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News items from 2003 - Return to Home Page

NAPZ Deputy
Director
Jason Bokar
(31 December 2003): NAPZ Zonal Director Ruth Ann Fay has announced the appointment of Jason Bokar (USA) as NAPZ Deputy Director. She said, "Most of you know Jason from TCCMB postings, his games, or from his work as TD for NAPZ Email Higher Class sections. He is also multi-lingual. His knowledge of Russian may be helpful to us at some point. There is additional information at his home page and at the US player profile pages."
http://webpages.charter.net/jasonbokar/www/myweb2/bio.htm http://www.iccfus.com/profiles/jasonbokar.htm
(26 November 2003): Congratulations to Canada for winning the Pacific Area Team Tournament (PATT IV). The USA Team finished a very close second. The games archive has been updated with the final two games. See the crosstables and final team standings. USA Board 4 Hisham Sunna scored 8-2 to surpass the IM norm by a full point (IM title awarded at Ostrava 2003) and win his board. [Added 31-Dec-2003: Since this is the Zonal team championship for NAPZ the top three teams will receive medals at the 2004 ICCF Congress October/November 2004 in Mumbai, India. The third place team was Hong Kong.]
(25 November 2003): Profiles have been added to the Player Profiles for the new USA Co-champions GM Ian S. Brooks and Richard P. Fleming.
(17 November 2003): USCF Calls for Player Profile Updates
Congratulations to ICCF-U.S. affiliate USCF for their progress on the Absolute Championship Project. The USCF Absolute Championship is their most prestigious event, and they are attempting to create an archive of games, crosstables and player profiles for participants in these events. If you participated in the Absolute Championship please send USCF CC Director Joan DuBois (joandubois@uschess.org) a photo and current chess bio. If you have not already sent your games from your event(s) please send them as well. See the current status of this project at Absolute Championship Review. The status of the player profiles can be seen at Absolute Championship Participants.
(10 November 2003): Congratulations to the new USA Co-Champions GM Ian S. Brooks and Richard P. Fleming. They finished with 7½ points out of 10 in the 1st E-mail U. S. Correspondence Chess Championship Final to share the title. With 6/10 three players tied for third place: Keith A. Rodriguez, G. Robert Arnold and Michael J. Mazock. This was a hard-fought event with no undefeated players.
(6 November 2003): 1st Interzonal Team 2000 (NAPZ Games)
NAPZ Director Ralph Marconi has provided all 64 games played by NAPZ team members in the 1st Interzonal Team 2000 tournament. This PGN database has been added to the Games Archive for downloading.
(5 November 2003): Attention Chess Mail subscribers:
Renew before 12/31/03 at the old rate of $46. Renewals after that date will be at the new rate of $50. New subscribers will receive a bonus issue with the $50 subscription for the 8 - 2004 issues. Support your US office by sending your check here (see Order Page for the address and order form). Charge card users must subscribe directly through the Chess Mail office.
(4 November 2003): ICCF Chess Web Server Announcement
Today ICCF President Josef Mrkvička announced plans for the highly-anticipated chess web server, which will be available for both international events and for regional events organized by member federations. See his ICCF Chess Web Server Announcement
(30 October 2003): USA players in the Email 50 Jubilee Quarterfinals
Thanks to John Menke for providing USA players in the Email 50 Jubilee Quarterfinals
.
(27 October 2003): Ruth Ann's Congress Photos
Ruth Ann Fay took over 100 photos at the Ostrava ICCF Congress. These are now available for your viewing on five web pages (not all captions are completed yet). Links for the other pages are available on each page. Start you viewing with Page 1. Note that each photo is a link to a large version in a pop-up window ... just click on the "thumbnail" photo for an enlarged view. A few photos are also available in high resolution so you can read the certificates better.

ICCF-U.S. Site receives 2003 Friend of ICCF award (14 October 2003): News Flash!
The ICCF Congress currently meeting in Ostrava, Czech Republic has named this ICCF-U.S. Web Site "Friend of ICCF", their annual award to recognize service to the ICCF cc community. Thanks for the recognition, ICCF!

