POL), Anthony Kain (USA)

Note: The ICCF President and the General Secretary are ex-officio Members of the above Commissions

Marketing Committee Andrew Dearnley (ENG) (Chair), Gino Figlio, Uwe Staroske, Arjen Oudheusden, Brian Jones, Michael Millstone, Ron Langeveld, and the four zonal directors.

Arbiters Committee (ACO) Dmitry Lybin (BLR) (Chair), Dr. Dennis Doren (Chair), George Pyrich (SCO), Frank Geider (FRA), Per Söderberg (SWE), Neil Limbert (ENG), Marco Caressa (ITA), Markus Hömske (FRA)

Services Committee (SC) Chair: Austin Lockwood WLS (ICCF Services Director)Deputy: Jason Bokar USA (Deputy Services Director),

Ex officio: Eric Ruch FRA (ICCF President), Michael Millstone USA (ICCF General Secretary). Other ICCF officers to be co-opted on an ad-hoc basis for consultation where appropriate.

Commissioners: Gerhard Binder GER (Ratings Commissioner), Mariusz Wojnar POL (Qualifications Commissioner), Gino Figlio PER (Webmaster).

Testing Team: Austin Lockwood WLS (team lead), Michal Volf CZE. All ICCF officials are expected to contribute to testing updates which fall under their specific area of responsibility.

156

Translation Team: Austin Lockwood WLS (team lead), Eric Ruch FRA, Gino Figlio PER (core team only listed here; other translators may be co-opted for specific tasks and languages).

Web Content Team: Andrew Dearnley ENG (ICCF Marketing Director, team lead), Gino Figlio PER (Webmaster), Eric Ruch FRA, Arjen Oudheusden NED.

Documentation Team (Help Files): Austin Lockwood WLS (team lead), Gino Figlio PER (Webmaster), Tony Kain USA, Rex Cristal USA, Jason Bokar USA, Jim Ramsden AUS (Proof reading), Dennis Doren USA, Russell Sherwood WLS.

Accessibility Team: Austin Lockwood WLS (team lead), Peter Maylott AUS.

Helpdesk Team: Jason Bokar USA (Helpdesk manager/team lead), Ian Pheby ENG, Austin Lockwood WLS.

Professional Consultation: Martin Bennedik GER (development), Neil Limbert ENG (testing).

Appeals Committee (Playing Rules) Ragnar Wikman (FIN) (Chair), Leo Lahdenmäki (FIN) (Secretary), José Amorim Neto (BRA), Ian Brooks (ENG), Marco Caressa (ITA), Carlos Flores Gutiérrez (ESP), Cecilio Hernáez Fernández (ESP), Ralph Marconi (CAN), Wes Underwood (USA)

Appeals Committee (Other ICCF Rules) Leonard (Corky) Schakel (USA), (Chair), Artis Gaujens (LAT), Pablo Salcedo Mederos (CUB), Alok Saxena (IND)

Arbitration Committee Richard V.M. Hall (ENG) (Chair), Alan P. Borwell (SCO), Ragnar Wikman (FIN), Georg Walker (SUI), Fritz Baumbach (GER), Brian Jones (AUS)

Disciplinary Committee Frank Geider (FRA) (Chair), Marco Caressa (ITA), Juan Alberto Martello (ARG), Andrey Nikolaevich Pavlikov (RUS), Leonard (Corky) Schakel (USA), Dinand Knol (RSA)

Chess 960 Ratings Working Group – Disbanded (work to be done in the Ratings Commission)Gerhard Binder (GER) – ChairMariusz Wojnar (POL)Austin Lockwood (WLS) (Technical questions only)Martin Bennedik (Technical questions only)

157

Future Planning – Congress - 2015

The Federation of Wales was the only Federation to submit a proposal to host the 2015 Congress. The Wales delegate, Austin Lockwood, provided a rousing presentation to Congress.

161

Congress voted unanimously to hold the 2015 Congress in Cardiff, Wales.

Dr. Uwe Staroske, delegate of the German Federation, made an unofficial bid to host the 2016 Congress in Germany (Hamburg / Bremen area) in the August – October 2016 timeframe.

ICCF President Eric Ruch officially declared the Congress closed.

