Proposed Correspondence Chess Rule

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Every single game in the tournament was a draw, except for those played by GM Dronov, who died after he had drawn 6 of his games. The remaining 10 games were recorded as wins for his opponents, which meant they all became joint World Champions."

That seems to be a change of policy, as they used to adjudicate games where they knew the player died. In team events, you just put a substitute in, but the games are not rated for the substitute (as he or she could inherit a horrible position). Even the world championship doesn't take long these days, as you play electronically. When it was really postal, sometimes it took months for moves to travel to and from the Soviet bloc e.g. People rarely played successive world championships, as they were just coming out of the opening when the next one started three years later.

I just started an event, where I suspect there will be a lot of draws, due to a rating spread of 2389-2352! https://www.iccf.com/event?id=114361

One opponent is aged in his 80s, so I hope everyone manages to finish the event. This has an interesting tie-break. From move 10 to 40, it is compulsory to offer a conditional move. E.g. (and I won't wait 10 moves for the example), 1.e4 c5, 2.Nf3 d6, 3.d4 cxd4, you can add, "if 4.Nxd4 Nf6". Conditional moves weren't used much in Postal, as it gave away what you were thinking, but electronically, you don't know what the conditional is... Someone guessing 301 moves by opponents, would finish higher than a tying player only guessing 300 right. Older readers might be interested to see Eric Moskow in action.

[JustinHorton]

I assume there is an exception for checkmate and stalemate

[Alex Holowczak]

I assume there is an exception for checkmate and stalemate

Well it can't be checkmate: that means it wouldn't be a draw