-- Franklin Campbell, ICCF-U.S. Webmaster
ICCF-U.S. Site receives 2003 Friend of ICCF award
Left: ICCF-U.S. Secretary Max Zavanelli receives his SIM title from ICCF President Josef Mrkvicka.
Right: Max picks up more titles to bring home to USA players.
See Congress Photo Page

(12 October 2003): ICCF Congress Underway in Ostrava
The annual ICCF Congress is taking place in Ostrava, Czech Republic October 11-18, 2003. New ICCF Finance Director Grayling Hill (USA) will be providing summary reports to the ICCF Congress Web Site. His first report reveals that ICCF-U.S. Secretary Max Zavanelli has been elected to the ICCF Executive Board as Deputy President & Development Director. For the full summary report see Report 1.
(4 October 2003): The 15th US Correspondence Chess Championship Final (US15F) assignments have been sent to the 15 participants. The official start date is October 6, 2003. See: 15th USCCC Final Crosstable
(25 September 2003): Photographs are now available for most of the NAPZ Officers, NAPZ Country Secretaries, active Tournament Directors, and International Arbiters.
(14 September 2003): A new USA Titleholders page has been added to the site. Titleholders are listed sorted both by date and by title/name. The bottom of the page shows the titles the ICCF-U.S. office has applied for to be awarded at the ICCF Congress in Ostrava, Czech Republic to be held from October 11-18, 2003.

(5 September 2003): Leonardo Madonia (ITA) of the ICCF Thematic Tournaments Office has announced the openings to be used for the 2004 thematic tournaments. There is still time to enter a few of the 2003 thematic events (see Madonia's Thematic Tournaments Page). That web page should list the 2004 themes in the future. For now they are listed here at Openings for 2004 thematic events.

Note that only one USA player is listed as winning a thematic section, Carl E. Waldrep in the French Steinitz Variation, and that was over ten years ago. Consider that a challenge! See the ICCF-U.S. Store page for an order form to enter a thematic section.
ICCF Ratings Commissioner Gerhard Binder (GER) has released the new rating list a month earlier than expected. As always, the Eloquery tool he provides for finding ratings (and all sorts of related information) is superb. To download the latest ICCF rating information go to the ICCF Web Site and click on "Ratings and Titles" at the top of the page. As usual, John Knudsen (USA) has provided a PDF document listing the updated ratings, in addition to the Eloquery tool provided by Binder.

(28 August 2003): The 9th North American Invitational Correspondence Chess Championship (NAICCC-9) has just finished play. Directed by NAPZ Zonal Director Ralph Marconi, this was a strong event of Category VII (ave. rating 2422). Congratulations to the winner IM Andre DeVriendt (CAN) who scored 9½/12, 2nd place IM Craig Jones (USA) and 3rd place IM Mario Adriano (CAN). The crosstable is available at http://correspondencechess.com/marconi/naiccc9.htm.

(5 August 2003): A new games archive has been launched here to preserve games played in ICCF-U.S. and NAPZ events. In some cases the same games will be available from the ICCF Archive, but many games are from minor events not covered by it, such as the preliminary rounds of the USCCC. Games are provided in PGN files which can be downloaded. Links to the associated crosstables are also provided. Additional tournaments will be added as the games become available.

ICCF-U.S./NAPZ Games Archive

Special thanks to the NAPZ Director Ralph Marconi for his major contributions in compiling these games. Also, thanks to those who did the functional testing: Jason Bokar, Volker Jeschonnek, Ralph Marconi, John C. Knudsen, Bob Rizzo, Eugen Demian, and ICCF Archivist Wes Green. Of course, none of this would be possible without ICCF-U.S. Secretary Max Zavanelli and Ruth Ann Fay.
-- J. Franklin Campbell, ICCF-U.S. Webmaster

(18 July 2003): The ICCF-U.S. webmaster has been been working on a project to add documentation of the tournaments of ICCF-U.S. and NAPZ (including the Anglo-Pacific Tournament Bureau later renamed NAPZ) to this site. The initial goal is to provide crosstables of all the USCCC's (both Final and Preliminary rounds) and the Master Class events of NAPZ (including the former Anglo Pacific Tournament Bureau). Other championship events, such as the Pacific Area Team Tournaments and NAPZ Championships, will be added in the future. Check out the initial offering at:

ICCF-U.S./NAPZ Crosstables Archive

Watch for future announcements of other archived material, such as game collections for downloading.

Special thanks to the NAPZ Director Ralph Marconi (CAN) for his help in compiling this information. ICCF Ratings Commissioner Gerhard Binder's Eloquery program has been of particular value. It can be downloaded from the ICCF Web Site.

(23 June 2003): ICCF-U.S. regrets that information published

SIM-elect Bokar
in USCF's 2002 Yearbook Issue, July 2003, was from the October 1, 2001 list instead of the October 1, 2002 list. Please click on Player Ranks for the current Top 50 list.
Congratulations to IM Jason Bokar (USA) for completing the norms necessary for obtaining the SIM title (confirmed by ICCF Qualifications Commissioner George Pyrich). Jason earned his norms as follows: 9.5/14 in MATE 25 Postal B (Category 7) and 7.0/11 in NATT V board 5 (Category 5).

