ICCF Congress 2012 - Summary
Thursday, December 27, 2012: The Annual ICCF Congress took place in Pretoria, South Africa between 29 October to 3 November 2012. The official Minutes of the Congress have not yet been fully reviewed and also run to over 180 pages! So, here is a short summary of the major decisions taken.
• The standard ICCF Time Control shall remain at 10 moves in 50 days, but individual Tournament organisers have the option to set their own Time controls. For example, the Champions League is now 10/40.
• When one's opponent has exceeded the time limit, a player should send a claim to the Tournament Director using the email option of the webserver. If no claim is received after 40 calendar days (Leave not counted) the game may be scored as a double default (0-0).
• The following Federations were dismissed from the ICCF for non-payment of fees: - Algeria, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mexico, Qatar, Togo. Individual players from these countries can continue to play in Direct Entry tournaments, but cannot enter Team tournaments representing their federation nor can they apply for Titles or Medals.
• New Federations joining the ICCF were Panama, Tunisia & Wales. Welcome!
• 64 Medals & Certificates were awarded for the following Tournaments: - 24th World Championship, World Cups XII and XIV, 1st Junior World Cup, 1st Veterans World Cup, Champions League IV, Olympiad 17, 7th European Team Championship, CADAP XXI Final, 2nd Webchess Open.
• 146 Medals and Certificates were awarded for various ICCF Titles split as follows:- 23 Grandmasters, 48 Senior International Masters, 66 International Masters, 2 Lady Grandmasters, 4 International Lady Masters, 3 International Arbiters.
• With effect from 1/1/2013, the Titles Norms for the Senior International Master Title (SIM) are to be re-set one Category higher. So this Title will now be a little harder to obtain, as it now represents exactly midway between GM & IM.
• Pre-webserver (before 2004) ICCF Tournament & Rating data will continue to be added to the ICCF server.
• Player Achievements – there will soon be an additional tab under “Player Details” for each individual player showing their Tournament victories, Titles obtained etc.
• The Server itself continues to be regularly uploaded with new features – the full Webserver Development and Maintenance plan can be seen in the full Minutes when available.
• Downloading of game databases from the ICCF Archive (see left-hand Menu) will be restricted to ICCF registered players.
• ICCF is still seeking a Marketing Director and would ask all delegates to poll their players for players that are extremely well versed in the ICCF product (what ICCF has to offer) and organization as well as a good knowledge of marketing.
• The ICCF Diamond web-book has been completed. See: http://kszgk.com/iccf/
• The proposal to allow Federations to pay “appearance money” (if they so wished) to GM’s etc to play in their tournaments was agreed.
• Each federation has 105 free games on the webserver every year.
• 24 new Invitational Tournaments were agreed.
• The Russian CC Federation will organise an Open tournament to celebrate their 20th anniversary. Start Date 24 April 2013. All ICCF players can take part. Further details to follow. The Russian federation also agreed to organise the 20th ICCF World Cup starting in November 2013.
• Due to reduced demand, Postal Master Norm tournaments will no longer be arranged.
• To promote schools correspondence chess, it was agreed that school events/tournaments can be run on the server free of charge.
• Adjudication fees will be charged for future Champion League seasons to ensure the seasons finish on time without being held up unnecessarily.
• A new Chess 960 World Cup will start annually. Also, a Working Group was set up to discuss rules & implementation for new Chess 960 ratings.
• A Working Group was set up to discuss & propose changes to the structure of the European Individual Championship and the European promotional tournaments.
• A new Congress Preparation procedure/timeline was drawn up & agreed for proposals to Congress, applications for Titles, and appointments of Proxies.
• The ICCF Server will support as many languages as possible. Already a translation to German is available & we are working on Spanish & Polish translations. There is no limit to the number of languages available provided a volunteer can be found to do the translation work.
• The physical seat of the ICCF is now established in Switzerland, with a working office in France.
• The 2013 ICCF Congress will be in Kraków, Poland from 20th to 27th July 2013.
• The 2014 ICCF Congress will be in Sydney, Australia.
Summary prepared by Neil Limbert, ICCF Qualifications Commissioner