President’s column

Perfectionism

Very few of us can fully understand what lies behind such an achievement. Many OTB players, and some former CC players as well, have problems understanding how CC can survive the “computer death”. Some are worried about chess in itself, and then CC is hanging in a very thin thread. Bern’s games in the on-going final are good news in that regard – CC at the top level today is also a demonstration of the computer programs’ limitations. Bern himself is not at all worried by the future of (correspondence) chess, so what should ordinary OTB fear in the foreseeable future? But if you want to make a career in CC, you should be aware of the conditions:

We would probably play about even against Kasparov and his computers, because I would have invested more time and energy than he would. It is extremely hard to beat the team of Bern & Fritz. Possibly, I made 5 inaccuracies in the final, but I was never in the danger of losing a game, although obviously I had to play very exact in several positions. I was close to losing when I made an erroneous evaluation as Black in one of my Sveshnikovs, but after a week of hard work I finally found a variation that was sufficient to draw.

How strong have the computer programs become, and what is left for the humans?

Among many exciting games we have selected the following, featuring an opening novelty that shows the vast richness of chess compared to the computer’s dull number crunching:

King’s Indian

Did you have any particular strategy for the World Championship final?

Before the final started, I made a principal decision to go for the initiative both with White and Black. Even though my opening repertoire was completely obsolete, I went for very sharp openings. This approach proved to require a lot of resources. It helped that John Kvamme lent me a big bag full of Informators and Eirik Gullaksen contributed with books on the Sveshnikov and the King’s Indian. In addition, it was very valuable to have Kjetil Stokke as a second, since he is updated on most new ideas in the opening theory. Only a couple of Stonewall games were relatively easy, particularly the following miniature:
Asko Linna FIN (2577)

Ivar Bern NOR (2611)

Dutch, Stonewall

Are you tempted to repeat the success?

The plan is to make up status and write a book on the final. Later I may possibly go for another final (by email) There is also a commercial server where you play for high money prizes, with many OTB GMs participating. Obviously, this is tempting.

And what about OTB?

For the last 8 years I have mainly played league games and Bergen Chess International. I usually lose about 50 Elo points in the league games, winning most of it back during the national final (In Norway, regional leagues are played as qualifications to a final with 8 teams. Translator’s note). Probably, motivation plays a certain role... By the way, there should be a warning sign on Fritz: «Excessive use may harm your ability to compute variations». In OTB I have gone for a practical/untheoretical approach, trying to avoid the worst tactical complications. It is more important to lead the games into positions I feel comfortable with, rather than finding the best move at any cost. Even though CC is my main interest, it doesn’t give the same adrenalin kick as an OTB time trouble duel. That way, CC is a rather peculiar extremesport. You get the biggest excitement when you pick up your mail, plug in Fritz, and away you go.... And the greatest pleasure is when the opponent reveals deep chess understanding and resigns before I had expected.

NSb (Norsk Sjakkblad – Norwegian Chess Magazine) crosses its fingers hoping the opponents will show their deep understanding during the finishing stage. Ivar has done his part of the job (only one drawish game remains). The holes in the tournament table will hopefully soon be filled through resigned and drawn games. In what other forms of competition do you have to wait several years before uncorking the champagne?

ICCF Congresses are often quite eventful – this year, the journey to the Congress was very eventful! In my case, Iberia Airlines messed up and I had unscheduled overnight stops in both Madrid and Buenos Aires, arriving at Bariloche airport some 53 hours after leaving Edinburgh and a full 24 hours behind schedule, thoroughly exhausted and quite dispirited. However, I was very pleased to meet up with two old friends, Antonio Moura from Portugal and Armando Perez Perez from Cuba. Antonio had been immensely helpful to my wife and I when we’d first met at the Congress held in Portugal in 2002 – again, he was to be immensely helpful, negotiating (in Spanish) the arrangements for the car transport for the 50 miles or so journey to our hotel in Villa La Angostura. On arrival, I soon realised that I had been less unfortunate than first thought – my friend and fellow Scottish CCA representative, ICCF Honorary President Alan Borwell didn’t make it all having been badly let down in Paris by Air France. ICCF Presidential candidate Med Samraoui was similarly unfortunate and also didn’t make it to the Congress.

