WZ Norm tournaments

The World Zone delegates have approved a change in our tournament structure by creating the Norm tournaments. These are tournaments that provide ICCF norms and in some cases, WZ norms and titles. The Norm tournament cycle does not create any new events but rearranges events that have been in existence since the WZ was created … Continue Reading

Preliminaries of the 5th Interzonal individual tournament

Preliminary stage of 5th Interzonal individual tournament, ICCF event. 9-player sections, time control 10/50 standard, top three players in each section advance Rating requirement: 2200-2375 Multiple entries allowed CHANGE: Norms available in the semifinals and final only, NOT in the preliminaries Start date: 12/20/2021 Entries are closed Players from the following World Zone countries pay … Continue Reading

Thoughts on CC’s Community

This post explores the social and communications life of CC. Contrary to other types of chess there is not much news and sources that discuss correspondence chess. Blitz and rapid chess have seen enormous activity over the last 15 months during COVID. Online chess has clearly made these forms of chess popular. Problem chess and … Continue Reading

3rd Interzonal Individual semifinals

The semifinal stage of the 3rd. Interzonal Individual tournament will start by the end of this month and we need 8 players from the world zone rated 2400 or higher, to join other players in the tournament. There will be four 13-player sections, category 5. Norms available. If you would like to take this opportunity … Continue Reading

ICCF World Team Cup

ICCF has announced the World Team Cup: Announcement posted on the ICCF website Our zone will be able to submit a 20-player team of isolated players. What is an isolated player?. It is a player from a country that does not have a federation within the ICCF. This is a free rated event. A message … Continue Reading

WZ Individual Championship Final # 1

This post reviews the WZ Individual Championship Final #1 that ended on 4/30/2021. Cuban IM Alberto Pérez López won with a 8.5 score over 14. The Champion won with 3 wins, two of them with Black, with the following score of 7.5 shared by 3 players that each won 1 game. The table can be … Continue Reading

WZ Players by Country, April 2021

This post lists the number of players by country in the ICCF World Zone for the 2021/2 rating list, valid from 4/1/2021 to 6/30/2021. There were 1,055 players in the WZ in the period, with an average rating of 2100, and an average of 261 games per player.

Zvonko Juras 1948-2021

Croatian GM Leonardo Ljubicic reports that Mr. Zvonko Juras (CRO) has passed away. Zvonko’s Correspondence Chess career, he joined ICCF/CCCA in Feb 2015, and has played almost 400 games since. He earned his IM title in 2018, and has played on numerous occasions for Croatian team in various competitions. He won several tournaments – he … Continue Reading

CC Origins and First Games

This post outlines the origins of CC and presents what we know of the first games played by correspondence before actual records exist. The quotes in this post are from the book “Correspondence Chess in Britain and Ireland, 1824-1987” by the renowned historian Tim Harding giving the page number. The first instance of CC being … Continue Reading