Welsh Correspondence Chess Federation

Russell Sherwood  Sunday, July 30, 2023

Congratulations to Bob Hurn on achieving his 2nd CCE Norm in Horst Rittner Team Tournament SF 1 Board 5  Unfortunately Bob still needs a third norm to meet all the title criteria!

Here is the win that secured the Norm!  

Russell Sherwood  Sunday, July 30, 2023

Congratulation to Paul Keevil in winning the British Correspondence Chess Championship 21/23 with a score of +2 = 12 -0  Here is one of the wins vs SIM Claridge

Russell Sherwood  Tuesday, July 11, 2023

As we always look to push boundaries and advance knowledge in Correspondence Chess, the WCCF will be running three trial tournaments in the near future. These events cover different approaches which are considered possible if partial solutions to increasing draw levels.

Many discussions have been observed in recent weeks, although almost all based on theories, lacking in any data – the aim of these events is to start to 

The three trial events will be:

1. Unrated
2. Played on the ICCF Server
3. Whilst mainly for Welsh players, may be open to players of other nations.
4. Invitational in nature – we invite players to self-nominate but will have to limit entries. Places will be limited and wholly at the discretion of the WCCF
5. Free

Event 1 – Rapidplay

This event will be based on a time control : Starting Time 10 days, 1 move gained every 10 moves, 7 days of vacation, doubling after 3 days. This means that a player will need to maintain high rate of play.

Event 2 – Fixed Openings (So called TCEC style)

Here a small event will take place. A randomly selected opening will be allocated to each game that players will be required to follow. Time Control will be 350 day TB event with guaranteed time.

Event 3 – Predict a Move Tie Break (Both 1st and Last will be used to evaluate the event)

In this event players will, in addition to playing a normal game of correspondence chess, required to predict their opponents moves. Details for the trail are being finalised but this will probably include the use of emailing a file to an umpire each more and/or the use of conditional moves on the server.

All these events are unrated due to their experimental nature but to also encourage a mix of player ratings. What is required is that all players play fully in the events and any default or withdrawal will be considered for future team and invitational selections.  The time controls aim to give us a fuller picture to be able to make Congress proposals next year.

The expected start date is around the 1st of August.

If you are interested in taking part in one or more of these events, please get in touch to be added to the selection list.

Austin Lockwood  Thursday, June 29, 2023

ICCF member federations are currently voting on the new Executive Board to take office from 1st January 2024 for four years.  As an ICCF member federation, WCCF has a vote in these elections and the Executive Committee are currently discussing how we should vote for each position.  All Premium members are welcome to join these discussions and contribute to our vote, you should contact [email protected] if you wish to participate.

The schedule is tight because the elections need to be concluded before the 2023 ICCF Congress in Amsterdam, and elections for each EB position must be completed sequentially (because there are candidates for multiple positions, and they can be eliminated by being elected to a previous position), so if you are interested in participating in the discussions, please do get in touch asap.

WCCF has two candidates in the elections, Russell Sherwood (for Finance Director, World Tournament Director and Marketing Director) and Austin Lockwood (for Services Director).

The full list of candidates (with links to their personal statements) can be found here.

Austin Lockwood  Monday, June 19, 2023

The 2023 ICCF Congress will take place in August in Amsterdam.

The list of proposals on which delegates will vote is now locked in, and the members of the WCCF Executive Committee are currently discussing how the Welsh federation will vote on each proposal.

https://www.iccf.com/Proposals.aspx?id=77

If any Premium Member of WCCF has any strong feelings about any of these proposals, or would like to get involved in the discussions, please get in touch with [email protected]

There are also elections for the ICCF Executive Board and Auditor this year, further details on how you can get involved in this election will follow here.

Austin Lockwood  Monday, June 12, 2023

Following my article last month about Scotland's excellent performance in this prestigious event; unfortunately both England and Scotland have failed to qualify for the 12th final, however Wales still have excellent chances to qualify, so British hopes may well be carried again by the Welsh team for the 12th final.

England's failure to qualify from their semi-final without losing a single game highlights the narrow margins in modern correspondence chess, where every advantage, however small, needs to be exploited to the maximum degree to have any chance at all of success.

At the time of writing there are only 32 games remaining in the 11th final (from 624, so a little more than 5%), but again, the narrow margins mean that the title can still be won by four or five different teams (including Wales!)... our fingers are crossed for a podium finish, at least!

I will post more updates as the results roll in.

Austin Lockwood  Tuesday, May 30, 2023

Congratulations to our friends from Scotland, who have just become the highest scoring British team ever in a European Team Championship final!  The European Team Championship is one of the most hotly contested team events in ICCF, second only in status to the Olympiads

The eleventh final is currently in its closing stages, and Scotland recently completed their games with a British record breaking score of 49.48%.

British teams have participated in the first and second Championship finals (Great Britain); the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth finals (England) and the eleventh final (Scotland and Wales), but with disappointing results until now, always finishing in the bottom half of the crosstable with England's 9th place in the ninth final being the best overall British performance to date.

The eleventh final is still ongoing and the record breaking Scottish score puts them in a good position to place higher than any previous British team.

Of course this record may not stand for very long, hopefully (from a Welsh perspective!) for no more than a few months... Wales are currently on 47.5 points with four games remaining, and so cannot do any worse than Scotland, and a podium finish now feels like a real possibility.

Of course we wish all three of our British teams the best of luck in qualifying for the twelfth final!

Russell Sherwood  Sunday, May 14, 2023

We are arranging a friendly match with Romania

To sign up or for more details, get in touch

As a reminder, participation in friendly matches is one of the criteria for selection to Team and Invitational events and, in the case of this event, score for the Welsh Grand Prix.

Andrew Smith