/s/ /s/Eric Ruch Michael MillstoneICCF President ICCF General Secretary

162

Appendix A – Finance Director – ICCF Accounts 2013 – Balance Sheet

Net Assets Capital Net Assets CapitalCapitalAccumulated Fund 283,149.29 264,084.48Appreciation of Investments 4,984.72 1,642.67Profit & Loss 25,039.70 22,406.86Sub-Total - Capital 313,173.71 288,134.01

Intangible AssetsWebserver in Service 2004 81,917.05 81,917.05Webserver in Service 2005 19,415.03 19,415.03Webserver in Service 2006 12,189.19 12,189.19Webserver in Service 2007 5,071.68 5,071.68Webserver in Service 2008 4,667.86 4,667.86Webserver in Service 2009 4,632.37 4,632.37Webserver in Service 2010 8,332.50 8,332.50Webserver in Service 2011 21,353.75 21,353.75Webserver in Service 2012 11,563.75 11,563.75Webserver in Service 2013 23,003.75 0.00Amortisation Webserver -156,597.68 -142,820.46 Sub-Total - Net Intangible Assets 35,549.25 26,322.72

InvestmentsPortfolio at Credit Lyonnais 23,889.87 18,905.15Sub-Total - Investments 23,889.87 18,905.15

StocksMedals 1,506.27 1,506.27Prizes 3,874.41 3,591.97Sub-Total - Stocks 5,380.68 5,098.24

ReceivablesMember FederationsICCF ZonesAllowance for Bad Debts 0.00 -266.04 Sub-Total - Receivables 53,590.82 57,461.98

PrepaymentsCongress 2014 6,754.36 0.00

6,754.36 0.00LiabilitiesSuppliers -1,730.56 -2,761.81 Officials -544.90 -570.43 Tournament Directors -431.88 -645.36 ICCF EU -5,507.84 -942.01 Prizes Deferred -21,548.36 -16,812.00 Accounts Payable Member Federations -2,565.66 0.00Estimated Accounts Payable - Congress 2012 0.00 -5,000.00 Sub-Total - Liabilities -32,329.20 -26,731.61

Sub-Total - Net Current Assets 33,396.66 35,828.61

Bank AccountsCredit Lyonnais - Current 5,657.46 8,504.49Credit Lyonnais - Savings 209,494.17 187,185.93PayPal FRA 1,254.41 852.92RBS Perth Scotland 3,931.89 10,534.19Sub-Total - Bank Accounts 220,337.93 207,077.53

TOTAL 313,173.71 313,173.71 288,134.01 288,134.01

53,590.82

2013 - Euros 2012 - Euros

Balance Sheet as at 31st December 2013

57,728.02

163

Appendix B – Finance Director – ICCF Accounts 2013 – Profit and Loss Income

2013 - Euros 2012 - EurosMembership 5,325.00 5,350.50

523.00 465.003,864.63 3,889.176,249.51 7,362.318,234.94 6,698.846,154.13 6,171.26

Olympiads 0.00 4,692.002,162.40 2,058.066,138.41 4,944.411,708.50 1,370.76

0.00 10,035.16World Cup 13,648.03 0.00

0.00 13.567,154.05 6,069.30

0.00 4,700.99196.40 243.86

Chess 960 World Cup 1,020.24 18.48

Zone 1 Individual Events 1,651.88 0.00Zone 3 Individual Events 1,611.97 0.00

204.00 157.502,322.00 1,368.007,227.50 6,930.00

856.00 312.00165.00 495.00

International Open Tournaments 0.00 1,942.50Server Games - National Federations 8,399.40 6,773.10Server Games - Zone 1 1,771.20 1,802.40Server Games - Zone 2 46.80 0.00Server Games - Zone 3 484.80 0.00Server Games - Zone 4 342.00 999.60

Bank Interest 7,292.96 4,572.44Interest for Late Payment of Fees 0.00 14.24Donations 80.00 0.00

94,834.75 89,450.44

World individual 7 player

Profit and Loss Account for the year ended 31st December 2013

INCOME

World individual candidatesWorld individual semifinalWorld individual preliminary

World individual 11 player

ThematicMaster NormGrand Master NormChampions League

Invitation Team Tmts.

Chess 960

Invitation Tmts Cat.I-III Invitation Tmts Cat.IV-VI

Junior World CupVeterans World CupICCF Webserver Open

Invitation Tmts Cat.VII-XIII Invitation Tmts Cat.XIV+

164

Appendix C – Finance Director – ICCF Accounts 2013 – Profit and Loss Expenditures

2013 - Euros 2012 - Euros

Congress - Payment to Organisers 5,000.00 2,000.00Congress - Banquet 2,975.47 3,000.00Congress - Other Expenditure 1,537.19 2,558.64Other Meetings 0.00 2,576.73Officials 572.56 352.68Congress Allowances 9,874.33 15,069.70

World Tourn. Office 517.10 691.81Thematic Tourn. Office 50.60 145.90

DE Rebates to NF's 9,719.25 8,383.25DE Rebates - Zone 1 1,614.50 0.00DE Rebates - Zone 3 1,627.50 0.00

