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Friday, November 18, 2011

How to Win the World Correspondence Title

No, I’m not going to tell you how, but  Victor Palciauskas does a good job telling us how he won the 10th World CC title back in 1984.  The article is 9 pages long as Palciauskas describes every step along the way and annotates several of his more interesting games.

Besides being very strong you have to have a LOT of patience because the journey started in 1970 and by 1982 he was sure he would win, but it took another two years for his victory to become official.

There was even some skullduggery in the last round.  The ultimate 2nd place finisher, Juan Morgado of Argentina was playing his remaining game against the former World Champ Estrin.  It was a complex game and Morgado had the worst of it.  So he decided his best chance lay in filing a claim with the tournament director claiming Estrin exceeded the time limit twice, thus forfeiting the game. This claim was disputed by Estrin. Morgado's motivation was that in the event that his claim is upheld by the ICCF and Palciauskas  lost against Sanakoev, they would be tied with Morgado winning on tiebreaks.

The ICCF denied Morgado's claim so Morgado wrote Palciauskas requesting to be sent his game score with Sanakoev.  After reviewing the game Morgado determined Palciauskas was unlikely to lose, so he dropped the issue. His game with Estrin continued, eventually ending in a draw.

The site also includes a crosstable with all the games from the event. LINK

Here’s a miniature (!!) from the event.

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