(5 April 2008): Witold Bielecki Has Died

ICCF General Secretary Pedro F. Hegoburu has reported that our friend Witold Bielecki (POL) has died of a heart attack. Pedro posted the following on the ICCF web site: "Witold's contribution to CC is simply enormous, as Polish Delegate, member of countless Commissions and Committees, and long-time Tournament Director. He will be missed."

(3 April 2008): 17th USA Correspondence Chess Championship Final

The 17th USCCC Final started on January 21, 2008 with 15 players. The participants are: Albanesi, Paul L. (2293), Anderson, Laurence A. (2314), Arnold, G. Robert (2390), Brailsford, James H. (2242), IM Brandhorst, Wesley T. (2479), SIM Duliba, Dr. Edward P. (2549), Eilmes, Don P. (2348), Gach, Andrew (2323), Greene, Sanford I. (2359), Henderson, Greg (2128), Keating, Robert, Motta, Paul, IM Schakel, Corky (2334), Shipman, Joseph (2210), and White, David V. (2408). This USA Championship Final was organized by ICCF-U.S. Secretary IM Schakel, Corky and is being played by post (with email played by postal rules allowed as an option). The tournament director is Kristo S. Miettinen.

The crosstable is being maintained on the ICCF server. See: 17th USCCC Final Crosstable.

Ted Brandhorst USA's Newest SIM

(10 March 2008): ICCF-U.S. Press Release from Bob Rizzo

Ted Brandhorst is USA's Newest SIM

The ICCF-US office is pleased to announce that Ted Brandhorst (USA) has earned the title of Senior International Master as officially confirmed by ICCF Titles Commssioner Eric Ruch. This is the second of what we hope will be many more medals that the USA will be awarded at the Pleven, Bulgaria Congress to be held in September. Ted’s SIM title was earned as the result of Norms earned in the ‘Chessfriends Rochade 5171 - 15 Years’ and the ‘10th North American Invitational CC’ tournaments.

Ted represented the USA team as board 4 in the Rochade event where he scored 8 points. Board 4 was rated 2467 (Category IX) and included 2 GMs as well as 7 SIMs in the field of 15 players. Ted made the SIM standard while earning a performance rating of 2528 and finishing tied for 4th. Ted clinched the norm with his result against Germany’s SIM Thomas Cuno on Halloween, October 31, 2006.

In the Category VII (rated 2417) NAICCC tournament Ted scored 9 points which exceeded the 8 required for the SIM title, missing a GM norm by a mere ½ point. Ted won this tournament with a stratospheric 2617 performance rating. Ted scored his 8th point (title clinching point) against Canada’s IM Valer-Eugene Demian on Christmas Day! It looks like Ted does not take off on Holidays! Congratulations to the USA’s latest SIM.

(10 Mar 2008): 18th USA Correspondence Chess Championship Started

(updated 24 Mar 2008) The first (semi-final) round of the 18th USCCC assignments have been sent to the participants. Eight Nine sections of seven players each are now underway (official start date 24 March 2008). The winner of each semi-final section will automatically advance to the final along with a few invited players and some who have previously earned an advancement. All games are being played on the ICCF webserver. The crosstables can be seen by following these links:

USA/C18/SF:  01  02  03  04  05  06  07  08  09

(5 March 2008): New Owner for CC.COM Domain

Creator/previous owner of the CORRESPONDENCECHESS.COM domain John Knudsen has recently sold the domain to Hagay Avisar of Israel, who is developing a separate domain for on-line playing. CC.COM should remain pretty much as-is, retaining the same web sites (such as this one The Campbell Report, CCCA, The Correspondence Chess Place, Ralph Marconi's Chess Page, and others). However, Mr. Avisar purchased the domain to bring attention to his new playing site Chesshere.com. In the future viewers will see banner ads to publicize this new playing domain. The individual webmasters for the various sites at CC.COM retain full control of their sites and, with the exception of the banner ads, readers should see no other changes. Welcome Hagay Avisar to the CC.COM family! Thanks for supporting correspondence chess.

(9 Feb 2008): USA cc Championship to start ... entries invited

Edward Duliba 15th USCCC Champion

ICCF-U.S. Director Corky Schakel has invited entries for the upcoming USCCC prelims (both a postal and a server event will be held). 7-player preliminary groups will be used to determine qualifiers into the final to determine the USA Correspondence Chess Champion. For information on this event read the full announcement on the ICCF-U.S. web site.

The USCCC Games Archive web page has links to crosstables and games databases for past events. If you wish to enter you should do so as soon as possible. For those new to playing cc on the webserver there is a tutorial available on-line and individual help will be provided on request. There is a nice picture of the 15th USCCC winner Edward Duliba at 15th USCCC Final Report. The 16th USCCC Final is still in play.