ICCF Marketing 800.00 0.00Fees - Legal & Professional 0.00 2,881.64Rating Costs 233.64 293.64Prizes 6,325.00 2,183.61Trophies, Medals & Books 1,221.89 1,585.85ICCF Webserver 12,170.41 13,693.21Other expenditure 68.94 317.69Adjustment from Previous Years 273.00 0.00Exchange Differences 500.64 -545.00 Debt Written Off 266.04 0.00Bank Charges 526.81 478.54Depreciation 13,777.22 10,110.05Support to Zone 4 (free entries) 342.00 999.60Allowance for Bad Debts -199.04 266.04

69,795.05 67,043.58Surplus/Deficit 25,039.70 22,406.86

94,834.75 89,450.44

EXPENDITURE

Profit and Loss Account for the year ended 31st December 2013

165

Appendix D – Finance Director – ICCF Accounts 2013 – Zones

Zone 1 Zone 2 Zone 3 Zone 4

No. of WS games 2,952 78 808 570No. of new WS events 58 1 33 10No. of Direct Entries 173 - 217 -

Entry Fees paid via PayPal € 1,651.88 - € 1,611.97 -Refunded to Zones € 1,614.50 - € 1,627.50 -

€ 37.38 -€ 15.53

Variations caused by fluctuations in Fees imposed by PayPal

Zones Summary

166

Appendix E – ICCF Voting Regulations and Electoral Procedures


ICCF Voting Regulations and Electoral Procedures(effective from 1.1.2014)

1. General Provisions

1.1 Each voting member has one vote. A simple majority vote is required to decide any resolution unless it is defined or agreed otherwise (e.g., 2/3 majority, unanimous)

1.11 A Member Federation applying for membership may provisionally register as a voting member with the ICCF General Secretary at least 6-weeks before the start date of the Congress or assign a provisional proxy at least 2-weeks before the start of Congress. No Member Federation may hold proxy for another Member Federation at the Congress in which they were elected as a member.

1.2 Voting normally is by show of hands but a secret ballot will be held if this is requested by more than two thirds of voting Delegates.

1.3 For the purposes of voting, the following definitions will be used:Abstention - The phrase “abstention votes” is an oxymoron, an abstention being a refusal to vote. To abstain means to refrain from voting and therefore, there can be no such thing as an “abstention vote.” In the usual situation, where either a majority vote or a two-thirds vote is required, abstentions have absolutely no effect on the outcome of the vote since what is required is either a majority or two thirds of the votes cast.Majority - The word “majority” in this context means, simply, more than half. Example: 43 voting delegates. Voting was 17 FOR, 16 AGAINST, and 10 ABSTENTIONS. To calculate, 33 votes were cast; therefore, 17 votes are required to pass – motion passed.

Two-Thirds Vote and Rounding - The requirement of a two-thirds vote means more than two-thirds. Consequently, exactly two-thirds will not suffice. Example: 43 voting delegates. Voting was 22 FOR, 11 AGAINST, and 10 ABSTENTIONS. To calculate, 33 votes were cast and 23 votes were needed to achieve more than two-thirds – motion denied.

Congress participants not counted as voting Delegates:Delegates who are not present at Congress and have not sent their vote in written form to the General Secretary.Delegates not represented by a proxy.Delegates present at Congress but not voting (either absent or abstention).

1.4 Elections of persons will be exclusively by secret ballot. Where an e-mail ballot is necessary, the voting procedure will be according to agreed established practice and will be announced by the Executive Board.

1.5 In the event of equal votes on any matter other than for the election of persons, the President will have a casting vote. In the event of a tie in an election of persons, a further ballot will be arranged after which, if still producing an equal result, the President will have a casting vote.

1.6 Voting members and proxy’s eligibility are defined in the ICCF Statutes, article 28.

1.7 All Delegates, Honorary Presidents, and Honorary Members must register as voting members with the ICCF General Secretary at least 6-weeks before the start date of Congress. No voting member will be accepted after this

167

deadline.

1.8 The ICCF General Secretary will distribute to the Member Federation Delegates the list of voting members attending Congress, 4-weeks before the start date of the Congress.

1.9. Member Federations wishing to assign a proxy must send their written declaration to the ICCF General Secretary, at least 2-weeks before the start date of Congress. No new proxy nominations or change in a proxy nomination will be accepted after this deadline.

1.10 The list of voting members and proxy will be distributed by the ICCF General Secretary 1-week before the start date of Congress.

2. Executive Board and Auditor elections – Normal 4-year election procedures

2.1 Nominations for the office of:PresidentGeneral SecretaryFinance DirectorWorld Tournament DirectorMarketing DirectorServices DirectorAuditor

must reach the ICCF General Secretary at least 2-months before the opening of Congress where the elections are to take place.