Villa La Angostura is a small town of some 10,000 inhabitants situated, about 800 miles south from Buenos Aires, in the south-west corner of Neuquén, a province of Patagonia, one of Argentina’s largest regions. Situated in the foothills of the Andes Mountains, Villa La Angostura is a ski resort with many excellent facilities for visitors. The area’s truly spectacular scenery of snow-capped mountains, numerous lakes and woodlands attracts huge numbers of visitors all year round. A total of 35 officials, delegates and delegation members, unfortunately considerably lower than in previous years, along with some 15 family members attended the Congress and everyone greatly appreciated the warm and friendly hospitality of the Argentinean hosts. The Congress was arranged and hosted by the Liga Argentina de Ajedrez por Correspondencia (LADAC) and its President Carlos Cranbourne, and the hotel facilities and hospitality offered by LADAC were acclaimed by everyone.

The Congress commenced on schedule on the Sunday morning and after the now customary musical introduction, provided on this occasion by a local Argentine musical duo, playing self-made Argentine musical instruments, we had opening speeches by Max Zavanelli (on behalf of ICCF) and Carlos Cranbourne and Claudio Goncalves (LADAC Argentina). Former ICCF President Josef Mrkvicka also addressed the Congress, outlining progress made since our last meeting in Mumbai, India prior to his unfortunate and untimely resignation in January 2005. Max paid tribute to the memories of all CC friends who had passed away since the Mumbai 2004, including the CC Grandmaster Simon Webb (ENG), long-serving ICCF Tournament Director Harro Otte (GER), Vaclav Rut (CZE), Alvaro Rosa (POR), Giancarlo de Lorenzo (ITA), Alberto Laurencena (ARG) and delegate and Senior International Master Ilja Hristov (BUL). Delegates stood in two minutes silence to the memory of all departed CC friends.

Thereafter, it was down to business with membership matters with Congress approving a 65th member of the ICCF family - Burkino Faso. Next, Max presided over the award of Bertl von Massow Medals - Gold & Silver were awarded to Santiago Cardoso (MEX), Joachim Walther (GER), Jorge Deforel (ARG) and Silver Medals to Dimitry Lybin (BLR), Egbert Boesenberg (GER), Daniel Finkelstein (ARG), Guido Bresadola (ITA), Thed Klauner and Francois Riva (both LUX).

Thereafter, North American and Pacific Zonal Director, Ruth Ann Fay, assisted by Max, presented a report on ICCF´s finances. Following the resignation in September of the Finance Director, Grayling Hill, Ruth Ann had had the unenviable task of taking over control of ICCF´s finances and had put in much hard work in order to be able to present a Report to the Congress. Audited accounts to 31-12-03 showed Net Assets of SF 189,032 with surplus for year of just over SF 8,000 whilst unaudited accounts for year to 31-12-04 not showed net assets reduced to SF 140,196 following server expenditure of SF 101,162 and sale of some of ICCF´s stocks investments. General expenditure for 2004 was SF 30,482 with income of SF 54,490 The remaining ICCF investments had performed excellently and made up the overall deficit after including server expenditure. Additionally, estimate figures for period to 30-09-05 showed net assets of SF 122,166 - note that accounts for 2004 and 2005 are still subject to audit.

The next task for the Congress was to fill the numerous vacancies on the Executive board and in other areas. Firstly Congress was delighted to approve the nominations of Frank Geider (FRA) and Michael Millstone (USA) to the posts of World Tournaments Director and Direct Entry Coordinator respectively. Next, Congress approved the nomination of George Pyrich (SCO to the position of ICCF Archivist, taking over from Wes Green (USA) who had announced his wish to retire. George is to work in partnership with postal game score archivist Laurent Tinture (FRA). We then held the vote for the vacant position of ICCF President with, to wide acclaim, Med Samraoui emerging victorious over Claudio Goncalves by 37 votes to 18. However, we weren’t yet finished, then approving the appointments of Michael Millstone and Claudio Goncalves to the positions of Finance Director and Marketing Commissioner respectively.

