ICCF Champions League

Champions League Newsletter
December 3, 2002
By Email Tournaments Commissioner Chris Lüers

Dear Chessfriends,

This newsletter shall provide you with an overview about the current standings and happenings in the ICCF Champions League. Furthermore you get information about the ICCF Jubilee book "ICCF Gold" which is not spam - it´s the past, the present and the future of Correspondence Chess! ;-) [Note: book information deleted -- JFC]

The ICCF Champions League will be organized by an own officer in the future: Frank Geider, who works as TD for 7 sections already, will take care of our tournament. The overall responsibility for this event is also in the future with Email Tournaments Commissioner Chris Lüers.

Champions League Officer Frank Geider

Email Tournaments Commissioner Chris Lüers

The 22 sections of the Champions League have produced over 1250 results already. The webtables, produced by Klaus Wrba, are still the pride of our online result service.

The groups are now controlled by the following Tournament Directors:

  • Groups 1-3 : Tom Mirbach
  • Groups 4-10 : Frank Geider
  • Groups 11-15 : Tom Mirbach
  • Groups 16-20 : Wes Underwood
  • Groups 21-22 : Thomas Schmelz

In the following I want to give an overview about the sections 1-5, the current standings, favourites and teams which surprised with their performance so far.


Group 1:

The standings depent on what you look at - concerning the total number of points the US team with the crazy name "There's a Weasel Chomping on my Chess Nuts" leads with 8 points. However this team has achieved "only" a little more than 50% of the possible points so far and so they might not stay in this postion for too long. Here the actual favourites (average team rating 2507!) of the group, the "Chess Mail Tigers", are in a better situation: 85% with 7-1 points mean a good start for the team. Concerning the total number of points they are accompanied by "Capea I", "Panorama" and the team "Rochade 5171 - Amici" from Germany. The players of the team "CCF Ukraine" can continue their games only now after not very praiseworthy activities between them and the TD and so their current performance of 2 out of 2 is not very expressive. However - the rest of the group is warned.

The best individual performance has Thomas Winckelmann with 5/5 on board 2 for the top team "Chess Mail Tigers".

Board 1 has the leading player in IM Etchechoury from the argentinian team "La Dama Clavada" (3/4). The webtables-pope Klaus Wrba himself seems to work for this event in other ways, too: he is the current top-scorer of board 3 with 3,5/4!

Board 3 sees a lower rated player in first position at the moment and I´m happy that I do not have to pronounce but only write down his name: Zbigniew Cholojczyk leads with 3/4 by only 2033 rating points - surprise, surprise!

You allow me bet on the final team positions? Thanks:

  1. Chess Mail Tigers
  2. Rochade 5171 - Amici
  3. La Dama Clavada

Every team and every player is asked to disprove this guess and I will update this list with every new report.

Group 2:

Old but not cold: the "Old Friends Team" scored 11,5 points and clearly occupies the 1st place in the group. The best performance however comes from "Chess Victory - RUS" (name is program) and "Stamp" (do they nevertheless use email?) with more than 80%! It gets more and more difficult for "ACS(I) CC Team" to promote to the Champions League A because 0-9 points mean the last place currently. However: Everyone outside this group supports the youngest team in the Champions League: one 14- and three 13-years-old boys from Singapore and they will surely fight for every point until the end!

Two Germans dominate the first board currently: SIM Dr.Fred Kunzelmann (2503) and Günther Marquardt (2157) have scored 4/5 already and their own game ended with a draw.

Board 2 sees another SIM as the leader: Heinz Prokopp has 4,5/7, but he already has lost a game against newcomer Jens Madsen (2,5/3) from Denmark.

Only two results so far at board 3...

IM Turkov has to face 7 players with no official ICCF rating so far (provisionally set to 2200 for rating purposes) on board 4, but he shows no irritation: 4 out of 5 for him.

My bet for the first 3 places:

  1. Chess Victory - RUS
  2. 4 knights of lake Como
  3. Stamp
Group 3:

The Russians of the team "Diana" scored 85% so far and they confirm their favourite role herewith. The "Alpine-Rookies" and the Poland´s "Centrum-Tczew" follow with a worser total score in percentage, but 13,5 (12,5) total points surely are a strong argument.

Andrzej Borowiec scored 5/7 on board 1 already although 5 players have a better rating than he has. Let´s see what SIM Alexandr Makarov (2601) will do - he currently has not finished a single game, but I´m sure he will not disappoint his team.

No draws on the second board so far and 4/4 mean an outstanding result for Marek Mokwa so far! 5 other players also have a performance of 100% at the moment: Mayer, Khromov, Arounopoulos, Zatrapa and Maesa.

Board 3 only shows the win of Kaczynski over Vrbica. What if a player has already finished 9 games after only 5 months? Probably a greenhorn who shows not only the speed but also the playing strength of a blitz game... Well, the player in hand is a greenhorn, but Werner Schön proves that his FIDE rating was not payed by money: unbelievable 8 points out of 9 games! Vyacheslav Lyukmanov goes for the second place with 5/6 at this board.

My guess for the first 3 places:

  1. Diana
  2. Centrum-Tczew
  3. Chess Club Travertin
Group 4:

Their name show they are not very squeamish: The "Rochade 5171 - Bulldozers" lead in this group with the score of 10-3. "Chess Mail Tal" has a good score with 75%, but they have only finished 4 games so far.

Not much to say about the first board in this group while board 2 sees an outstandable score of IM Erofeev with 4,5/5. Viktor Shnyrew (team "Era") is new to ICCF and maybe that´s why he waits with remarkable results: 7 finished games and 3 finished draws nevertheless mean 2nd place at this board.

Board 3 does also show no remarkable activities; IM Dambrauskas has 200 rating points between him and the rest of the group but so far he finished his only game with a draw against IM Bascetta who himself lost to FIDE player Alexander Heinrich.

Board 4 might become a battle between the Russians. The group is currently controlled by Valery Lebedev who plays for the italian team "A. Scacchistica Napoletana I.T.". He has 3,5/5 so far and we are curious what he will do against Konstantin Kozlov (1/1) and Mrs. Natalya Eroffeva (2/3).

My proposal for the first 3 places:

  1. Rochade 5171 - Bulldozers
  2. Turm Greifswald
  3. Chess Mail Tal
Group 5:

Only the 5th best average rating but the top place at the moment: "Bashkir Chess" surprises with superb results.

The 4 Russians have FIDE player Jalil Davletov on 1st board and he proved this idea to be right with 3,5/4. IM Yamaliev (4/6), Shulman (0,5/1) and Karachurin (2/2) round up the good performance. On board 1 Peter Schuster (2547) has 5/7 while top rated player Oliveira (2581) lost his only finished game against newcomer Schwenk. The last +2500, SIM Jorgensen, had to accept 2 defeats already and he surely wants to improve his current score of 1/4.

On board 2 P.E. Terres (team "CXEB-BRS") from Brazil and Soren Larsen (team "CC-Vikings") from Denmark have the only postive scores without any defeat next to Yamaliev. No results so far for my friend Grayling Hill, whose "Team CC.Com" is in a good position.

Not many results on board 3, but Bratholm, Fuzishawa and Ticozzi all have a 100% score -> 1/1. While Brollini from the team "Yetman.Brothers'.Descriptive.

CM.A" had to pay dearly for his participation at board 4 the other players share all points in draws at the moment.

My bet for the first 3 places:

  1. Bashkir Chess
  2. CXEB-BRS
  3. Zugzwang Bochholt II

Posted on 9-Feb-2004


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