20 May 2003: The Jubilee Postal Open Preliminaries end date has been extended. Gian-Maria Tani (J.P.O. Central Controller) has announced that he has changed the end date to 30 June 2004 to accomodate the many games still in progress. The tournament directors will be notifying the players.

25 April 2003: Congratulations to IM Jon Edwards (USA) on winning the Final Master Class Section of the 1995 Promotional Class Prize Tournament and to Ceasar Posylek (CAN) for winning the Final Master Class Section of the 1997 Promotional Class Prize Tournament. For more information and links to the crosstables see the NAPZ Prize Tournament Winners news release.

24 April 2003: PayPal now accepted by ICCF-U.S. From now on when you enter a tournament or order a product from ICCF-U.S. you have an additional payment option. You can now use the popular Internet payment method of PayPal in addition to personal checks. Go to the Order Page to download an order form to see what is now available.

3 April 2003: Congratulations to Jim (J. B.) Skeels on his win in the 1st NAPZ Championship! You can view the 1st NAPZ Email Championship Crosstable at the web page of NAPZ Director Ralph Marconi and see a bigger photo and link to a player profile at the ICCF-U.S. profile page for J. B. Skeels.

28 March 2003: The Top 50 player list has been updated to reflect the ratings for the April 1, 2003 through September 30, 2003 time period. This list shows active players with fixed ratings. The first 12 positions on the list are unchanged. ICCF-US is pleased to announce that Stephen Ham and IM Edgardo V. Limayo have made the list for the first time. Mr. Ham has been waiting for that 30th result for quite a while. He enters the list at an impressive 27th. Mr. Limayo had a 65 point increase which entered him at number 39. We also congratulate the following players for significant improvement in their ratings and position on the list: IM Dr. Jason Bokar increased his rating by 26 points and moved from 28th to 20th. Jerry Weisskohl increased his rating by 34 points and moved from 35th to 25th. Keith A. Rodriguez increased his rating by 35 points and moved from 49th to 33rd. Robert Rizzo increased his rating by 36 points and moved from 51st to 34th.

26 March 2003: Tim Harding has announced the update of his popular database of cc games MegaCorr3. For a full description see his MegaCorr Page at ChessMail.com. The ICCF-U.S. order form has been updated (go to How to Order to download the form) adding this super database, price $45. Owners of MegaCorr2 can pay the upgrade price of $35 if they send the backliner from the MegaCorr2 CD-ROM box with the order form (don't send the CD itself). It will be ready for shipping in May 2003. [20-May-2003: Tim Harding has announced that MegaCorr3 is now being shipped.]

20 February 2003: On the morning of Sunday, February 16, fire destroyed the home of ICCF-IM and FIDE-Master Alex Dunne. His wife and 2 year old grandson were unable to escape the flames, and perished in the fire. The Pennsylvania State Chess Federation is accepting donations for a fund to be set up for the benefit of Alex. Contributions may be made by check or credit card. If contributing by check, please make checks payable to "PSCF" and send them to: Dr. Ira Lee Riddle / 400 Newtown Road / Warminster, PA 18974-5208, USA. Please include a note indicating that the check is for the Alex Dunne Fund. If you wish to donate by Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, or PayPal, please visit the webpage: Alex Dunne Fund The electronic payment site is a joint effort of CC.COM and the PSCF. All contributions to the Alex Dunne Fund are tax-deductible under US law.

Flowers have been sent for today's funeral on behalf of all the ICCF-U.S. chess players by the ICCF-U.S. office.

16 February 2003: SIM Kevin Embrey has been added to the USA Player Profiles page. All ICCF-titled USA players are invited (and requested) to send similar profiles to contact the webmaster for inclusion on the profiles page. Thanks for providing the info, Kevin.

7 February 2003: ICCF-US is pleased to announce that 4 US players have advanced to the Semifinal Round of World Cup XII. They are Robert Rizzo, G. Robert Arnold, Grayling Hill, and Keith A. Rodriguez.
The 15th USCCC Preliminaries end date has been extended by six months. The new end date is 20 July 2003. At that time unfinished games will probably be called in for adjudication. Competitors are urged to complete their games by July 20, 2003.
1 February 2003: The 2nd Email USCCC has been dedicated to the memory of the fallen Columbia astronauts who died today in a re-entry mishap. Ruth Ann Fay of the ICCF-U.S. office is preparing to send the start papers for the upcoming 2nd Email USA Championship tournament to the participants. They will say, "We ... dedicate this tournament to the memory of the Columbia and her astronauts."

23 January 2003: SIM-elect John Knudsen has been added to the USA Player Profiles page. All ICCF-titled USA players are invited (and requested) to send similar profiles to contact the webmaster for inclusion on the profiles page.

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