Next, Membership and Services Director (also acting World Tournament Director, amongst several other roles!) Pedro Hegoburu (ARG) gave a really excellent and well-informed and researched report from the Tournaments Commission with recommendations (approved later by the Congress) of the introduction of new 4th stage to the ICCF World Championship cycle (Preliminary sections, a new 1st stage for those without pre-qualifications to Semi-finals and further stages), approval of minimum categories for semi-finals and Candidates (7 & 10 respectively), revised qualifications for the award of the International Arbiter title and also changes to rules in team events whereby substitute players may have games rated and qualify for title norms (under certain conditions). Obviously, there was a good deal of discussion on all of this!

The day ended with another excellent presentation - this time, in the absence of Alan Borwell, by Nol van ´t Riet (NED) on the work of the Server Group over the year and its plans for the coming year (Phase 3). Nol offered detailed technical information and requested approval for expenditure of SF 10,000, sum estimated by server group as requirement for Phase 3 - of course, the Congress was happy to agree to this! Nol said that we could expect to be asked to approve additions and refinements each year from now on as we continually sought to further develop the server.

Day two witnessed discussions on the work of the President’s Commission and ICCF Statutes, ICCF Archives, Webmaster and Internet matters, Marketing and Publications and, finally, Title Qualifications. We began with a rather lively discussion on proposals submitted by the Presidents Commission regarding changes to the ICCF Statutes with regard to the arrangements for possible Emergency Congresses and contingencies in case of an unexpected resignation of the ICCF President (as had occurred, of course, during the year) which were eventually approved.

The Congress was pleased to note that Webmaster Evelin Radosztics planned an almost complete revamp of the ICCF web site and that possibly we’ll have cross-tables which link directly to the server. We were also provided with confirmation that Michele Rinesi (ITA) had taken over responsibility for web tables from Luz Marina Tinjaca’ (ITA) and that Raymond Boger (NOR) had succeeded Alex Dunne (USA) as editor of the “ICCF Amici” web magazine. Next, Nol van ‘t Riet (NED) presented a very interesting Marketing & Publications Report on behalf of the absent Med Samraoui. Amongst many interesting developments are plans by Fritz Baumbach and Vytas Palciauskas to produce a book on the World Champions Jubilee event with biographical details and games by all the deceased world champions as well as the annotated games of the event and another new section on the new world champions crowned since the event started. We also heard from Pedro Hegoburu of plans (since implemented!) to offer promotional unrated 2 game matches free of charge to any player in order for them to try out play on the new ICCF server.

Thereafter, Qualifications Commissioner Eric Ruch (FRA) presented his now customary excellent Report, confirming the qualifications of 17 new Grandmasters, 57 new Senior International Masters, 43 new International Masters, 8 new Lady Grandmasters, 1 new Lady International Master and 6 new International Arbiters. Eric’s Report also listed title norms for the numerous new individual, team, zonal and invitation tournaments which had started during the year, together with changes to norms which had been established previously.

Congress then granted approval to proposals for numerous proposed new invitational events including some interesting promotional events to be played on the server.

Tuesday started with the presentation of awards and titles. Awards were presented to the delegates of Netherlands and Italy in respect of new World Champions Joop van Oosterom and Alessandra Riegler. Angel Acevedo (PER) and Marcio Barboso Oliviera (BRS) were on hand to pick their Grandmaster awards and Fritz Baumbach picked up the Gold Medals for Germany in the 14th Olympiad. Lithuania took 2nd place here but Gold in the 6th Ladies Olympiad. Argentina I and II took Gold and Silver in the 7th PANAM team’s event with Mexico getting Bronze. Reports were presented by or on behalf of the various Zonal Presidents and happily each were able to report on satisfactory progress during the previous year.

The new delegate for the Czech Republic, Petr Buchnicek was on hand to announce an over the board tournament for correspondence chess players to be held at the Silesian University, Karvina, Czech Republic in July 2006. It will be an authentic FIDE rated event with a substantial prize fund.

The big news of the day was that an email was received from our new President, Med Samraoui, confirming the participation of an ICCF team in the Torino Olympiad! - Med had attended the FIDE Congress in Dresden earlier in the year and it seems that his lobbying on our behalf brought forth a suitable reward!

