Welsh Correspondence Chess Federation

Russell Sherwood  Saturday, March 16, 2019

On behalf of the ICCF, I’m pleased to announce the II. ICCF Team Tournament for player rated <2300 – here in memoriam George D. Pyrich.
All ICCF Member Federations (that are not currently suspended) are invited to enter their team to this event, which will be played on the ICCF webserver on two rounds: Preliminaries and Final.

Each Federation may enter two teams. All players on the Team must be rated at <2300 on the ICCF Rating list 2019/2 or on the current FIDE List. In addition, all players must be full members of the Federation they represent or be registered on the ICCF server for the county of the
Federation they represent for the duration of the tournament. The Preliminaries will start on June 1st, 2019.

There will be 6 players in each team. A maximum of 3 players may be replaced during the tournament. The right to be promoted from the preliminaries shall be determined by the ICCF Non-Title Tournaments Commissioner and approved by the Executive Board at the start of the tournament.

The intention will be for a 13 Team Final.
The entry fee will be at the rate of € 6 per player, i.e. € 36 per team. There will be no further entry fee for the Final.

The time control will be Triple Block (Duration of Tournament: 700 days; Initial Clock: 50 days; Initial Bank: 50 days; Increment: 5 days).

Team entries have to be sent by the National Federations to the Non-Title Tournament Commissioner Jörg Kracht([email protected]) not later than May 10th, 2019.

No replacement or board change will be allowed after that date unless exceptional circumstances occur. All entries should include the following details:
- board order
- name, ICCF code and e-mail address of the players
- name, ICCF code and e-mail address of the Team Captain
FIDE Ratings will be treated as „unfixed“ for title norm purposes. Players who have no ICCF fixed
rating nor FIDE rating will be allocated with a provisional rating of 2100.
 

Eligible Welsh players will be contacted over the coming week.

Russell Sherwood  Sunday, March 10, 2019

Congratulations to Ian Jones for (joint) winning the A.O. Jones Rapidplay

Austin Lockwood  Monday, March 4, 2019

The second season of the States and Regions Correspondence Chess Championship will start on 15th April 2019.

This year, the format will be slightly different, instead of the Hutton pairing format, we will be using a more conventional all-play-all format. Each section will be made up of 13 or 15 teams (so each player will play 12 or 14 games), and teams will consist of four players.

More details are available on the WCCF website, here:

https://welshccf.org.uk/content/148

ICCF title norms may be available on some boards, depending on the range of ratings.

Once again, the Triple Block time control system will be used, with all games ending within 350 days.

The entry fee will be £20.00 GBP, however this will be reduced to £10.00 for WCCF International and Premium members. Membership of WCCF is open to international players at £10.00 and to Welsh players at £5.00, please see our website for details of membership:

https://welshccf.org.uk/content/147

(Only the TC is required to be a member in order to benefit from the discounted rate)

Please send entries to the WCCF Secretary ([email protected]) by 8th April. Teams should represent a particular county, state, city, region, etc. of your country, however there are no particular qualification criteria; membership of the team is at the captain’s discretion.

Entries should state:

1. The name of the region the team represents
2. The country the region is in
3. The ICCF ID and name of the team captain (the TC need not be a player)
4. The ICCF IDs and names of each of the four team members, in board order

Please do not hesitate to email me for further information.

Best wishes,

Austin Lockwood, WCCF Secretary

Russell Sherwood  Sunday, March 3, 2019

https://www.welshccf.org.uk/article/675

Russell Sherwood  Sunday, March 3, 2019

WCCF 7th Invitational

With Craig Evan's nice win we now reach a crucial point in the event. With Steven Cade (ENG) already having completed his games, with an IM Norm to boot, we find  the pleasing situation of all Welsh players being still in the hunt for IM Norms.

Russell Sherwood  Sunday, March 3, 2019

As an update consultation between teammates is now  allowed within ICCF Rules

ICCF issued a rule clarification today. In simple terms, it reaffirms that a player may not consult other players during a live game, regardless of it being an Individual or Team Event. By consult, it is meant shared analysis or assessment of the position. 

The use of typical tools such as Databases, Opening books, Engines etc is acceptable, consulting other players on a specific position in a live game is not.. It is worth noting that collaboration prior to the start of an event is acceptable.

The WCCF have never encouraged our players to use these methods and is not aware of any of our players utilising them but please be cognizant of this clarification. If you are unsure of the validity of any behaviour please get in touch with the WCCF Executive Committee

Russell Sherwood  Sunday, March 3, 2019

New Article

Russell Sherwood  Thursday, February 28, 2019

New Article

Russell Sherwood  Thursday, February 28, 2019

Interesting results in this friendly match - currently we trail 16.5-45.5, although with the significant rating differential (Well over 100 elo!)  we still have a reasonable chance of achieving our pre-match performance target of 31.5

Kudos to Maurice Macarthy, David Guy, Sean Denton for securing wins under challenging circumstances!

Russell Sherwood  Thursday, February 28, 2019

A quiet month with only two results but important ones for Welsh Qualification chance 11th European Team Championship - Semifinal 2

Equally as important for Welsh qualification chances are the results from 10th European Team Championship - Final  On an interesting note all the results went into Wales long term favour!