2.2 To be elected, each candidate shall be nominated by his or her Member Federations.

2.3 It is the right of each Member Federation to nominate candidates for any of the above seven positions, providing:

a) the nominee is a current member of their Federation, andb) the nominee has confirmed his / her willingness to be nominated.

2.4. The Member Federation of the candidate shall send the letter of nomination to the ICCF General Secretary by e-mail, with a copy to the ICCF Auditor. The ICCF General Secretary shall confirm receipt of this letter by e-mail, with a copy to the ICCF Auditor.

Each nomination shall include a written declaration from the candidate indicating his/her willingness to be nominated, along with a personal statement (if wished) giving information in support of his/her candidature.

2.5 When all nominations have been received, the information shall be issued by the ICCF General Secretary to all Member Federations at least 1-month before the start of Congress where the elections take place, to enable them to consider all the candidates and decide upon voting preferences, prior to the respective ICCF Congress.

3. Electoral Procedures

3.1 Marked ballot papers shall be prepared for elections, with names of the candidate(s) nominated for each office. Ballot papers shall be distributed to all voting members by the ICCF General Secretary at Congress, before the respective elections.

3.2 It is allowed that the same candidate can run for more than one position in the Executive Board.

3.3 If the same person puts his / her candidacy for more than one office in the Executive Board, the order of elections shall be:

President

168

General SecretaryFinance DirectorWorld Tournament DirectorMarketing DirectorServices DirectorAuditor

As soon as a candidate is elected to one office, his/her candidacy for other office(s) becomes cancelled.

3.4 To secure a fair and impartial electoral process, three scrutineers, a chair and two members, shall be appointed for elections. Normally the ICCF Auditor (as chair) and two nonvoting ICCF Honorary Members shall act as these scrutineers.

No scrutineer can be, at the same time, a candidate for an office in the Executive Board or Auditor.

3.5 Completed ballot papers will be returned to the scrutineers, for secret scrutiny and declaration of the result announced by the ICCF Auditor.

Should the ICCF Auditor not be present at Congress or unable to act as scrutineer (see section 3.4), then an ICCF Honorary President will act on his behalf as chair. In his absence or if he is unable to act as scrutineer, the Executive Board will propose other present and respectable person who will be approved by vote of Congress.

Should only one or no Honorary Member is present at the Congress, the Executive Board will propose other suitable person(s) who will be approved by Congress.

3.6 If three or more persons are nominated for the same offices or office, any candidate who receives more than 50% of the votes cast, is elected on the first ballot.

Thereafter, the candidate receiving most votes on the second ballot is elected. In case of a tie, a new ballot is held between the candidates who tied, as described in 1.5.

3.7 Delegates not present at Congress may send their votes by e-mail to the ICCF Auditor with copy to the ICCF General Secretary.

3.8. If no nomination is received from the Member Federations for any Executive Board or Auditor position, the Executive Board will be empowered to appoint an Official.

4. Zonal Directors Elections

The election of Zonal Directors is arranged within each Zone, normally, immediately following the respective Congress. Procedures for Zonal Director elections shall be agreed within each Zone, with advice available from the ICCF President and/or General Secretary, as required.

5. Executive Board elections – Midterm vacancy election procedures

5.1 Where a vacancy occurs in the Executive Board during the normal 4-year cycle, then a midterm election will be arranged by e-mail with Member Federations, to be completed within 3-months, with the exception that where a vacancy occurs within 3-months of the start date of a Congress, when the election procedure will be according to normal procedure and the election will take place at the Congress.

5.2 For midterm elections to be completed within 3-months nominations should be required within 2-months of the date of the notice to Member Federations and 2-weeks should be allowed for registering of votes for each ballot.

5.3 For midterm elections, nominations should be made according to paragraphs 2.2 to 2.4.

169

5.4 The voting procedures for midterm elections will be arranged to ensure validation of voting eligibility and secrecy of voting. Elections will be scrutinised by the ICCF Auditor.

5.5. If no nomination is received from the Member Federations for any Executive Board or Auditor position, the Executive Board will be empowered to appoint an Official.

6. Final Provisions

6.1 Personal statements of candidates shall not be published in commercial magazines / internet sites, etc. until after they have all been circulated by the ICCF General Secretary to the official delegates of Member Federations. These statements will also be published on a special election page on www.iccf.com.

6.2 Election campaigning/soliciting for votes, etc. shall not take place until after the complete list of candidates, accompanied by their personal statements, has been officially released by the ICCF General Secretary, as indicated in 2.5.

http://www.iccf.com/