Interview with Pedro Hegorburu, ICCF General Secretary
By FIDE Master Marius Ceteras
Published in "Correspondence Chess News"

Pedro Federico Hegoburu is 33 years old (22.10.69). Single, living in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He learnt to play chess at age 10 but started to study and play more seriously at age 18. He took up Correspondence Chess in 1991 due to lack of time to devote to OTB.
International Arbiter since 1991 and International Master since 2002, Pedro has held several ICCF positions so far:
1996-1997 Member of ICCF New Technologies Working Group
1997-2002 Project Manager & Editor-in-Chief of ICCF GOLD Publication
1998-1999 Press Officer
2000-2004 Marketing Director
Since January 1, 2003 he is also deputising as ICCF General Secretary.

Outside his CC interests, Pedro works as a Journalist, currently contributing to a commission focused on the de-regulation of the laws regarding the market of distribution and sale of newspapers and magazines. His other interests include travelling; writing; reading Science Fiction and Philosophy; music (Progressive and Symphonic Rock), and movies.


CCN: Dear Pedro, thanks for accepting our interview. We are at the beginning of a new year, so the first question is unavoidable: what did 2002 mean for you?

Pedro Hegoburu: Last year was a very busy one and with mixed feelings. It started off with some personal problems, mainly linked to the very bad situation in Argentina, but as time went by it began to settle down and things started to get better. In relation to chess activities, the first few months were hectic because of the last effort to get things done with the ICCF book. The "last effort" lasted until early November, when we sent everything to the Printer! It was hard to focus on everything but somehow I managed to survive… J
On top of everything I had other things to care about, like my friends and family, and my CC games! I couldn't let the opportunities pass by and I started playing in a Semifinal Group of the CADAP Zonal Championship, and in the wonderful ICCF Champions' League, with a CLAPDAC team with my friends Chris Lüers, Jaromic Canibal and Sřren Peschardt. We're playing solidly and it looks like we'll be qualifying for the "B" League at least.

CCN: How do you feel as ICCF Acting General Secretary?

Pedro Hegoburu: I only took over on January 1, therefore I don't have a clear view of the "GS experience" in full! So far I have focused on finishing some issues and updating others, especially the Minutes of the 2002 Congress in Seixal and other information related to Invitational Tournaments and membership of ICCF Commissions, plus the new Country Codes and the Calendar of Events. I have placed some new information on the ICCF website, easily accessible to everyone so that I am not the filter providing it. Now, for example, if you have a suggestion regarding some ICCF stuff, you can look up on the website and find who are the Chairman and members of the Commission most likely to deal with it, and you can contact them directly. I have always valued feedback from people who are not working inside the organisation, it is a commonly used Marketing tool. I usually consult some local CC friends or international ones, depending on the issue. Now anyone can send a proposal to ICCF and if it is worth it, the appropriate people will treat it.
The Calendar will hopefully be useful for players who want to plan ahead their events, we will update it very often so that any change in starting dates of events (Zonal, International, and Invitational alike) are immediately shown.

CCN: The publishing of "ICCF Gold" book took a bit more time than expected. Did you ever think this project would not be concluded?

Pedro Hegoburu: Definitely not. I think that as soon as we had received quite a big number of collaborations from our Member Federations, the book had passed the point of no return. However, the whole project needed a closure, which was delayed for several reasons. One was that the project rested on very few people, who at the same time had many other things to attend. Another factor for the delay was our wish to have a comprehensive volume, and in order to achieve that we gave many opportunities (maybe too many new deadlines) to some Federations. In Chess Mail 8/2002 I said that the opinions were probably divided between people who were sure the publication would appear, and those who were a bit sceptical. I guess we gave as many opportunities as possible to the sceptics... :-)

CCN: What does this book mean to you?

Pedro Hegoburu: The book is a very important personal achievement, but it has many other meanings too! First, it is an achievement of ICCF, because it is a multilateral effort. It is also the result of a very determined group of people (Iván Bottlik, Alan Borwell, and myself) who worked to see it completed and printed.
There is a saying in Argentina (maybe in other countries too) related to the three things that you have to do in your life: "plant a tree, bear a child, and write a book". I've now gone 2/3 of the road...

CCN: I guess you will not answer to this question, but I will try anyway: which of the contributions published in "ICCF Gold" did you like more?

