Alok Saxena

International Matters

ICCF Congress August 2024

I CCF Congress this year was organised by the Welsh federation at Imperial Hotel, Llandudno, Wales, nearest airport being Manchester from Aug 11-15. They also organised a tour of Penderyn Lloyd Street Distillery, Dawnswyr Môn. Traditional Welsh dance group performed in the inaugural ceremony. A Chess Match of ICCF versus Chester and North Wales was organized at Promenade Lounge.

ICCF general secretary wrote that ICCF member federation's interest in hosting a Congress has been waning. At the end there was an offer to host the next Congress in Hungary. The exact location is still being selected.

The list of accepted proposals in this year's Congress is available at ICCF website.

Noteworthy is Proposal 2024-024 Requiring use of all ICCF rules for any rated event. As a result:

Some other rule changes of interest:

1. Players in a triple block time control event can now request the tournament director to move the player's time from the player's bank to the player's clock. This can help players when temporarily unable to move the time themselves.
2. After an event has started, a player who has not made any moves and not yet defaulted a game can withdraw by asking to be replaced. This is not possible in triple block events without guaranteed time as replacements are not allowed in such events.
3. A new tiebreak system called "prediction criteria" is possible, if a tournament organizer chooses it. The system works by predicting your opponent's moves (through conditional moves) more frequently than the opponent predicts yours. The purpose of this new tiebreak is to have a challenging system of breaking ties without changing the game of chess itself.

AA/C19/Final, 19_th Africa Asia Zonal Championship Final

Mr Gautam De and Mr Akkaraju Sailesh Chandra are playing in this event started on 30/06/22 and have scored 4.0 points and 3.5 out of 8 possible and completed games respectively and placed 2^nd and 8^th respectively with three games ongoing in this event. One of the games is given below:

AA/TC05, 5^th Africa Asia Team Championship

India fielded three teams captained by Omprakash Mohanty, K. Prabhanandan, and Rakesh Agarwal. Team A captained by Omprakash Mohanty is at second place with 28.5 points with 59% score place behind RSA (Republic of South Africa) team led by Everdinand Knol with 29.5 points and 61% score. One of the winning games from Team A on second board is given below:

ICCF Olympiad 23 Preliminaries - Section 2

We formed a team of top six AIWCF players for the ICCF Olympiad 23 preliminaries. The team consists of:

1. SIM K. Sasikiran
2. IM T. Pavan Kumar
3. CCM Rakesh Kumar Chouhan
4. CCM Gautam De
5. CCM Lalit Kapoor
6. CCM Om Prakash

The event started on 22/1/2024. The best two teams from each Section will qualify for the Final. The event is organised by Gian Maria Tani. The only winning game from India is from Omprakash Mohanty on Board 6 which is given below:

WC43/ct/3, WCCC43CT 3

K. Sasikiran has been selected to play in this event. The winner and the runner-up qualify for a WCCC Final, provided that they have obtained a positive result (> 50% of the possible points). This event is also organized by Tani, Gian-Maria. One of his games from this event is given below:

Alex Dunne Memorial Invitational – A

K. Sasikiran has been invited to play in this tournament. Any USA player who scores within the top 5 of the two most recently "completed" USA Invitational - section earns a qualification for the USCCC Finals. This event is organized by Doren, Dennis M. SIM Loinjak, Sinisa has topped the group with 8 points with a GM norm from this event and K. Sasikiran is placed 5^th with 7 points with one game ongoing. He has to win his last game to get GM norm. Wishing him all the best!

The winning game of the leader is given below:

CL/2024/B2, Champions League 2024 B2

Indian team named Indian Stalwart is led by Mr. Tanmay Srinath and is placed 9th with score of 10 points at present. Players include Gautam De on Board 1, Lalit Kapoor on Board 2, Mohan Turaga on Board 3 and Tanmay Srinath on Board 4.

The end of the tournament is scheduled for the Jan 25th, 2026. According to the ICCF rules decisive games may be called for adjudication at this date.

