Book Reviews

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ICCF Gold

edited by Pedro Hegoburu

Introduction

ICCF Gold, the celebration of 50 years of ICCF, was published just before 2002 concluded. Issued in paperback form, its 376 pages make it excellent value for just £14.99 (including p&p), and it should prove an indispensable reference source for all regular CC players.

Of particular interest to Scottish readers was the role played by Alan Borwell in helping to conceive the book and in managing its production (the printing was done in Tayport, Fife). Ian Mitchell and George Pyrich also get honourable mentions! We are also much indebted to Pedro Hegoburu, the book's Argentine editor-in-chief, and Ivan Bottlik, the Hungarian technical editor, for their huge contributions in assembling it over something like 4 years.

Contents

The broad structure of the book is as follows:

• Forewords and history (approx 45 pages)
• Member federations (60+ countries - c.200 pages)
• Photograph gallery (c.15 pages)
• Tournaments and champions (c.65 pages)
• Tributes and in memorium (c.10 pages)
• The future (c.10 pages)
• Rating system and rules (c.10 pages)
• Titleholders, award winners and officers (c.15 pages)

Review

Correspondence chess is often seen as a somewhat esoteric branch of the evolutionary tree of chess, yet it provides an enduring appeal for tens of thousands of players worldwide.

There are many motivations for playing CC - striving for higher quality games; fitting games flexibly into busy working lives; geographical or political isolation; personal disability; lack of funds for travel, and so on. Whatever the reason, from the comfort of home, CC players have the opportunity to delve deeply into their games while making lasting friendships with many of their opponents.

The emergence of a world body to manage the infrastructure in which all this can flourish has been fundamental. Early individual CC dates from 1804 in the Netherlands, and the first recorded match was the famous Edinburgh-London affair in 1824 - just beating Amsterdam-Rotterdam to the post! City and club CC matches took place throughout the 19th century, and the first individual CC tournaments appeared in Canada, France, Russia, Germany, Sweden, USA and elsewhere during the 1870s.

The first international bodies, ICSB and IFSB, were created in Germany during 1928, including the 16 year-old Hans-Werner von Massow on committee, and launching the renowned Fernschach magazine. They attracted individual members initially, and from 1936, countries, featuring a postal European Olympiad 1935-40. WW2 very much limited activity, and a new body, ICCA, was formed in 1946, largely through the efforts of the Swede Erik Larsson, previously on the IFSB committee. Airmail was exploited, numerical notation introduced, and the first individual World CC Championship preliminaries started 1947-49.

ICCF itself dates from 1951, and was formed in response to political and financial problems experienced by ICCA. The first President was J L Ormond of Switzerland (1951-53), and his most influential successors were Hans-Werner von Massow (GER, 1960-72) and Henk Mostert (NLD, 1972-96). The first CC World Champion, Cecil Purdy (AUS) was crowned in 1953. The book contains much, much more historical detail, and also highlights some fascinating trails for CC archivists to follow in future.

The largest section of the book is given over to the member federations who provide a wealth of history, biography, organisation and representative games - indeed, there are over 100 games in the volume, ranging from plain scores to GM annotations! Here, and in the photograph gallery, a number of suspects can be properly identified at last, and colour reproduction in the gallery mostly looks pretty good.

The tributes section concentrates on the three luminaries who contributed so much to the development of ICCF - von Massow, Larsson and Mostert, providing a rich blend of biographical detail and personal reminiscences. The future articles are provided by Alan Borwell and Nol van 't Riet (NLD). Alan's concentrates on how technology and flexibility will be key to organising ICCF in future, while Nol (writing in 1999) adopts an imaginative view of how CC will look in 2010 (some of his predictions are taking shape right now...). Nol also discourses on the Rating system, explaining its evolution and operation.

The yearbook-style tables of events, winners, title-holders, officials, rules and the rest, bring a packed publication to a worthy conclusion.

ICCF Gold is a great reference volume and superb value for money! You can get your copy from George Pyrich, whose postal and email addresses can be found on the editorial page. Just send £14.99 and/or offer to play for Kirkcaldy Kings in this year's League competition.