Pedro Hegoburu: Marius, I always answer every question! However, this one has many possible answers, because it is impossible to choose only one contribution.
I like the History chapters a lot because they fill a void in CC history. In the Member Federations articles, I like the Australian, Canadian, Danish, and Dutch contributions. The photographs are also very interesting! Finally, the short "biographies" are great (now people know why these three personalities were so important to CC) and so are the special contributions (CC in 2010, the ELO Rating history).

CCN: In an interview published in New In Chess Magazine 1/2002, David Bronstein radically claimed: "I'm more than just a few numbers. I'm not Zurich '53 and 12-12". Are you afraid that you will remain in CC history as "Pedro ICCF Gold"?

Pedro Hegoburu: Well, for "encyclopedists" (people who know bits of everything, but in no detail: "knowledge the size of a one-centimetre deep ocean"), Bronstein will always be "Zurich 1953 and 12-12". But for them, Oscar Wilde will also only be "that gay Irish writer", van Gogh will be the "self-mutilated painter" and Stevie Wonder will be "that blind black musician". The book in itself is a far bigger contribution to CC than many other people have ever made in a lifetime. I don't think that I'll go down in history as a CC World Champion, perhaps I will happily be "Pedro ICCF Gold" in such distinguished company!

CCN: The year 2002 was a very good one for you as player, you just became an IM ICCF. Could you show us your favourite game finished in 2002?

Pedro Hegoburu: My favourite game finished in 2002 was my win over SIM Ove Kroll (DEN) in the Gillman Memorial "A". Pedro Hegoburu - Ove Kroll

CCN: For a newbie on TCCMB, it's very difficult to imagine the ICCF General Secretary and Captain F. Reeze as being one and the same person…

Pedro Hegoburu: Well, Capt. F. Reeze and CLAPDAC are an internal joke we created in Riga 1998. Like Tim Harding said, it's my "nom-de-guerre". There are a few people involved in the joke, and we laugh at internal ICCF things, so I wouldn't expect other people to understand it! I now use it as a "nom de plume" in order to avoid some joke being understood as coming from an ICCF officer. For me there is a clear difference when I write something as an ICCF officer or not. In the first case, I sign with the position I hold; in the second case (when my opinion is personal and not to be construed as an official position on some issue) I just sign with my name. I hope readers were intelligent enough to see the difference.

CCN: You are the TC of Argentina in the Final of 14th Olympiad, what do you expect from your team? Argentina has 80 ICCF titleholders, 3rd place in such a classification after Germany and Russia, but no Olympic medal. What does the Team Captain of Argentina in 14th Olympiad Final think about this situation? Could it be improved? :-)

Pedro Hegoburu: We are looking forward to placing high in the final standings. Argentina is pre-classified 5th according to average ELO Ratings, but I think we will surely compete for the bronze medal. I am sure we could have been contenders for the Gold medal if our strongest players had accepted the invitation to play. Argentina could have presented an "all GM lineup", but for several reasons many players declined. This was not LADAC's fault, the players simply refused to play or did not bother to answer. In some cases it was a matter of selfishness, or lack of team spirit, in others it was a matter of too many games. Anyway, I think we can still do well without some of them.
The first two places will be a close fight between Germany (who, IMHO, did not line-up their strongest players) and England.

CCN: Any prediction for the match Romania-Argentina? Please notice we have Hagi as replacement player. :-)

Pedro Hegoburu: We lost the last time we played (USA 1994, 3-2) so it's naturally our turn to win, in football and in CC! :-)
We're not afraid of Hagi, he's been called the "Maradona of the Carpathians", but Argentina has the real Maradona, and he's not limited to the Carpathians...

CCN: "The Argentinean problem", namely the conflict between LADAC and CAPA already lasted very long time. As General Secretary of ICCF and Argentinean too, do you see any possible solution in the near future?

Pedro Hegoburu: The conflict should be over. Nowadays, any Argentinean who wishes to play international CC simply has to apply for membership in LADAC and it will represent them. As long as LADAC treats fairly everyone's best CC interests, players will be happy to play through them.
Many years ago it was difficult to solve the problem because both clubs had many members, they had much activity and no one wanted to relinquish their "power". But now CAPA has a few members (thanks to their bad policies of recent years, namely the favouritism of some players in detriment of others and the unfulfillment of their financial obligations toward players). There will not be too many players participating in events which are not approved by the Argentine affiliated federation and/or ICCF, and in which prizes will not be honoured.

