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Recent News

Last updated 17 July 2008


17 Jul 08 | Magazine 102 Published
The second e-mag of 2008 is being distributed by email and post today, and we trust all subscribers will safely receive their copy. As usual, members will be asked to download their e-mags from the secure Members' page on the website, while complimentary e-mags will be attached to the email. Download times will be slightly shorter than last quarter. If you have any problems with this edition, please drop me an email at: webmaster@scottishcca.co.uk and I'll do what I can to help. Enjoy the read!
08 Jul 08 | Chess Training in Colombia
Fernando Rojas has emailed us with the following query: "Dear Friends: I represent the city of Villavicencio from Colombia South America. The mayor's office would like to implement a campaign to teach school children to play the game of chess. For this objective we are looking for chess tutors to train school teachers on how to teach the game to children. The city is seeking volunteers willing to donate their knowledge; in term the city will provide a place to live and food for the period of stay in Villavicencio. Villavicencio is located only 2 hours drive from the capital city of Bogota and enjoys temperatures of 25 plus degrees all year around. Thank you for all the attention." If you're interested, contact Fernando direct on: (+44) 07709594475 or (+44) 02089538114. His postal address is: 3 Eaton Way, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire WD6 4QJ England, and you can email him at: Fernando Rojas.
22 May 08 | SM Title for Matheis
At the Executive Committee preceding the 2008 AGM, George Pyrich on behalf of Raymond Baxter proposed the SCCA Master title for Tom Matheis (ICCF grade of 2354 in April 2007; ICCF grade of 2375 in October 2007; 6½/10 on board 5 in the 7th European Team Championships). This was duly awarded, so our congratulations go to Tom!
22 May 08 | 2008 AGM Highlights
At the AGM in Stirling on 18 May, the following items were noted:
  1. The League structure will probably have to adopt the standard ICCF team format in order to be administered on the webserver in 2009. No suitable structure exists for the Challengers event, though results can be entered retrospectively through the webserver for grading. The committee will organise the necessary changes before 2009 events are advertised in the autumn.
  2. Full audited accounts showing a surplus of £575 were produced by Gordon Anderson. Alan Hind was reappointed as auditor.
  3. Gordon Anderson and Dr Kevin Paine were elected as treasurer and membership secretary repectively, replacing Stuart Mackenzie and Dr Alan Brown. Following Raymond Baxter's retirement, no grading officer was appointed, and George Pyrich will take over grading duties. Other appointments were unchanged.
  4. Subscriptions remain unchanged.
15 May 08 | Delay to NATT VI Start
Eric Ruch reports that he is still waiting for two teams to be finalised and is thus unable to start the tournament today (May 15) as planned. More news should follow shortly.
13 May 08 | 30th Anniversary Match v RoW Starts
George Pyrich has completed arrangements for our 30th anniversary friendly international against an ICCF team representing the Rest of the World. The match will be contested over 50 boards - 38 webserver and 12 postal, and the start date is 12 May (players can move earlier if they wish). The webserver pairings will be sent by email, and Scotland sends the first moves on the postal boards. If you have any queries please contact: George Pyrich
28 Apr 08 | SCCA AGM 2008
This will be held at Stirling Chess Club, BB Headquarters, Dalgleish Court, off Baker Street, Stirling FK8 1BJ at 4:00pm on Sunday, 18th May. Directions to the venue can be found by following the link: Stirling CC The agenda is:
  1. Apologies
  2. Minutes of Previous AGM and Matters Arising
  3. President's Remarks
  4. Secretary's Report
  5. Treasurer's Report
  6. International Secretary's Report
  7. Election of Office Bearers
  8. Appointment of Auditor
  9. Subscriptions
  10. AOCB
28 Apr 08 | ICCF World Championship Nominations
Marco Caresso writes to inform us that Scotland is entitled to three nominations for the World Championship semi-finals or preliminaries during 2008. Ratings below 2400 will play in the preliminaries; 2400 and above in the semi-finals. If you are interested, please contact: George Pyrich
25 Apr 08 | Magazine 101 Published
The first e-mag of 2008 is being distributed by email and post today, and we trust all subscribers will safely receive their copy. As usual, members will be asked to download their e-mags from the secure Members' page on the website, while complimentary e-mags will be attached to the email. Download times will be slightly shorter than last quarter. If you have any problems with this edition, please drop me an email at: webmaster@scottishcca.co.uk and I'll do what I can to help. Enjoy the read!
25 Apr 08 | ICCF Announces 1st Junior World Cup Tournament
Pedro Hegoburu and Frank Geider have announced the first Junior World Cup, intended to promote cc amongst young players. You can read full details by following the 1st junior world cup link.
30 Mar 08 | ICCF Announces 3rd Webchess Open
Frank Geider and Valer-Eugen Demian have announced that registration has started for the popular webserver open tournament. You can read full details by following the 3rd webchess open link.
