Helmut Froeyman (°24/3/1976) Helmut is by far the strongest of
us all, as well OTB as in cr play. He works and lives in Antwerp and is member
of three OTB chess clubs: Torrewachters Roeselare, Deurne and in 2003-04 and 2004-05, Lille (France).
His Belgian OTB rating is 2312 (2317 FIDE) and his ICCF rating (2446).
In correspondence, he puts a big amount of work in his games, which pays off, as
you can read in CCNews n°87, where he annotates his game against Bouverot
(EUM1280). Helmut started playing cr since 1998. His first cc-experience he
gained by taking over four games from a player who could not proceed. He got 4/4
from those games and then competed in a Belgian expert tournament (E057), which
he duly won with 3,5/4 thanks to a victory on cr IM Frans Huybrechts. Not
finding enough competition in the Belgian cr scene, he went European. He won
EU/M/1234 unbeaten (5,5/6); one of his victories was against the Russian +2500
player Alexander Dushin. His last tournament was EU/M/1280, which he
also won with the score of 9/10 (it was in this tournament in which he won his
complex game against French IM Olivier Bouverot 2550). In 2002-2004 he has taken
a little break from cr, aiming for the Fide master title in OTB chess.
After his splendid result in the open of Le Touquet 2003, he broke the 2300 barrier and obtained his FIDE-master title.
In the French team competition (2003-2004), he scored his first victory over an IGM and won some extra elo-points.
In the open of Plancoėt 2004, he was first Belgian, even after a last round loss on board one against the winner.
Later accomplishments include very good performances in the Belgian team competition in the season 2004-2005. Deurne promoted to the first division, a title which was for a big part due to his good score.
His tournament record: EUM1234 : 5.5/6 (1st) EUM1280 : 9/10 (1st) Yves Surmont (°27/9/1968) Well, what can I tell you about myself? You'll find some info on the other pages of this site, which reflect
some of my background. I learned chess quite late (I was 17 when I walked into a chess club for the first time: the Torrewachters Roeselare - the name means: "Guardians of the Tower") and CR even later (just B4 2000).
With a wife and two kiddies and a pretty busy job, I can't spend the time I would like on chess in general, which is why I decided to play less OTB and a little more CR.
Normally I try to play just one tournament at the time, but recently my planning has gone astray and right now I'm competing in something like four "big" tournaments... (sigh)
I still consider my correspondence career to be in the startup phase, which means, that I'm trying openings (my otb repertoire or not?), different approaches and so on. Begin 2005 my ICCF rating was 2383 - and I'm a little bit proud of that :-).
Recently I joined IECG, just to meet different opponents and to try more openings. I'm not sure if this is going to work, because with two kids...
Now I'm trying to slow down my cr chess. First big goal is to get 2100 Belgian elo points again. A goal not too distant, if I only could refrain myself from playing bad moves... ;-)
Current ICCF-rating: 2416; Belgian cr-rating: 2348 (2389).
Belgian tournament links & results
Most of them are listed on the nice site of the "Belgian Chess Board", the Belgian Correspondence Chess
Federation.
Nevertheless, I don't want you to search too much for my results, so I give them here anyway: Belgian national
email ch 2000: 10/11 (1st) Belgian national
email ch 2002: 5.5/12 (8th=) Belgian national
email ch 2003: 6.5/9 (2nd) Belgian knock
out tourney 3 (2001): eliminated in the 1/2 finals with 1/2 Belgian knock
out tourney 4 (2002): eliminated in the 1/2 finals with 0,5/2
International tournament links & results Interland Belgium - The Netherlands: 2/4 on board 9 & 10 ICCF Email Jubilee Email Open 1st round Poule 193: 8/10 (2nd=) ICCF Email World Cup 13 1st round: 6/9 (3rd) ICCF Email Open Group 128: 4.5/5 (1st) ICCF Email Coppa Latina 6: 8.5/14 (1st) ICCF Email Jubilee Email Open Quarter Finals Group 31: 8.5/12 (1st=, biggest succes up to now) IECG norm tournament "CM-2003-0-00236": 4/6 ICCF 27th World Championship semi final 13: 5,5/11
Jan Selschotter
Jan is the newest addict of cr chess. He just won his first tournament in the Belgian competition:
The Lesser Gods Tournament: 1st with 5/6!.
The Belgian knockout tourney 2004: promotion to next round (1/2).
Now he is replacing a Belgian player in the ICCF Champion's league club competition.
He also started his first webserver tournament: the WS/O/031 tourney.
His latest Belgian tournament: the 4th Autumn Tourney.
Bernard Logie
Bernard is a 1900-elo club player, who has been playing cr on and off for a long period already.
One of his triumphs was to clinch the last Belgian team title with Izegem (other players: Tarcis Deprez, Francis Cottegnie and Jacques Roose).
The Malbork tourney/Qualifier Group E02 is his most recent cr-tournament. Eddy Verledens Eddy was from the chessclub of
Kortrijk, but played some years in competitions in Roeselare. His OTB strength (around 1850) was not so high as the others' on this page, mainly due to
problems with his nerves. Mostly he would build up a sound (and often winning) position, only to
spoil it completely in time trouble. One of his favourite openings was the Ponziani.
Correspondence chess was his thing. He achieved big successes - also in the pre-computer era, but the drive was broken after the unfortunate death of his
wife. Mentally broken, he died several months later.
Tragically, his greatest triumph, he gained after his death, when it became clear that he had won outright his last
tournament: EUM
1265 : 7.5/10 (1st) Thanks to all who helped make this page complete and up to date, Yves Surmont