IA Titles awarded since the 2013 Congress

Qualifications Commissioner Report

Welcome to my first report as ICCF Qualifications Commissioner! I have received a lot of support and encouragement from various people over the past year and I would like to thank particularly Eric Ruch, Michael Millstone, Gerhard Binder, Martin Bennedik, Austin Lockwood, and Neil Limbert for their help and advice. As a reminder, please find QC duties in Appendix 1. One of my duties is to propose improvement of rules and regulations.

Revision required to the Tournament Rules Extensive revision of basic document for QC, which is Tournament Rules, was done and internal inconsistency in few paragraphs was found. It needs to be reorganized and some definitions renamed or added. For example, article "10.Titles" says about ICCF Title tournaments, so it means about tournaments listed under article 1 only ("1.Title Tournaments"). Few event categories, which are titled at some stage, are missing like World Cup Tournaments (art.3), Norm Tournaments (art.4), Champions’ League (art.5), and some Special Tournaments (art.6). Therefore, there is an impression that these events should not be considered for titles purposes. My proposal is that QC is to work out a draft document after congress meeting (until the end of 2014) with close cooperation within MC and to be decided during next congress meeting in 2015. Congress approved plan without a formal vote.

Revision Required to the Tournament Rules Norm Table. Probably nobody revisited norm table since 2000! My findings are placed in norm tables presented in Appendix 2. Because of wrong rounding minimum score is inflated in few cases. Please verify my calculations and if they are correct please accept my proposal for 2015 Congress to correct rounding or find another solution for norm calculations. Plan is for Mariusz to revise the norm tables, the Tournament Rules Commission will verify the revised tables, and send to the Services Director for implementation by January 1, 2015. Congress approved the plan without a formal vote. However, a question was raised that since titles dating back 15+ years were based on an incorrect norm tables, would ICCF consider appeals for title awards and modifications based on the new norm tables. Congress voted in favour of the proposal (see voting record below).

Normally there is requirement for minimum score for all international titles, for example 30% in Poland or 35% in FIDE. Currently there is no minimum for ICCF events, so in extreme cases it is enough 10% or even less. The minimum required to be discussed and possibly decided during congress meeting. The QC asks Congress to support this proposal (to be implemented from 2016-01-01). After conversation, it was decided more data would be needed to determine if this is a significant problem. It was agreed that Mariusz (QC Commissioner) and Austin (SD Director) would provide data/statistics of norms achieved with less than 30%, for both men and women to Congress to consider in 2015.

The final stage of the national individual or team championship shall be exempt and international title norms possible if other requirements fulfilled. However, at least one of the norms has to be achieved under normal foreigner requirement. In my opinion, ICCF can implement this FIDE standard. The QC asks Congress to support this proposal (to be implemented from 2016-01-01). This proposal was defeated (please see voting record below).

This proposal was reviewed prior to the Awards presentation and Congress approved this proposal.