WCCT Rules

WORLD CHESS COMPOSITION TOURNAMENT (WCCT)

General Rules

The General Rules were accepted at Pula in September 1972 by the Permanent Commission of the FIDE for Chess Composition (PCCC) and modified and added to in September 1978 in Canterbury, in August 1984 in Sarajevo, in September 1990 in Benidorm, in August 1991 in Rotterdam and in August/September 1993 in Bratislava. Further amendments have been made in the light of changes approved at Pula 2000, Wageningen 2001, Eretria 2005, Crete 2010 and Bern 2014 (by the World Federation for Chess Composition, the follow-up organisation of the PCCC).

  1. The WCCT (World Chess Composition Tournament) is organised with the authority of the WFCC.
  2. The WCCT is open to all member federations of the FIDE (hereinafter called “participating countries”). The member federations of the FIDE are to be given adequate opportunity to notify in advance their intention to participate.
  3. The WCCT includes the following sections: A) Twomovers, B) Threemovers, C) Moremovers, D) Endgame studies, E) Helpmates, F) Selfmates, G) Fairies, H) Retros.
  4. The WFCC regulates the procedure for proposing and selecting themes, approves the procedure to be used for judging and appoints the Tournament Director (hereinafter called “Director”). The final choice of themes and of countries to be asked to judge each section (hereinafter called “judging countries”) lies with the WFCC.
  5. Constructional tasks and any theme stipulating a limit to the number of pieces should be avoided. In the orthodox sections (A-F), compositions in twin or duplex form and/or with more than one solution are acceptable only if so specified in the definitions of the prescribed themes. Promoted pieces in the diagram position are allowed only if they are substitutes for captured pieces of the same type. It should be noted that a King’s Bishop cannot be a substitute for a Queen’s Bishop or vice versa. In section G, fairy pieces or fairy conditions which do not exactly correspond with the theme definitions will not be accepted.
  6. A dated announcement of the WCCT will be made, setting out the rules and providing theme definitions with diagrammed illustrations. There should be at least 10 months between the date of the announcement and the closing date for entries. The closing date is to be stated precisely in the announcement and cannot be changed.
  7. The official documents (announcement and award) are to be written in at least one of the official languages of the FIDE. (See Annex)
  8. Each participating country appoints a team leader. The Director cannot act as a team leader.
  9. The organising country may participate in the WCCT provided that its entries are sent in a sealed form by the team leader to the appointed WFCC Presidium member two weeks before the closing date. (See Annex)
  10. Three compositions in each of the eight sections are allowed from each participating country. Any one composer may participate with three compositions in each section. Joint compositions are permitted. (See Annex)
  11. Entries are to be submitted on uniform diagrams with the section, the composer’s name and country, and the full solution all clearly written on the same page. Algebraic notation is to be used. (See Annex)
  12. The entries are to be acknowledged by the Director, who will compile them into a document with diagrams and full solutions, but without composers’ names or countries. Each diagram will bear a number for reference purposes. The document will be sent to the team leaders for checking, and the Director must be informed within three months about any misprints or claims of anticipation or unsoundness. (See Annex)
  13. The Director will inform all judging countries and team leaders of any misprints, any entries deemed to be unsound, and any claims of anticipation, so that six weeks may be given for checking these claims.
  14. Using a scale of 0 to 4 with the step of 0.2 points, each judging country will allocate points to all compositions in the section which it has agreed to judge, except for the entries of the judging country itself. Compositions which are sound, thematic and not anticipated should receive at least 0.2 points. The judging countries must explain their reason(s) for giving a score of 0 points to any composition. Comments on all compositions are welcome and are strongly recommended in the case of those with a score of 2.6 points or more. (See Annex)
  15. If a judging country does not make its award by the date prescribed in the Tournament schedule, or in the case of other irregularities, the Director may appoint some other judging country, making use in the first instance of the list of reserves drawn up by the WCCT Committee. The WFCC Presidium shall be informed.
  16. The Director will calculate the total points gained by each composition. If a composition has been judged by five judging countries, the Director discards the highest and the lowest marks and sums the remaining three. In calculating the score of the entries of judging countries in the section(s) that the countries are judging, the highest and lowest marks will be discarded and the score will be 1.5 times the sum of the two middle marks. If a composition has received a zero mark from two or more judging countries, it is excluded from the tournament and receives no points.
  17. The Director will order the entries in each section on the basis of their score. In each section, only the two highest-placed entries from each participating country will be taken into consideration in calculating the country’s tournament score. The overall winner of the Tournament is the country with the highest total score from seven best sections out of eight for this country.
  18. In each section the twenty highest-placed problems (hereinafter called the “top 20”) will be printed on diagrams with full solutions in the final awards document. If several entries are ranked equally and share the 20th place, all of them will be printed on diagrams. If the third-placed entry of any country belongs to the “top 20” list, it will be printed in the final awards document, even though it does not contribute to that country’s score. (See Annex)
  19. In each section the entries scoring points for a participating country, but not belonging to the “top 20” list, will be mentioned in the final awards document only by means of their reference number, composer and country names, score and place. These compositions are to be considered as published. Any unpublished entries will be available to their composers for publication elsewhere, once the final awards document has appeared.
  20. The final awards document will be made available to every participating country and composer.
  21. The three countries with the highest total scores and the composers of the three highest-placed entries in each section will be awarded certificates of honour.

Annex to WCCT General Rules

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