(31 Dec 2007): USA 17th Olympiad Team Clinches spot in Final

Click for large version Chess Life cover January 2008

The USA team has clinched 2nd place in preliminary group 3 and qualified the USA into the final of the 17th Correspondence Chess Olympiad, organized by ICCF. The current team score is 32½ - 18½ with three remaining games. There have only been 3 individual games lost against 17 wins in this outstanding performance. Switzerland took first place with Portugal taking 3rd. Congratulations to team members IM Corky Schakel, IM Robert Rizzo, GM Jason Bokar, SIM Michael Millstone, IM Keith Rodriguez, SIM Ken Reinhart and team captain IA Franklin Campbell (ordered by left to right appearance in the team portrait to the right). For more information, including all the team's finished games in replay format, see the team web site.

The team will be featured in the next issue of Chess Life magazine with a lengthy article by CC Director Alex Dunne and cover art work by CL Art Director Frankie Butler featuring photos of the entire team.

(31 Dec 2007): IM Corky Schakel Elected NAPZ Zonal Director

NAPZ Zonal Director IM Corky Schakel

ICCF General Secretary Pedro F. Hegoburu has announced that IM Corky Schakel has been elected as the ICCF Zonal Director for the North Atlantic/Pacific Zone. The election results:

• Zone 1 (Europe): Mr. Gian-Maria Tani (ITA)
• Zone 2 (Latin America): Mr. Carlos Cranbourne (ARG)
• Zone 3 (N. American/Pacific Zone): Mr. Corky Schakel (USA)
• Zone 4 (Asia / Africa): Mr. Ole Jacobsen (GHA)

Click here for the formal announcement.

The North American/Pacific Zone consists of the following countries: Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore and USA.

(21 Oct 2007): ICCF Congress Starts in Benalmádena, Spain – 20th to 26th October 2007

IM Corky Schakel

The annual ICCF Congress in underway in Benalmádena, Spain and is scheduled to meet from Oct. 20 till Oct. 26, 2007. Representatives from the USA are Ruth Ann Fay, long time director of the ICCF-U.S. office, 10th World Champion Vytas Palciauskas and his wife Aurelia Gincauskas, and Leonard (Corky) Schakel and wife Sally. Thanks to the USCF for contributing to the travel expenses for Corky, who is helping reorganize the ICCF-US office after the retirement of Ruth Ann.

More information about Congress can be found at the appropriate ICCF Forum.

(21 Oct 2007): Dave Myers Wins USA Championship

Newest USA Champ Dave Myers

Congratulations to Dave Myers on clinching first place in the USA Championship (1st WS USCCC Final). The tournament Director IA Ralph Marconi has informed that by finishing his playing schedule with an undefeated +4 =4 (6-2) he has assured that no one can catch him (several players can theoretically score 5½).

See the crosstable at the ICCF Server web site. The crosstable with photos and the complete game collection for the final will be added to the ICCF-U.S. archive when the event is finished. There is a more complete report on the ICCF-U.S. Web Site.

This event is being played on the ICCF webserver.

Dave qualified for the final by tying for first place in his qualifying section (see crosstable), again with an undefeated score (+3 =3).

(8 Aug 2007): Follow-up to USCF CC Committee Workshop added to Bob Rizzo's report describing his meetings with USCF Executive Director Bill Hall and with Susan Polgar (Chairman of the USCF Executive Board) and Paul Truong (USCF Executive Board Vice President - Marketing and Communications).

(21 Oct 2007): 16th US CC Championship Final

The final of the 16th USCCC started officially on October 15, 2007 with 13 players. Many of the players qualified with top finishes in the qualifying preliminary tournaments with additional players previously qualified or nominated by the USA domestic cc organizations. The tournament director is International Arbiter Franklin Campbell. The server crosstable will show the progress of this event (played on the server) with "live" coverage of the games to start after the opening phase of the games is completed. The participants in this final (a single round robin event) are:

• Don Eilmes
• Harry Smith
• Tom Biedermann
• Gordon Everitt
• Corky Schakel
• Larry Coplin
• David Sogin
• Sandy Greene
• Danny Horwitz
• Pat Ryan
• David White
• James Brailsford (CCLA nominee)
• W. Ted Brandhorst (USCF nominee)

(6 Aug 2007): Bob Rizzo reports on USCF Correspondence Chess Workshop

Bob Rizzo (Photo by K. Rodriguez)

Every year during the U. S. Open there are a number of organization annual meetings, including the USCF CC Committee. These meetings are also referred to as "workshops". This year the critical situation with the closing of the ICCF-U.S. office made this meeting appear more important than usual.

Committee member (and ICCF competitor) Bob Rizzo delivered a number of critical reports to this meeting and also provides us with some photos and a complete report of what happened.

Read Report of the USCF Correspondence Chess Committee by Bob Rizzo in the "On the Square" collection of articles.

(3 July 2007): Ira Lee Riddle Announces Write-in Campaign for CJA President

Dr. Ira Lee Riddle

With the ballots in the mail, Dr. Ira Lee Riddle has announced his intention to run as President of the Chess Journalists of America (CJA). He has served in this position before and is on the current ballot for the Vice-President position, but he has recently decided he should try for the top spot. In his announcement he stated, "I have grown upset and tired with the non-civil manner in which our CJA officers have conducted themselves, both in e-mails and phone conversations." He intends to change this if he wins.

