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and impatiently in this tournament.
Yet perhaps it will bring me the 11 th
fulfillment of the GM norm, which in this
Category 16 tournament (the strongest
World Championship of all time) requires
8½ points form 16 games.
ICCF and BdF
For 30 years, from 1961-91, I was a
Vice President of ICCF and Chairman
of the Qualifications Commission. Four
times I was re-elected with a big majority.
The biggest problem I had was to get the
permission of the DTSB to put forward
my candidacy.
Since 1990, I am in conflict with the
German CC organisation, especially with
Messrs Soltau and (Eckhard) Lüers. I was
flung out of my function at ICCF. Our
last quarrel was over the selection of the
Olympiad team.
Although I had achieved ten GMnorms
(a world record!), and also belonged
on the team by Elo rating, I was not
nominated for the first Olympiad team.
Other players should “gain experience”.
“Gain experience” – that is just absurd in
postal chess, where a tournament lasts
five years. Ability should always be the
criterion.
In BdF, there are too few democratic
decisions, it is only a pseudo-democracy.
We have no selection congresses, no
discussions. ICCF is more democratic,
but here it displeases me that English has
become the main language.
Postal times
The postal traffic with Russia and
the Ukraine is still catastrophic, and
even with Poland a card can take an
eternity. Praiseworthy, however, is the
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development in the Baltic States which
now have similar postal times to central
Europe.
In 1990, I began a Dutch correspondence
tournament, in which I played
only under the condition that I could post
my cards not in the letterbox near my
home, in the East, but a mere kilometer
away in West Berlin. Moves from East
Berlin would take 10 days to arrive, from
the West only two. It was so curious that
I was even accompanied by a TV crew
and filmed doing it.
CC versus OTB
Correspondence chess is qualitatively
higher: more accurately, there are fewer
blunders. I have won against several
grand-masters in postal chess, against
whom I wouldn’t have had any chance
over the board.
CC players are amateurs, who pay
money out and receive none, because
it is an expensive hobby. Most players
regard CC simply as a substitute for OTB
play, which they cannot practise any
longer for various reasons.
I might also be critical about the
prizes for the World Championship,
which cannot be compared with those
in OTB. There is only a prize of honour:
the World Champion receives a silver
plate on which the tournament table is
engraved.
Computers in CC
Many CC players stopped their activities
because of chess computers. I have
also thought about it, but I decided to
continue because I need the challenge
of mental work.
The computer offers, however, also
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