The day ended with a lengthy discussion of the Playing Rules or more specifically items such as "dead man’s defence" and the 40 day clause - the end result was the passing of a resolution (by 25 votes to 19 with 3 abstentions) to have a revised time limit of 10 moves in 50 days by 1 January 2006. Congress also approved revised Rules and Guidelines with regard to adjudications.

The last day started with discussion of the ICCF events calendar and saw Congress approve Pedro´s plan that (by and large) ICCF events should start during even-numbered years whilst Zonal events would be given priority during odd-numbered years. Thereafter, we gave formal approval to changes to the Tournament Rules with regard to International Arbiter Qualification, qualification to the World Ch. Cycle from events such World Cups and Zonal events, Substitutions in Team events. Unfortunately the Ratings Commissioner Gerhard Binder (GER) was unable to attend - nevertheless we all congratulated him (again!) on his really excellent work and approved his plans to have ratings for all events transferred (in stages) to the server by 2007. Thereafter the Congress approved Ruth Ann Fay’s presentation of an "Arbiter’s Manual" and also the formation of an "Arbiters Committee" (to be chaired by former Deputy President Ragnar Wikman (FIN)).

More details of the Torino Olympiad emerged - ICCF will pay for players' bed and board at the Olympic Village but players will have to fund their own travel there. Each member federation will be invited to submit 2 nominations for consideration for selection and the Executive Board will then select the team of 6 with 2 reserves. Possibly not all the selection criteria will be entirely objective as the Executive Board will likely seek to select those who will prove to be "good ambassadors" for ICCF. Torino resident, Gian-Maria Tani (ITA) will be invited to serve as Team Captain.

Finally, Congress approved Dresden, Germany as the venue for the 2006 Congress whilst an application from the Spanish Federation for the 2007 event was also approved. Congress also approved that our friends from Finland should host the 2011 event as they celebrate their 50th anniversary that year.

All in all, I consider that this was satisfactory Congress with a number of worthwhile accomplishments, particularly with regard to the reorganisation of the World Championship cycle and the introduction of new rules with regard to adjudications and time controls. However, it wasn’t hard work all the time and the Congress participants enjoyed a number of more leisurely activities. The traditional blitz tournament was won by the oldest participant, former ICCF World Champion Fritz Baumbach (GER) and everyone greatly enjoyed a day’s excursion to Bariloche following the end of the Congress.

1. 
   What is your background with ICCF? What volunteer work have you done for ICCF in the past? What are your goals as a player? I understand you will be playing in an upcoming Olympiad on the USA team.
   

When I started playing correspondence chess some 25 years ago, my goals were to achieve an IM title. I received that in 2003. At this year's Congress, when I was introduced to George Pyrich, it was explained to me that he was instrumental in the creation of the SIM Title. I jokingly cursed him for that. Let me explain - having achieved my lifetime goal of IM, I figured I could sit back, relax, and truly enjoy my chess games without worrying about achieving norms and titles. There is no chance I would ever get close to a GM title, so I was in a comfort zone. Now the SIM title was created and there may be a possibility …. ever so small, but now it is back to the grindstone. I do have one SIM norm and am struggling to get the last point I need in Chessfriends Rochade 5171 - 15th Year Anniversary http://www.rochade5171.org/jubi/turnier.htm. Unfortunately, my last two opponents are incredibly strong. One of them, Angel Acevedo was awarded the Grandmaster Title at this year's Congress and has a slightly superior position. I was pleased to be on hand for his award and congratulate him warmly. I considered the DMD, but he appears very fit and I feel I would fall first.

Perhaps it is just me, but I am still humbled to be in the company of Grandmasters - their accomplishments are quite inspiring. Maybe it takes another 25 years to get a SIM Title, maybe with all my new duties, I'll never achieve it - but the journey is worthwhile.

I was honored to play in my first Olympiad (OLYMPIAD XV - Preliminaries - Section 2) for the U.S. and am looking forward to joining with fellow teammates in this year's 17th. I love the notion of team competition and welcome the opportunity to joust with fellow chess players.

2. 
   What is your personal situation, i.e. what is your job, age, marital status, where do you live, anything special you can tell us to give us a better understanding of just who Michael Millstone is and what kind of a guy is he?
   