You can read his entire announcement here.

(21 June 2007): 17th USCCC Prelim Games Now Available for Download

Screenshot from Games Archive

The games of the 17th USCCC (USA cc championship) prelim round has been made available for download from the USCCC games archive. Nine groups of seven players each made up this preliminary round to determine qualifiers to the 17th USCCC Final (a few additional players have already qualified via previous finals or can be nominated by their domestic clubs). 178 of the 183 games played have been captured in this database (a few games involving forfeits are missing, six games of the original 189 scheduled games were cancelled when a player withdrew).

If you prefer, just click here to download the 17p database.

(31 May 2007): New article by Wim van Vugt

Wim van Vugt (NED)

Wim van Vugt, a superb analyst and previous contributor to this site and the Nederlandse Bond van Correspondentieschakers (NBC) web site, has focused his laser vision on the problem of tournament length. In some analysis he used 40,000 games from ICCF events to determine the use of time by competitors and how it affects length of tournament.

Read Reflection time and the length of tournaments by Wim van Vugt in the "On the Square" collection of articles here.

(6 May 2007): 17th USCCC Prelim Crosstables Transferred to ICCF-U.S. Archive

For several years the nine crosstables for the 17th USA Correspondence Chess Championship (preliminary round) have been maintained at this web site. With the latest reported results there only remains one unreported result, so the tables have been transferred to the Crosstables Archive at the ICCF-U.S. web site. This completes the transfer of all USCCC crosstables from this site to the archive and ends the long tradition of maintaining the USCCC crosstables at this site. It has been my pleasure to maintain these tables and make them available to the players and other interested parties. In the future all USCCC tables will be maintained on the ICCF Webserver, though finished events may still be archived on the ICCF-U.S. site.
-- J. Franklin Campbell
ICCF-U.S. Games/Crosstables Archivist

(27 April 2007): News on ICCF Webserver Update

Several problems with the ICCF webserver have now been fixed. For instance, if you click "Remember login" when you log in, the server will now keep you logged in indefinitely till you specifically log out (just like with the old version).

My ICCF Server Tutorial has a hints page for users of the updated server. It has been revised with some hints on how to view your moves on the revised game page.

(21 April 2007): Major ICCF Webserver Update

The ICCF Webserver received a major update yesterday 20.04.2007. There are a number of improvements and added features, such as improved crosstables (additional changes are expected in the near future), new page formats requiring less monitor space, more sophisticated events lists, and the elimination of using frames (so you can easily link directly to a crosstable without losing information). There are also some problems, such as losing your login after 30 minutes (requiring frequent log in) and cramped space for game score on game page. The login problem should be fixed soon. Even though a lot of testing was done there will undoubtedly be a few bugs remaining. Fixing them will be a high priority for the server programmer Martin Bennedik, so I urge patience by the users.

My ICCF Server Tutorial is now outdated but should still be a useful guide. I added a short page with a few hints about the new version of the server.

SIM Tim Harding

(17 March 2007): Tim Harding in Cleveland (USA)

SIM Tim Harding is well known as a chess book author and publisher of the popular Chess Mail magazine, perhaps the finest cc magazine ever published in English. Sadly, the magazine is no longer published. Tim Harding has retired from publishing for now to pursue an advanced degree in history. According to his web site: "On Saturday, 14 April, Tim Harding will be speaking about an historic early correspondence chess match at the Mid-Atlantic British Studies Conference at UMBC, in Baltimore, Maryland. If you are a historian or history student and interested in attending, you can find the MABC conference details online."

I have also been advised by International Arbiter Maurice Carter that Lissa Waite, the librarian for the Special Collections, Cleveland Public Library, has announced that he is "going to talk about his approach to chess history (and modern, more scientific, chess history in general) and how special collections like CPL are so important." This meeting is planned for Thursday, April 19, 2007at 4 PM.

The specific special collection of interest at the Cleveland Public Library is the "John G. White Chess Collection", which was used to research a number of historical articles published at this web site. If you are interested in attending this meeting I suggest contacting the librarian by phone at 216-623-2818. It may be possible to search the Cleveland Public Library web site for email contact information.

SIM John Knudsen

(13 March 2007): John Knudsen's New Web Site

SIM John Knudsen, creator of the CorrespondenceChess.Com domain (home of this web site) is updating his personal chess web site The Correspondence Chess Place. The new site is based on a blogging CMS system. He'll be keeping the old site http://www.correspondencechess.com/knudsen/ as an archive of his old material.

Takanori Tomizawa

Tim Murray

(8 February 2007):
4th NAPZ Championship

In late December the final game of the 4th North America/Pacific Zone Championship ended. The top two players finished with a hard-fought draw to become co-champions. I just updated the NAPZ Crosstable Archive with the final crosstable and photos of the top four players. Pictured here are the co-champions SIM Timothy Murray (USA) and IM Takanori Tomizawa (JPN).

4th NAPZ Championship Crosstable Page