27 Mar 08 | Beecham Wins 2007-08 Championship
A win against Alan Brown and a draw with Mark May have given Richard Beecham an unassailable 6½ points in the 2007-08 Championship. This represents Richard's fourth outright win, a new record - the previous best was three (full details of previous winners are now available elsewhere on the site). Congratulations to Richard on a superb achievement!
22 Mar 08 | ICCF Spring 2008 Grades Published
Hard on the heels of the SCCA 2008 Grading List comes the first update from the ICCF rating system this year. Due to webserver programming changes, ICCF were a little slower with their Spring update than usual - players were able to interrogate the ICCF website to find out their new grades, but Raymond has only just received the full grading extract.
The new SCCA and ICCF grades are combined under publications/grading list, and the joint pdf version is available for download from the members/downloads page. The new ICCF grades apply to events starting from April 1st.
20 Mar 08 | NATT VI Team Announced
The Scotland team for the upcoming North Atlantic Team Tournament is listed below. Server pairings should be available on the ICCF webserver around mid-April, with the official start in early May. For further information, please contact George Pyrich at: international@scottishcca.co.uk
  1. Matheis, T, 2386
  2. Craig, T J (SIM), 2366
  3. Livie, G W G (IM), 2338
  4. Brown, Dr A C, 2317
  5. Anderson, G M, 2292
  6. Montgomery, R S, 2244
  7. Pyrich, G D (IM, TC) 2243
  8. Lloyd, G, 2112
16 Mar 08 | Website 10th Anniversary Makeover
The website was launched on 7 March 1998, and the redesigned version is now available to celebrate its 10th birthday. This job turned out to be far bigger than I envisaged, mainly due to the huge amount of material we've accumulated over 10 years, and the variety of styles and technologies in which it was assembled. Most of the effort has gone in to redesigning a consistent layout and navigation system, plus bringing the code up to international standards. It will take a little while to acclimatise to the new layout, but please take some time to explore the menu system and bookmark your regular pages.
I'd like to hear your reactions, good, bad or indifferent, and also whether you spotted any flaws - it's been impossible to test every single link and line of code to exhaustion. I've disabled the message board due to lack of activity (use the contact page to send in your comments and queries please), and one or two low-hit pages are marked 'under construction' - I'll complete these as soon as I can. On balance, I hope you find it an improvement and easy to move around.
14 Mar 08 | Grading List 2008 Published
Our latest Grading list is now available, and my apologies for delaying its publication due to the website makeover. The 2008 list is the last set of SCCA grades to be published by Raymond Baxter, who retires from our Executive Committe at this year's AGM. Raymond's work has been a model of accuracy and timeliness over many years, and we thank him most warmly on behalf of all our members for doing such an excellent job! Our best wishes to Raymond for a long and happy retirement!
You'll find the new list under publications/grading list, and a pdf version is available for download from the members/downloads page. New SCCA grades are effective forthwith, and we expect the March ICCF update shortly.
14 Feb 08 | Douglas Livie Memorial Completes
The final game of this highly competitive event is now over, finishing as a 96-move draw between Grant Lambert of Australia and Raul Martin Molinero of Spain. This result means that Raul Martin Molinero ties for 2nd/3rd place with Heiko Starke of Germany, both with 8/12. The event was won by Frank Geider of France with 9/12 back in January 2006, with play having started in June 2004! The best game prize was judged by Roddy McKay of Cathcart, and awarded to Olavi Halme of Finland for his win with the white pieces against Grant Lambert. Sincere congratulations to all the prize-winners, to all the players who contributed to such a fitting tribute to Douglas, and to the Livie family who organised the event and generously donated the prize fund. The final cross-table can be viewed on the Douglas Livie Memorial page (look under events/scca international), and all the games from the event are now available for download from the Scottish Games page (games/scottish collections).
22 Jan 08 | NATT VI
Eric Ruch writes to inform us that NATT VI (North Atlantic Team Tournament) is scheduled to start on 1st May 08. Scotland has participated in previous events, and we'd like to field a team again this time. Each team has 8 boards who play 1 game against each of the other 10 teams in the event. NATT is usually a strong tournament, and this one will be played on the ICCF webserver. If you are interested in taking part, please contact George Pyrich over the next few weeks at: international@scottishcca.co.uk
11 Jan 08 | Magazine 100 Published
The final e-mag of 2007, also the landmark 100th edition, is being distributed by email and post today, and we trust all subscribers will safely receive their copy. As usual, members will be asked to download their e-mags from the secure Members' page on the website, while complimentary e-mags will be attached to the email. Download times will be slightly longer than last quarter. If you have any problems with this edition, please drop me an email at: webmaster@scottishcca.co.uk and I'll do what I can to help. Enjoy the read!