Announcement of 1st ICCF WEBCHESS OPEN TOURNAMENT

Friday, October 1, 2004: ICCF announces its 1st WebChess Open Tournament and invites every player worldwide to participate in this great event!

1st October 2004

Dear Friends,

ICCF is delighted to announce its first WebChess Open tournament to be played on the ICCF dedicated Webserver www.iccf-webchess.com.

This tournament is open to all correspondence chess players worldwide, also for those without any previous ICCF experience. Multiple entries are allowed.

The tournament will be played in three stages – preliminaries, semifinal and final.

For this tournament, ICCF Playing Rules for Individual tournament games played normally by Webserver will apply. The interim version of these rules is available on www.iccf-webchess.com (click on “Online Help” ? “Interim Playing Rules”). The final version of rules will be approved by the ICCF Congress in Mumbai, November 2004.

The preliminary stage will be started in January-February, 2005 in sections of 7 (seven) players each. Only the section winner will qualify for the semifinal stage. Ties to be broken according to the ICCF Tournament Rules, Article 5.

The sections will be started in batches of approx. 25 sections, with one-week distance. The exact size of batches will depend on the total number of entries / sections.

The responsible ICCF Officer for this tournament is Valer-Eugen Demian (CAN), ICCF Non-Title Tournaments Commissioner (NTTC). He has appointed Guido Bresadola (ITA) as the Central Tournament Leader (CTL). The Tournament Directors will be appointed by the NTTC / CTL to take care of the particular preliminary sections.

This tournament will be sponsored by ICCF by a prize fund, which will amount to 10 percent of the collected entry fees, however, not less than CHF 2 000. Cash prizes only to be paid in the final stage.

The entry fee for entries submitted via National Federations is CHF 12 per one section. The National Federations may set fees in local currencies as needed to cover this amount on entries they receive. The entry fee for Direct Entry is USD 15 per one section.

The deadline for entries is 31st December, 2004. Entries to be sent via National Federations by Email to the Central Tournament Leader Guido Bresadola (ITA), Email: asigc@galactica.it

Those players who are not yet members of any of our national CC federations, or who are members of national CC federations but have not played in ICCF tournaments previously, may enter this tournament via the Direct Entry facility available on http://www.correspondencechess.com/de/webform2.html. The participation of these players is, however, limited to 2 (two) preliminary sections. For each direct entry subject to an entry fee, the appropriate ICCF member federation (where any) will receive a credit of CHF 3, and for all direct entries, it will be provided with the player's details, for national contact follow up.

Special provisions:

Any prior ICCF player who according to the Eloquery database has not entered an ICCF tournament (Open Class, Higher Class, Master Class, Jubilee, World Cup, Semifinal, etc.) within the last five years (i.e. 2000 till 2004), will be entitled to enter one preliminary section of this tournament for free.

We hope that this first big ICCF WebChess event not only will attract our loyal players who will be eager to test this new modern way of moves transmission, but also many new players who still have had no previous ICCF experience.

Play Webserver chess with ICCF, join your local National CC Federation and the ICCF community!

AMICI SUMUS!

Chris Lüers
World Tournament Director

Non-Title Tournaments Commissioner
Valer-Eugen Demian