ICCF (see their website) is an official international correspondence-chess organisation. Its role can be compared to the role FIDE fulfils for over the board chess - ICCF organises the official world championship, grants official titles and publishes official rating lists.
It is possible to play ICCF games using the SchemingMind interface.
How does it work
SchemingMind is just an alternative interface to the same ICCF games server. In particular, once you configure SchemingMind to access your ICCF account:
- you see exactly the same games (and positions) whether you use the SchemingMind ICCF games page, or the standard ICCF website,
- you are free to make moves using any of those interfaces, at your wish (you can even make odd moves from SchemingMind and even moves from the ICCF website if you like so), even while playing from SchemingMind, you still get ICCF email notifications.
SchemingMind just displays your normal ICCF games and lets you make moves in them. Your ICCF opponents won't even know that you are playing from SchemingMind. And SchemingMind does not even save those games.
Technically, SchemingMind just works as Xfcc client to the ICCF server.
Normal SchemingMind games are not ICCF rated (in general ICCF shows no interest in rating any games except those played on their server).
Creating ICCF account
Unless you already have your ICCF account, you must create one using ICCF website.
Most ICCF tournaments require entry fee, to learn the system you may consider playing freely available unrated 2-game match. To start it, visit the ICCF website, pick New events from the menu, locate Free unrated 2-game matches in the table and click Enter. You will be guided through the registration.
Note that ICCF uses your real name to track your games and rating, one can not play anonymously there.
Configuring SchemingMind to access your ICCF account
To access ICCF server from SchemingMind do the following:
enter your ICCF ID (obtained as above) on the Chess Identity tab of your profile, enter also your real name there (unless you already did it).
You are free to decide whether to show those data to other players, or not, necessary checkboxes are on the same screen. If you uncheck both, your data will be registered by the system, but won't be shown to other SchemingMind players.
It is possible to find the player name once one knows the ICCF ID. Therefore if you prefer to stay anonymous on SchemingMind, keep both real name and ICCF ID private. Also note, that your ICCF opponents will know your true name, but will not know your SchemingMind nickname.
After submitting those data, wait a day or two for those being confirmed by the site administrator. You may check whether they were verified by looking at the same screen, once confirmed, the corresponding fields are greyed out and the text confirmed is shown below them.
Then visit the ICCF games screen (My Games/My ICCF games). While doing it for the first time, you will be prompted for your ICCF password. It is the same password you use to login directly to ICCF WebChess. Enter it and submit the form. You will see your ICCF games list.
Entering your password means a trust, do it only if you trust SchemingMind administrator. Unfortunately the underlying protocol requires knowledge of this password.
The password will be saved by the system, so you won't need to re-enter it (unless you change it on the ICCF site).
Would you want to remove the password, there is a link which does that on the bottom of My ICCF games screen.
Playing ICCF games
Your ICCF games are shown on the dedicated ICCF games screen (My Games/My ICCF games). The screen is very similar to your normal games list, and works in the same way.
When you click some game, you get it displayed on usual board screen. You get the same pieces, the same buttons, the same analysis board etc. There are only two minor differences:
- it is not possible to add a comment without making a move,
- messages are not displayed.
Unfortunately we can only display information which is sent by the ICCF server over the Xfcc protocol.
Entering ICCF tournaments
It is not possible to enter ICCF tournament directly from SchemingMind. Visit the ICCF website, login there, review New events list, pick the event you want to play, click Enter and perform the registration.
You may be offered a choice whether to register by direct entry, or by national federation. The former means immediate registration with payment issued using credit card. The latter means messaging your national federation delegate who will contact you by email to arrange the payment details (bank transfers are frequently used). The price is roughly the same whichever method you use. In some cases (depending on your nationality and whether you played ICCF tournaments in the past) you may be forced to register via national federation (this is mostly political issue, national federations keep some part of registration fee).
Once the games are created, you will see them.
Note: for the obvious reasons SchemingMind handles only the tournaments denoted as played on 'Webserver'. If you enter postal or email tournament, you are still expected to use postcards or email messages to play them.
ICCF tournaments cost
Most ICCF tournaments require an entry fee. The fee vary but is typically a few Euros for entry level tournaments.
Entry to two or three ICCF tournament (6 games) costs about as much as yearly full membership on SchemingMind (unlimited games and tournaments).
SchemingMind interface limitations
SchemingMind may be only used to play the games. To enter the tournaments, contact tournament directors, view crosstables, check rating lists, change password etc you must still use the ICCF website.
In particular you must visit the ICCF site to make claims and to book holidays (which is unrelated to SchemingMind vacation and generally booked separately for every tournament you play in).
You may happen to be asked for your ICCF password while visiting your ICCF games screen. If you did not change the password, most likely reason is that the ICCF website is down or overloaded. Just wait a few minutes and retry.
Additional remarks
Using computer assistance during play is legal (and standard) while playing ICCF tournaments. You are free to decide how to play, but in most cases you may expect your opponents to use such a help.
ICCF uses its own time controls (usually slower than those used on SchemingMind) and the time is tracked by their server. SchemingMind just shows the current clock state according to the data loaded from ICCF server.