Russell Sherwood Thursday, May 30, 2019
ICCF Europa
Announcement – Memorial Tournament
ICCF Europa has the pleasure to announce a new memorial tournament.
To pay a permanent tribute to the memory of a great player in the history of EU and World correspondence chess Werner Stern. He is the only player to have won the European Championship twice. We have already started a postal tournament and now it is time to begin server one.
The tournament is reserved for EU players and will be played by the server and will be organized in two stages. The sections of the preliminary round will have 9-15 players (8 to14 games). The Final will be played in few groups – main group for the winners of each section; one to three consolation Finals will be organized for runner-ups. A number of qualified players will depend on the number of entries and will be announced prior to a start date. The event will be rated.
Entries
Players may enter in the usual way through the ICCF Server Entry System. A player can apply for more than one preliminary group.
The closing of the registrations is the 15th of June 2019.
Allocation of players to their sections will be made as random as possible; however, geographical distribution as well as an achievement of reasonable equality of the average rating will be taken into account.
Tournament Organization
The tournament will start on 25 June 2019. Time control will be Triple Block (Duration of Tournament: 350 days; Initial Clock: 50 days; Initial Bank: 75 days; Increment: 1 day). Registration will close on 15 June 2019 to allow for pairings. The event will be rated. No Title norms in preliminaries.
Finals (13-17 players in each section) will start not later than 1 May 2020. Time control will be Triple Block (Duration of Tournament: 500 days; Initial Clock: 50 days; Initial Bank: 50 days; Increment: 3 days). The event will be rated. It is expected norms for ICCF SIM, IM, CCM, CCE will be set in the main Final and norms for ICCF IM, CCM, CCE will be set in Consolation Final.
Prizes
All winners of preliminary sections redeemable against entry fees to qualifying tournaments on the ICCF Website.
There will be a prize fund for top three finishers in the main Final (total amount will be announced later).
Top three finishers of each consolation Final redeemable against entry fees to qualifying tournaments on the ICCF Website.
Member Federations are asked to give the tournament wide publicity to all their players.
We wish all participants many interesting games and new connections with CC friends in other countries, based on the spirit of friendship and the ICCF motto AMICI SUMUS.
TO: IA Andrey Pavlikov (Zonal Director for Europe)
TD: IA Uwe Staroske
In memoriam GM-ICCF Werner Stern
Werner Stern recently passed away at the age of 86 years. Werner was a physicist by profession and lived in Bremen for many years. Werner played correspondence chess for more than 50 years and celebrated many successes; he was the first European Champion (individual) and achieved this title for a second time to become the 7th European Champion. Werner obtained the IM title in 1990, the SIM title in 2001 and gained the Grandmaster title in 2009.
In national championships, Werner became the 20th Veterans Champion of Germany (2002 - 2005)
Werner is the only player to have won the European Championship twice. The confident way, in which he won both tournaments is remarkable; in the first European Championship, he achieved 13,5 Points/14 games - 3,5 points ahead of the second and third placed players Risto Kauranan and H. Ernst. In the 7th European Championship, he again won with a remarkable 12 points/14 games (11 wins, 2 draws, 1 loss) 2 points ahead of the following players. In finale no. 28 Werner became Vice European Champions, only 0,5 behind the winner Janis Vitomskis.
Also in the World Championships Werner played many interesting and nice games; he won his group in the Candidates Tournaments of the 15th World Championship and achieved a further qualification to Final in the 19th Candidates Tournament. Werner played two finals, ended in the upper midfield and played lots of wonderful games. He repeatedly beat top world-class players in an impressive manner.
We will always honour his memory. Rest in peace, dear Werner!
ICCFMemorialWerner Stern
