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As decided by the 1998 ICCF Congress in Riga (Latvia) the first official
Email Chess World Championship will be started in 1999.
This first Email Chess World Championship will be played in three stages:
semifinals, pre-finals (the stage between the semifinals and the final) and the final
itself. The semifinals will be played in about 15 groups of 11 players.
The first two players of each group qualify for the pre-final, which will most likely
be played in 3 (or 4) groups of 13 players each. The first three players in each
pre-final group will qualify for the final, which is also planned to be played with
13 players.
ICCF will start semifinals of the Email Chess World Championships every two years.
Based upon an agreement between the two world chess bodies ICCF (for correspondence
chess) and FIDE (for over the board chess) the ICCF World Championship titles are
also recognised by FIDE.
Since 1946 ICCF has organized 22 World Championships, all of which have been played
by post. Winners of these World Championships so far have been many famous chess players:
Cecil Purdy (Australia), Vjatzeslav Ragozin (USSR), Alberic O'Kelly de Galway (Belgium),
Vladimir Zagorowskij (USSR), Hans Berliner (USA), Horst Rittner (GDR), Jacob Estrin (USSR),
Jirn Sloth (Danmark), Timo Wim (USSR), Victor Palciauskas (USA), Fritz Baumbach (Germany),
Grigorij Sanakoev (Russia) and Michael Umanskij (Russia).
As decided by the 1998 ICCF Congress in Riga, future World Championships will be offered
by post or by email, with qualifications inter-changeable according to players'
preferences. It is planned that new World Championship semifinals will begin each year,
alternating between post and email respectively.
During the last years several FIDE Grandmasters have started in strong ICCF title tournaments.
Recently Ulf Andersson (Sweden) has won the Norwegian tournament "50 years" before leading
ICCF Grandmasters like Gert Timmerman and Joop van Oosterom (both from the Netherlands).
Andersson is now playing for Sweden on board 1 of the final of the 12th Olympiad.
In the Danish "Peter Korning Memorial" tournament the FIDE Grandmasters Curt Hansen
(Danmark) and Johnny Hector (Sweden) are playing. On board 1 and 2 of the first ICCF
Open Email Team Tournament the Hungarian Grandmasters Peter Leko and Zoltan Gyimesi
are participating. As email chess can be played via the internet from all over the world
it is expected that many more strong FIDE Grandmasters will be playing in the first
Email Chess World Championship. All FIDE and ICCF Grandmasters are entitled to play in
the semifinals.
The semifinals will begin on 01/04/1999 with a closing date for entries on 28/02/1999.
The pre-finals and the final of the first Email Chess World Championship will start
when there are enough qualifiers wishing to play at the next level, using email transmission.
As email chess tournaments last about 2 years, it is expected that the first
Email Chess World Champion can be crowned in 2005.
Entries for the the semifinals of the first Email Chess World Championship can be sent
to ICCF via the national ICCF member federations. In
formations about the entry fees and about the way to enter can be received from the
national correspondence chess federations. See the ICCF webpages for information about
these national federations: www.iccf.com
Entries should be received by him not later than 28.02.1999.
The tournaments will be played according to the ICCF Playing Rules for email tournaments.
Please visit the ICCF website also for more information about these Playing Rules.
The following players are entitled to enter the semifinals of the first Email Chess World
Championship:
- the participants of the (postal) finals 13 and 14 if they have not earned a higher
qualification,
- the participants of the (postal) 3/4-finals 15, 16 and 17, who have scored at least
30% of the possible points provided a higher qualification has not been achieved,
- the participants of the (postal) semifinals 19, 20 and 21 who have scored at least
60% of the possible points, provided a higher qualification has not been achieved,
- the winners of 15 player Master class groups or Email Championship sections,
- those players who twice within the last 10 years have achieved 2nd place in a
15 player Master class group or Email Championship section and a 1st place in a 7
player Master Class group or Email Championship section,
- those players who twice within the last ten years achieved 2nd place in a 15 player
Master class group or Email Championship section,
- those players, who twice within the last 10 years achieved 1st place in a 7 player
Master Class group or Email Championship section,
- the participants in the final of ICCF World Cup 6 and 7 who achieved at least 60%
of the possible points,
- the holders of the ICCF or FIDE Grandmaster title,
- those players with a fixed rating of at least 2570 on the rating list valid until
30/6/1999,
- those players who are entered by their ICCF member organisation. Two participants
per member federation may be entered, with an extra entry from each country participating
in Olympiad Final XI, three more extra places for Germany and Czech Republic/Slovakia,
and one more extra place for Canada/Scotland as prospective medallists from Olympiad
final X.
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