CCN: Let's talk a bit about the future of CC. But first we have to talk about the present, so what is your perception regarding CC? Is CC a sport or an academic competition?

Pedro Hegoburu: The debate whether chess is an art, a hobby, a sport or a science is classical, and I don't think I have the answer to this question: other more capable people have discussed it and no conclusion has been reached! I see CC as a competitive artistic hobby. Going through some games it is evident there is some art in them. I have some friend interested in war and war-games, but they can't see the beauty in chess, which is the war-game par excellence!

CCN: How long time will resist CC to this devil's temptation named MONEY?

Pedro Hegoburu: Currently, CC players are amateurs, i.e. they are not professional CC players, they have other professions and CC is but a hobby. With time and effort, CC events will have more attractive prizes, and then we will see how money (as tournament prizes and "appearance fees") affect correspondence chess. In my opinion, players agree to participate because they like the events, not because of the money involved. I took part in a GM event, and the organiser told me he was very glad none of the 15 players had asked about the money prizes: they accepted the invitation for other reasons but not because money was involved, they had other incentives.

CCN: Could money destroy the ethical values of CC?

Pedro Hegoburu: It depends on the particular ethical values of each person. Sometimes it doesn't take much to destroy them, sometimes it's impossible to do it no matter what temptation...

CCN: How do you comment the launching of CFC's comercial server and the partnership between CFC, IECG and Chess Mail? Will this event accelerate the launching of ICCF's server?

This rather strange link up between a supposedly "free Email organisation" and a commercial enterprise like CFC, will not make any difference whatsoever to ICCFs plans for a webserver system which will be "dedicated" to serve ICCF and our players. We will certainly NOT be giving our player information to any outside organisation to exploit for their commercial purposes.
ICCF is concerned about the best interests of international CC and having systems which are secure, flexible for our ongoing needs and dependable - which cannot be guaranteed by outsiders, especially those without any "track record", such as CFC.
I have recently started playing some casual friendly games in Chessworld.net, and they suddenly had a problem with their ISP and the service was stopped for a while, much against their interests and good efforts otherwise. Readers will understand that ICCF cannot be "held hostage" by any ISP without scruples. ICCF will launch its own "dedicated webserver" in due course - the ICCF Project team is working under the very capable guide of Grayling Hill and contains real technology experts, as well as people who know what is required to support ICCF tournaments.
There are misconceptions around that our webserver tournaments are likely to be expensive. It will be necessary for ICCF to have the same level of entry fee for an event, whether played by post, Email or Webserver, and that will be a key objective.
My advice, especially to all serious players, would be to wait for the real thing of proper Webserver tournaments (with official ratings and title opportunities), which will be offered soon by ICCF.
In the meantime, we have some great Email events available… :-)

CCN: There are a lot of inactive federations in ICCF, mainly in Latin America area. How could they be reactivated?

Pedro Hegoburu: There are inactive CC federations in every continent, not only in Latin America. The main problem is that some federations rest on the work of one man or a small group of people, and when they retire or die, the whole local CC movement dies with them. You must remember that these people are enthusiasts, not "professionals". There might be many reasons why the local CC clubs disappear, maybe their efforts are badly focused, or they pretend to hold absolute power and thus no other organisers can grow in their shadow, etc. Ideally, the local officers should have some people in reserve to replace them sooner or later. When that is not the case, at some point the federation goes inactive.
However, another very important problem is that too many people are "bosses" and not "workers"! People expect things to be done out of the blue. It is very easy and comfortable to lie on your back and expect others to do the work for you, but when the time comes to put your grain of sand and contribute to the system, these people are the first to refuse. And this happens at every level of the organisation, I'm not talking about a replacement for a specific function that demands certain expertise in a field: people back off from normal, easier jobs such as directing tournaments. So you see we have two problems: people within an organisation who do not contribute, and people outside it who criticise and don't contribute. The problem gets worse when the few people that do work are criticised, because their patience has a limit!
"Activity" is really hard to assess. For example, in Olympiad 12 & 13 Preliminaries ICCF had 49 teams; in Olympiad 13 Preliminary there were 48 teams, and in the most recent one (Olympiad 15 Preliminaries) there are 56 teams! I think that individual events will also continue to grow, there will be more and more players in e-mail and webserver over the next few years. As long as ICCF keeps offering interesting events such as the Champions' League, or the World Cups, or the World Championship Cycle which no-one can question, players will surely try out other CC clubs but continue playing in ICCF at the same time. If you see what players are proud of, I have always seen CC players saying they have this or that ICCF title, but no-one shows in his "CC credentials" events from other CC organisations… that is a statement of its own.

