Welsh Correspondence Chess Federation

Austin Lockwood  Thursday, June 29, 2023

ICCF member federations are currently voting on the new Executive Board to take office from 1st January 2024 for four years.  As an ICCF member federation, WCCF has a vote in these elections and the Executive Committee are currently discussing how we should vote for each position.  All Premium members are welcome to join these discussions and contribute to our vote, you should contact [email protected] if you wish to participate.

The schedule is tight because the elections need to be concluded before the 2023 ICCF Congress in Amsterdam, and elections for each EB position must be completed sequentially (because there are candidates for multiple positions, and they can be eliminated by being elected to a previous position), so if you are interested in participating in the discussions, please do get in touch asap.

WCCF has two candidates in the elections, Russell Sherwood (for Finance Director, World Tournament Director and Marketing Director) and Austin Lockwood (for Services Director).

The full list of candidates (with links to their personal statements) can be found here.

Austin Lockwood  Monday, June 19, 2023

The 2023 ICCF Congress will take place in August in Amsterdam.

The list of proposals on which delegates will vote is now locked in, and the members of the WCCF Executive Committee are currently discussing how the Welsh federation will vote on each proposal.

https://www.iccf.com/Proposals.aspx?id=77

If any Premium Member of WCCF has any strong feelings about any of these proposals, or would like to get involved in the discussions, please get in touch with [email protected]

There are also elections for the ICCF Executive Board and Auditor this year, further details on how you can get involved in this election will follow here.

Austin Lockwood  Monday, June 12, 2023

Following my article last month about Scotland's excellent performance in this prestigious event; unfortunately both England and Scotland have failed to qualify for the 12th final, however Wales still have excellent chances to qualify, so British hopes may well be carried again by the Welsh team for the 12th final.

England's failure to qualify from their semi-final without losing a single game highlights the narrow margins in modern correspondence chess, where every advantage, however small, needs to be exploited to the maximum degree to have any chance at all of success.

At the time of writing there are only 32 games remaining in the 11th final (from 624, so a little more than 5%), but again, the narrow margins mean that the title can still be won by four or five different teams (including Wales!)... our fingers are crossed for a podium finish, at least!

I will post more updates as the results roll in.

Austin Lockwood  Tuesday, May 30, 2023

Congratulations to our friends from Scotland, who have just become the highest scoring British team ever in a European Team Championship final!  The European Team Championship is one of the most hotly contested team events in ICCF, second only in status to the Olympiads

The eleventh final is currently in its closing stages, and Scotland recently completed their games with a British record breaking score of 49.48%.

British teams have participated in the first and second Championship finals (Great Britain); the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth finals (England) and the eleventh final (Scotland and Wales), but with disappointing results until now, always finishing in the bottom half of the crosstable with England's 9th place in the ninth final being the best overall British performance to date.

The eleventh final is still ongoing and the record breaking Scottish score puts them in a good position to place higher than any previous British team.

Of course this record may not stand for very long, hopefully (from a Welsh perspective!) for no more than a few months... Wales are currently on 47.5 points with four games remaining, and so cannot do any worse than Scotland, and a podium finish now feels like a real possibility.

Of course we wish all three of our British teams the best of luck in qualifying for the twelfth final!

Russell Sherwood  Sunday, May 14, 2023

We are arranging a friendly match with Romania

To sign up or for more details, get in touch

As a reminder, participation in friendly matches is one of the criteria for selection to Team and Invitational events and, in the case of this event, score for the Welsh Grand Prix.

Andrew Smith 

Russell Sherwood  Sunday, March 26, 2023

Following changes in responsibility, effective immediacy, all and any player contact to WCCF should be sent to Russell Sherwood, ICCF Delegate 

Updated Saturday, April 1, 2023 by Russell Sherwood