Here I present 3 recent ICCF games which are eventful, but are not included in the Games Section

Om Prakash sent the following game where he tried an opening line which was stored in his personal book. Nowadays, it is very difficult to win a game in ICCF even against a player rated 100 points lower. It is an attempt to stay away from a drawish main line. However the experiment failed completely with the opponent completely refuting the idea.

Notes are by Om Prakash

Arnab Sengupta writes, “Managed to draw this. Was in a difficult position in the beginning.“

Sometimes to draw a game is important, and in this case it brought me to the milestone of a second CCM norm thereby confirming the title of ICCF Correspondence Chess Master. The event is 4^th Africa Asia Team Championship Board 2 and I played in it specifically to see if I could get my title. The target was to score 5 points from 8 games. My strategy was not to press too hard, but make sure of not losing any game. Just 2 wins would be sufficient. 3 players defaulted and one exceeded the time limit. ICCF rules specify that defaulting players should be replaced, otherwise norms could change. No replacement was found for Indonesia A player CCM Ida Viktor and the game was on hold for a long time. After writing to the TD (Akkaraju, Sailesh Chandra) the game was finally scored. I had been able to draw the games against the 3 leading players. The game against CCE Suyoto, Suyoto (Indonesia B) was not going well. I had a minus position after a Sicilian Najdorf Classical/Opocensky Variation. In the skirmish during moves 18-27, White emerged a pawn up in a Rooks and Pawns endgame. However, I figured that it was possible to hold the game. On move 33 the pawn was recovered and on the next move I offered a draw which was accepted. I now got a message from ICCF that I had made it to the CCM title. There is still one ongoing game, which I expect to win. So I will reach 6 points. Here is the game that I drew to clinch the title.