CCN: There are some countries with enormous chess potential and an intense OTB activity, like China, Georgia or Armenia, but almost inexistent in ICCF. How do you see their attraction into ICCF?

Pedro Hegoburu: ICCF will tackle this issue in two ways. First, our President made contacts with several Chess Federations during the last FIDE Olympiad and Congress held in Bled, and we will carry out a campaign to help them see the advantages of CC play and of having a CC organisation in their country. This could materialise as a special branch within the OTB federation, or as an independent organisation. We have an excellent contact in the FIDE Treasurer, Mr. David Jarrett, who together with his wife Valentina attended our last Congress in Seixal (Portugal). They were very enthusiastic about helping ICCF.
Additionally, we will also support these actions with a special Brochure. This contains basic information about Correspondence Chess and will surely prove helpful to enthusiasts all over the world that want to start a CC movement in their countries. ICCF has many isolated players (players in countries with no CC organisation) and sometimes they do not get organised because they ignore there are other people like them in their vicinity, or because they do not know how to address the problem.
As you correctly pointed out, Marius, the interesting Greek team for the Olympiad 15 Preliminaries (6 OTB players with an average rating of 2446!) could very well be a good example for federations not affiliated to ICCF to try the wonders of CC.

CCN: Could you tell us anything about your plans in 2003?

Pedro Hegoburu: This is a good question because it will help me plan ahead all the things I have to do before December! I will be more than satisfied if I can wrap up all my unfinished projects in the Marketing Commission and take forward all the General Secretary tasks, whilst at the same time proposing some new projects for ICCF. You get the picture of the huge amount of work that needs to be done when you see how many e-mail messages with so many different subjects you receive daily! We need to sort out responsibilities more efficiently and fairly, otherwise there will be a greater rate of saturation.

CCN: I suppose you heard the last riddle launched in CC World: "What will Pedro Hegoburu lose in 2003?"

Pedro Hegoburu: I haven't heard it. Maybe it's some weight, or more CC games, or both! :-)

CCN: The answer was "That word Acting before General Secretary". Now I wait the month October to see whether I answered correctly :-)

Pedro Hegoburu: Well, in any case it would be "Membership and Services Director", after changes approved in Seixal! :-)
Anyway, it's too early to speak about the coming elections, so far we have not even started with nominations! There are several very capable people within ICCF who could perform well as officers, so the future is secure. I could consider carrying on if the conditions were right (support from my National Federation and some ICCF friends) plus a good team of people to work with. However, so far I have not thought about it neither discussed it, it would be irresponsible to think about the future when there are so many things that need attention right now.

CCN: The last questions. Are you a regular reader of CCN? If so, what kind of surveys would you like to read more in CCN?

Pedro Hegoburu: I have downloaded all the CCN issues and saved them on a 100-mega ZIP disk, I usually look over it but don't read it in depth. The chess publications I read from start to finish are Chess Mail, New in Chess and TWIC, and CCN plus Fernschach on a lighter basis. I like collecting chess publications, and particularly enjoy books and magazines that have a bit of everything: interviews, commented games, player profiles, tournament reports, trivia, etc.
CCN's contents are good, I recently found an interesting Queens' Indian game played by Kenneth Frey and used the same opening in one Champions' League game up to move 26. My opponent offered a draw being two pawns up as Black, and I turned it down, now I will have to see whether Frey's analysis were correct or not! :-)
It's hard to say what I would like CCN to offer, I'm not the Editor (who is responsible for the contents) and being a free publication, I can't demand special features. I believe the publication is a good effort and I take it as such, I would be greedy if I asked for more than it already delivers when I get it for free...

CCN: Thanks a lot. I wish you an optimal New Year 2003 for you and ICCF!

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© 2002-2003 Marius Ceteras