The ICCF Webserver allows each player to keep personal settings. The ones described here can be set by clicking on the "Personal settings".

In the illustrations, my cursor will be shown as or .

This will take you to the following page:

Keep your email address up to date on this page. This is where the server will send all move notifications and any other information. If the TD or an opponent tries to reach you through the server, this is the email address that will be used. The remaining information is less important, but the postal mailing address may be used to contact you. The birthday may be used in the future for ???. To save the information you must click the "Save changes" button at the bottom.

A recent addition to this page is the "Disable notifications for opponent's moves" and "Disable notifications for your own moves". This is separate from the games page where you can disable all email notifications. Here you can selectively disable the email notifications of your moves to your opponent or notifications of moves from your opponent. (14.03.2006)

To enter a date you can use the specified format mm/dd/yyyy or you can click on the "Select" button to use a graphic calendar:

In this illustration I have clicked on the year dropdown to pick a year. You can pick a month the same way. Then click on the day in the display of the month and the complete date will be filled in for you in the correct format.

In the display of the "Player Details" page above, I have placed the cursor on the change password link "click here". This links allows you to change your password. Click on this link to get this change password page:

To change your password you must enter both your old password and the new password. Since the password doesn't show (just a shows for each character to protect your password from being seen by anyone) the server requires you to type your new password a second time. It will ask you to try again if the two copies of your password are not identical. Then click the "Change Password" button, shown above with my cursor pointing to it.

Email Notifications

As noted above, it is essential to keep your email address updated in your personal information. I also recommend that you keep your email notifications set on to be sure you don't miss anything. It may also be a good idea to file all your email notifications in an email folder for the tournament. You may want to consult this information at a later time.

When the tournament begins you will receive your "start papers" via email. This will list the official information (name of event, start/end dates, server settings for this event, list of opponents and TD). Here is an example (with some information about individual players removed):

I believe it is wise to keep this message, even if you don't keep the other notifications. Your TD name and email address are included here. If you should forget your password, ask your TD to send you another starter password using this email address. The server itself does not display email addresses to avoid potential problems, such as spam. Exception: if you are logged in a few selected email addresses are given ... you can access them in the "Email" menu described above on this page. The rules for this event (included in this email) are also displayed on the server under the event crosstable.

When your opponent moves you get an email notification like this:

If your opponent does not include any comments with his move (the norm, in my experience) the entire top section does not appear. The first line of the email notification is the Event name PGN information. Note that your messages to your opponent are not included in any email to you, only in your opponent's email notification. If you keep these emails you will have a complete record of your comments from your opponent, but nothing that you said TO your opponent. I hope a future version of the server will rectify this awkward situation. If you wish to keep track of your comments to your opponent, you'll have to maintain a separate record on your own. I have heard from one player who always does a copy&paste of his comments to his opponent from the Game Page into a text document he maintains for each opponent.

NEW: The server now sends you a copy of the email notification of your moves, so if you keep copies of this new notification you'll have a complete record of your correspondence. These email notifications can be selectively turned off, so if you don't want to receive your own move notifications you can turn them off. (14.03.2006)

When you have used over 14 days, 28 days or 35 days you get the following email notifications:

Note that the opponent is not copied with these warning emails. I think the TD is also copied. I would personally like to see an additional warning added to the 35 day warning to alert the player that not moving within 40 days will lead to loss of game. I also believe the opponent should be copied with the warnings, but without great care this could cause confusion.

In team events your team captain receives an email when you receive one of the above three messages. The format is slightly different. Here is the message for not moving within 14 days.

There are additional email notifications when your opponent resigns or agrees to a draw. A message like this will arrive:

If you overstep the less than 40 days for one move limit you and the Tournament Director will be notified. I don't believe your opponent receives a notification, so players will have to be alert to the occurrence of this 40-move overstep, or the TD will have to take the initiative to notify the players. The rules currently require a player to claim a win. Following is the message received by the player who has overstepped.

The Tournament Director is alerted when each game in an event she/he is directing starts play. After both White and Black have made one move the TD receives an email like the following.