All I ever wanted to do was fly airplanes. All the money I earned from odd jobs while growing up went towards flying lessons. On my 18th birthday, I took the examinations for Commercial Pilot with single, multi-engine, instrument, and instructor endorsements. My intentions were to fly for the airlines. Unfortunately, a small medical setback prevented me from being granted the top medical certificate needed and I was forced to redirect my career.

Still wanting to be around airplanes, I enlisted in the United States Air Force, where for my entire career (until retirement), I was involved in Space and Satellite Systems (think of satellites as airplanes flying really high and fast).

The Air Force was wonderful, taking me all over the world on business and pleasure. I have had the opportunity to live and work on 6 of the world's seven continents and if Dinand starts to do some real work, perhaps I'll get my 7th. Personal note: I met Dinand Knol at this year's congress and am grateful for all his patience and education he provided me. In turn, he got to call home (al la ET) and chat with his family using my satellite phone.

Anyhow, after I retied from the Air Force I continued with various positions also in the Space and Satellite career field with one brief stint outside the norm - I like to call it a "Career Sabbatical."

After the dot com crash in the late 1990s, my wife and I moved to Las Vegas where I took up several positions in the casino industry - finally ending up as a casino supervisor. I was always fascinated with the industry and wanted to learn it firsthand - from the inside. A truly invigorating experience, but also with its downfalls, so after three years I returned to my original career field and a position in Virginia.

While at Congress, I found out my wife had just purchased a house for us in Leesburg, Virginia (about 50 km northwest of Washington D.C.). So, for as long as we are here, if you are traveling through the Washington D.C. area, please look us up. I am a BBQ fanatic and have an oversized BBQ that is usually on at least 6 days a week, rain, snow, or shine.

My wife Debbie and I have been married for 15 wonderful years next June. We both enjoy reading, and traveling, listening to music, and many sports. In the past, we were both addicted to Volksmarching and while living in Germany we really took advantage of the many events and walked lots. Most weekends, I would usually walk one or two marathons (52km) and was really getting into shape. Sadly, there are not as many events in the U.S. and I have a list of excuses that prevent me from enjoying this sport more.

3. 
   What is your background and experience that qualifies you for the work of a Financial Director? Do you have educational and/or work experience in this area?
   

Experience wise - perhaps less since my chosen career field isn't necessarily aligned with accounting and finance. However, as a manager for more than 15 years, I have supervised many sections and work groups including financial planning and budget responsibilities. In two different companies, I have had sole responsibility and authority for annual working budgets of over $1 million (USD).

4. 
   You have taken the additional position as Direct Entry coordinator. John Knudsen has described this as a full-time job. Do you anticipate being able to perform both jobs, or will you be recruiting additional people to help you? I believe John is already acting as a consultant, based on his work as the former DE director, but perhaps you have other people also lined up to help.
   

I view the DE program as one of the major responsibilities of the Finance Director (FD) and how it is ultimately setup and managed will certainly be my responsibility. John has done an incredible amount of work and has provided me excellent opinions and recommendations. John and I have spoken several times and it will be his decision how and to what extent (if any) he wants to continue in the future. John is an example of one of the many tireless volunteers who has given more than expected to make ICCF function as great as it does.

I have already had some excellent qualified people volunteer to help and shortly I'll be forming a DE working group to implement the DE program. My thinking is that some (many) of the things that John was having to do manually could be integrated into the web pages and performed automatically. Along with that, I've been actively searching for reasonable payment systems and am meeting with several bank managers to look into merchant accounts and explore payment methods in multiple currencies.

Another idea I'm toying with (and will be running this by the Marketing and Public Relations Commissioner) is possibly tying some elements of the DE program into both offices. Since we are targeting new members, perhaps we can do more than facilitate their entry into a couple of tournaments. We want them involved in more tournaments and to get affiliated with their National Federations. Perhaps a periodic automatically generated e-mail from the President or National federation thanking them for participating and offering suggestions and directions for joining or future participation. Just some random thoughts on the long flight home.

