European Individual Championship 2006 - Message from the ACP Board

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European Individual Championship 2006 - Message from the ACP Board

Dear ECU Board Members, ACP Members,

Following the numerous questions we received lately, we would like to clarify our position concerning the European Individual Championship, which will start in less than a month in Kusadasi.

The main problem obviously concerns the fact that participants will have to stay, once again, in the official hotel appointed by the organizer, the TCF (Turkish Chess Federation). You certainly remember that the ACP managed to cancel this rule from the ECU Tournament Regulations. However, the 2006 edition of the European Individual Championship is not subject to this modification, because the organization of this event was awarded to the TCF before the decision to cancel the "official hotel rule" was taken by the ECU Board. It is, thus, understandable that the new rule could not be applied retroactively. This year's Championship is the last where the old rule is valid.

Several people seem concerned as well by the raise of qualification places to the World Cup. Compared with the 2004 edition, Kusadasi offers some more places, whereas the prize fund remains nearly the same. The ACP Board does not see any reason to criticize such a decision by the ECU. Nevertheless, we would like the ECU Board to try and work out a clear system of qualification places for the future. An idea could be to establish a mathematical relation between the number of qualification spots and the prize fund. The number of qualification places for each European Championship of a two-year cycle would be determined on percentage by the size of the prize fund of each championship. To make this more understandable, let's imagine that the total prize fund for both European championships of a two-year cycle amounts to 10, while there are 20 qualification places available for the same cycle. If the first championship takes 3 of the total prize fund, there should be 6 qualification places. Which leaves the championship of the second year with 7 of the prize fund and 14 qualification spots.

Even though this system looks logical, it is certainly not the only solution. We'll be glad to examine alternatives suggested by the ECU Board.

ACP Board
10th of March 2006