Promotions and relegations from CL10:

• The teams in places 1-2 (after tie-breaks) and the best two third places (after tie breaks resolved) will be promoted to the A division of CL11
• The teams in places 3-7 (after tie-breaks) will play in the B division of CL11
• The teams in places 8-13 (after tie-breaks) will be relegated to the C division of CL11

The winning game of Tanmay Srinath on board 4 is given below:

INDIA-BULGARIA

INDIA BULGARIA match started on 12^th April 2023 and the match is at present tied at 11.5-11.5 with three games of Alok Saxena (one) and Nilesh Vyas (two) pending. Most of the games have ended in a draw. One of the games with positive result for India is given below:

INDIA-NETHERLANDS

India Netherlands match had started on 20^th July 2023 with 24 boards. India is leading with 27.5-19.5 scoreline. Ayush Somani has won both the games. The winning games on board 5 of Devangshu Datta, on board 9 of S.M Paul, on board 10 of Sunil Somani and on board 12 of Anil Anand (win with Black) are given below (4 games):

INDIA-USA

India-USA match started on 30/10/2023 and is tied with 15-15 scoreline. Here most of the games are drawn. The drawn game on top board is given below:

INDIA-MEXICO

India-Mexico match has started on 20/11/2023 and India is leading by 9-8 mainly due to default win of Yusley Cardinas against his opponent and all other games are drawn. The drawn game on top board is given below:

INDIA-SWEDEN

At the time of writing, INDIA-SWEDEN match is about to start with about 17 players on each side. Two of the players became silent and had to be replaced.

ICCF Changes to Glicko Rating system

The Elo rating system is outaded since over a decade. In AIWCF we changed to Glicko-2 ratings in 2017 itself. ICCF took a long time to consider the pros and cons of the Glicko system and were in consultantion with Mark Glickman before eventually adopting it now in 2024.

Mid-term Elections

A mid-term election is announced by ICCF, with October 4, 2024 – October 17, 2024 being the period of voting. The two posts being voted are for the positions of Services Director and Rules Director. Services Director:
Austin Lockwood resigned as Services Director, and the post fell vacant. However, we were surprised to learn that only person has applied for this post, and that is Austin himself! On seeking clarification, we learnt that Austin Lockwood would like to retire after a long tenure as Services Director (SD). The main role of the SD is to manage the ICCF server and associated tasks. However there is no one immediately available with the needed skills and experience to take over this critical post. After some effort, a motivated person has been identified, but it will take about 6 months of orientation, and in the meantime Austin Lockwood has to be re-elected so that there is no interruption in ICCF Services.

Rules Director:
This is a new post. Upto now ICCF had the post of Rules Commissioner, which is held by Dennis Doren. Considering the importance of Rules, ICCF has decided to institute a new post of Rules Director. The only candidate is Dennis himself.

For both posts, there is only one candidate, so these candidates will be elected irrespective of votes case. India has always maintained a friendly relationship with ICCF and accordingly we have voted for both Austin and Dennis, despite there being no need to cast any votes. India will continue to cooperate and help ICCF in whatever way it can for the furtherance of Correspondence Chess worldwide. This despite the sad incident outlined below.

Hall of Shame - a sad incident

On 18^th August 2024, the ICCF General Secretary released as NEWS on the ICCF website, a powerpoint, entitled Hall of Shame. It purpoted to say that 7 nations (India included) failed to make arrangements to collect medals being presented at the ICCF Congress held from 11-15 August 2024 at Wales. Actually Dr Ambar Chatterjee and Dr Alok Saxena had contacted Knol Dinand of South Africa who agreed to recive our medals. Unfortunately Knol Dinand failed to respond to our emails as the Congress deadline approached, though we learnt later that he did attend Congress, but it remains unknown to us why did not collect our medals. The power-point depicts a person holding a paper bag covering his head with the word SHAME written on it. India loged a strong appeal with the Arbitration Committee who ruled that this was in violation of the ICCF code of conduct. The offensive presentation was eventually withdrawn. We have explained to ICCF that it is impractical to send a representative each year to a European location where the Congress is held. This is the first time in the history of ICCF that a demeaning cartoon presentation has appeared and we strongly condemn this incident. However, we have told ICCF that we wish to work with unity in promoting correspondence chess and uphold the principles of Amici Sumus.