5. 
   How did you get involved with Ruth Ann and the financial work you did for ICCF before Congress?
   

When John announced his resignation from the DE position, I thought this might be an excellent opportunity to step up even more. I expressed my desire at first as a Direct Entry Assistant with the caveat that if anyone else was interested in the position, I would gladly assist him or her. Ruth Ann accepted my offer and told me she would relay that to the EB. In the meantime, she began sending me some general and background information so I could be more prepared for the duties.

6. 
   Apparently you were not nominated for office, but given the lack of candidates you stepped forward and volunteered during Congress. Can you give us the real story of what happened? Why did you decide to commit yourself to such an important and time-consuming job? I've heard conflicting reports about whether or not you had already volunteered for the job before Congress started.
   

In late summer, I guess Ruth Ann realized that the finances weren't going to get finalized for Congress so she started to delve into the matters of collecting, preparing, and transitioning all the books to the new FD. By the time nominations were due and nobody had volunteered, panic started to slowly set in. That was when Ruth Ann suggested I should consider attending Congress.

So I started to do the research and as many of you realized, this was no easy trip to plan. Although I must say that the organizers did a great job of attending to many of the transportation and logistics details - making the journey much smoother.

My initial intentions were to attend, meet and interface with as many people as possible. By attending, this would allow me to evaluate the DE position better and understand the expectations of the Member Federations. Never did I think for one moment that no one would step up to assume the responsibility of such an important position of Finance Director.

Little did I know that if nobody volunteers, the EB can nominate anybody. I had toyed with the idea and briefly discussed the possibility with several delegates including Ruth Ann and Max, I never considered the remaining sequence of events possible. Thomas Edison was once quoted, "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." And here it was staring me in the face.

Max submitted my nomination, I was asked to provide a verbal CV which I did, then the delegates voted and I was chosen. From my perspective, the entire process was over in about 3 nanoseconds. And while there was some consternation later from some people, my view is twofold: 1) Ruth Ann has (and still is) performing a tremendous and time-consuming service of retrieving and recreating the books to have financial reports in time for Congress. No one asked her to do this and her acknowledgement of the problem and selfless devotion to ICCF to fix the situation is even more admirable. Add to this that her duties as NAPZ Zonal Director and it becomes almost overwhelming. 2) I didn't notice anybody stepping up to the plate (an old American baseball saying) to assist Ruth Ann and I didn't see any nominations for FD. Since I couldn't do the DE job effectively without direction and input from the FD, and no one wanted the position … and here we are today.

7. 
   I was excited to see that you actually attended Congress this year. This indicates a high level of interest and commitment to the future of ICCF, given the time and money you spent to be there. Why did you go all the way to Argentina to attend this Congress? Was this your first Congress?
   

8. 
   Though I'm sure there is still much work to do, what are your preliminary conclusions about the financial status of ICCF?
   

This might be a good place to provide my business sense and rough plans of conducting business. I am going to run this office very much like a business, mindful of costs and efficiencies with two basic premises: 1) I am very process oriented - meaning that I don't like a lot of ad hoc process and procedures. I (and the various groups I form) will define and implement processes for most (if not all) things we do. This allows for consistency in execution, accurate measurements, and visibility into activities. As I'm a big proponent of continuous improvement, having sound processes in place allows improvements to happen. Plus, it also allows for a smoother or seamless transition when officials change. 2) Customer focused - from my position I recognize three customers - a) first is my boss, Med. Med needs to have the vision and provide the direction. My responsibility is to follow his lead, provide him with all the necessary information for him to do his job successfully, and basically, make him look good, b) The Executive Board. The EB provides focus and oversight. From my perspective, nothing I do should be invisible to the EB, and c) The Member Federations (through their appointed delegates) - my real customers.

To me, communications is one of the most vital elements of success in this type of organization. To that effect, I'm working on a comprehensive communication plan that will address the following four parts:

• 
  What information should be disclosed?
  
• 
  Who receives this information?
  
• 
  How often?
  
• 
  Via what method?
  

9. 
   I'm not clear on the purpose of auditing the annual financial reports. Could you clarify what this process is and how it affects your work?
   

I will be reviewing the current audit procedures and will provide any recommendations for improvement to the EB. I'm also considering the establishment of a financial investment committee under the FD office to separately evaluate, recommend, and measure investment performance of ICCF funds.

10. 
    Do you have any final words for the readers who are anxious to learn something about you?