GM Tansel Turgut concedes the 24th ICCF World Championship on 0.25 SB tiebreak points.

As you can see at the crosstable below the only game left to officially end the 24th ICCF World Championship is between T.Turgut and F. Gerhardt. However it will not affect the outcome of the championship: the winner is M. Semrl  of Slovenia. If Turgut wins this last game he still will have to concede the title on 0.25 SB tiebreak points.

T. Turgut won 5 games so far. He was the leader of the group for approximately 7 months, however late wins by M. Semrl decided the outcome. At http://www.squidoo.com/computer-chess-analysis link Marjan Semrl askes the question :"Who will be the next world champion? Turgut, Gerhardt, Wunderlich ... or ... may be ...?". He was of course going to say " maybe me?" but did not, chose to be humble and went home with the title.

Dr. Tansel Turgut

Turgut's games esspecially the ones he won were in a class of their own. The Turgut-Kunzelmann game is a fine example of acquiring a win out of nothing. This game like many of Turgut's others excell all world champions and computer software (deep! or not) . Most moves like Nb1, the pawn sacrifice on e3 and the quality sacrifice on f5 are non-computer moves which lead to a win unphantomable by chess software.

 I still cannot comprehend how Turgut won against Tiemann.  In the ICCF forum which is now discontinued Turgut claims that in the final position, if the pawn is on h6 White wins, and if it is on h7 Black wins. These are positional comments which have a deep base which I cannot grasp at my present level. If you understand how the final win came pls feel free to comment!

Novak-Turgut game is an example of how Turgut fares under attack, creating an unbalanced position by returning a quality sacrifice to quell a Knight sacrifice which he had to accept.The game is also a good example of the Tourton theme at this level.

Turgut-Jacquin game is an example of how he exploits the slightest advantage (the passed g pawn and a rook against bishop and Knight pair in this case) and converts it slowly to a win.

A pawn sacrifice in the opening and a game forcing the opponent to defend the weaknesses created by the extra pawn tells the story of Turgut-Sabaev game. Black tries to smother White's intentions by landing a Knight on d3 where it is immediately annihilated by a quality sacrifice which leads to a winning kingside attack.


I finnish my article with Turgut-Semrl game which ends with a rook sacrifice forcing a perpetual check draw, which both sides seemed to be happy about.

24th ICCF World Championship Final Standings

GM Tansel Turgut All Recorded Games PGN