Welsh Correspondence Chess Federation

Austin Lockwood  Thursday, January 1, 2026

The Welsh Friendly Match team has been invited to play a match against the United States; this match will start on 15th February and will involve two games on each board against the same opponent.  Players may offer to play more than one board if they wish.

Any Welsh registered and validated player may play in our friendly match team, there are no rating restrictions and we will do our best to make all pairings fair by pairing you with a similarly rated US opponent.

If you wish to play in this event, please contact our friendly match captain, Paul Scott at [email protected] - please let Paul know if you wish to play more than one board (i.e. more than two games).

Please note that we now require all Welsh players to be a premium member of the federation or to have had their identity validated (this is a very simple process which involves making a token payment of £1.00 to the WCCF bank account).  You can check your membership and validation status here.  If you have a coloured "badge" under the Membership column, then you don't need to do anything else.  If you would like to participate in this, or any other ICCF event, and you have not yet been validated, please contact Marc Wakeham our treasurer at [email protected] to make the necessary payment.

Austin Lockwood  Tuesday, December 23, 2025

Our friends from the Polish Chess Federation have invited us to send them three players for their centenary celebrations, these events will start on 15th February 2026 and be in the Silli format.  The time control will be 500 days Triple Block with no Guaranteed Time.  The three slots on offer are:

1. Championship: Probable category 7-8, one Welsh player at 2430+
2. Candidates: Probable category 3-4, one Welsh player at 2330+
3. Championship: Probable minor category E-G, one Welsh player at 2100+

There is no entry fee.

If you are qualified (on the new 2026/1 rating list), a Premium member of WCCF, and wish to enter one of these events, please contact me at [email protected] before 10th January - first come first served!

They are also running a parallel event in Chess960 - we haven't specifically received any invitations for this event, but if anyone is interested I will pass on their details to the organisers.

Austin Lockwood

WCCF Secretary

Austin Lockwood  Monday, December 22, 2025

Congratulations Marc for achieving a third and final Senior International Master norm and the SIM title (still to be confirmed by the ICCF Qualifications Commissioner).  And also for achieving a Grand Master norm in the same event.

https://www.iccf.com/event?id=109799

Austin Lockwood  Sunday, November 2, 2025

Members may now renew their WCCF Premium Membership subscriptions for 2026.

Premium Membership is not obligatory, you can still play in ICCF events with standard National Membership, however Premium Membership will give you preferential treatment when selecting international teams or responding to invitations from other federations; Premium Membership also gives you a voice in the governance of WCCF, including a vote at the AGM.  Premium Members also make an important financial contribution to the day to day running of the federation.

We no longer have a PayPal account, in order to make payment for Premium Membership using online banking please send £5.00 to:

• Welsh Correspondence Chess Federation
• Sort Code: 30-99-50
• Account Number: 74924263

And please inform Marc Wakeham, our treasurer ([email protected]) following your payment so that he can update our records.

If you prefer to pay by cheque, please contact Marc by email for his postal address.

Please note that if this is your first payment to WCCF, it needs to be made from an account in your own name so that we can validate your identity.

If you prefer not to subscribe to premium membership, please note that we now need to validate all Welsh accounts against a named bank account before you can start any new events, this is a one off process (i.e. if you did it last year, you won't need to do it again) and involves making a token payment of one pound.  Please contact Marc for more details.

Austin Lockwood  Friday, October 17, 2025

Congratulations to Mark for achieving the CCE title.  His two norms were achieved in the Rudolf Kolesnikov Team Tournament SF1 and Caribbean Tropical Sun 2025.

It seems likely that ICCF will discontinue the award of medals for the CCE and CCM titles, however WCCF still have a stock of these which we will continue to distribute to title winners until it runs out.

Well played Mark!

Austin Lockwood  Saturday, September 27, 2025

The proposals to be voted on at the 2025 ICCF Congress are online here.

The WCCF Executive Committee are currently discussing how Wales should vote for each proposal.  If any premium member of WCCF would like to participate in this discussion, please contact me at [email protected] and your views will be taken into account.

Austin Lockwood

WCCF Secretary

Austin Lockwood  Saturday, September 27, 2025

Congratulations to Gareth on his first GM norm in States and Regions CCC 2024

Hopefully his second norm and the first ever GM title for Wales will follow soon.

Austin Lockwood  Thursday, September 11, 2025

The 2025/7 British Championship has just started with a record 91 participants in seven sections of 13 players.

The Championship section is Category 8, offering excellent opportunities for IM and SIM norms.

Unfortunately it was not possible to achieve the necessary mix of nationalities in the Candidates or the five Reserve sections to meet the requirements of a title tournament.

We wish all players the best of luck in this event.