Zonal Cycle 2002-2004

Continuing with zonal clippings, I added Zonals 2002-04 to my page on the World Chess Championship Zonals. This was the last cycle that qualified players from the zonals directly into a World Championship knockout tournament. The next three cycles qualified them into a World Cup : same format, different status.

ICCF World Championships (2010 Status)

It's time for my annual look at what's happening in the world of correspondence chess. The current status is shown in the following table, which is based on last year's post, ICCF World Championships (2009 Status). As before, the asterisk ('*') means the winner is known and the PGN game scores are available.

20		2004-	Started 2004-10-25
21	*	2005-08	Oosterom, Joop J. van (NED)
22	*	2007-10	Dronov, Aleksandr (RUS)
23		2007-	Started 2007-12-31
24		2009-	Started 2009-06-10
25		2009-	Started 2009-12-10
26		2010-	Started 2010-06-10

What's changed? The 22nd championship has finished, while the 25th and 26th have started. I now have two final crosstables to add to my page on the World Chess Championship : Correspondence Chess.

The ICCF crosstable for the 22nd championship shows Dronov tied with Bücker, Jürgen (GER), but leading on SB tiebreak. A thread on the ICCF forum, World Championship 22 Final, confirmed that Dronov was awarded the title. The same thread has a relevant discussion on the merits of adjudication, which played a key role in determining the top finishers.

18th World Computer Championship

I added the 18th World Computer Championship (WCCC) - 2010 Kanazawa to my page on Computer Chess. The official results are available on a page at ICGA Tournaments (www.grappa.univ-lille3.fr).

Zonal Cycle 2001-2002

More zonal clippings: I added Zonals 2001-02 to my page on the World Chess Championship Zonals. This cycle was the first to use continental qualifiers, although not consistently. It was also the first (and so far only) cycle to use qualifiers conducted via the Internet.