Short final report about the World Deaf Chess Championships 2008.

The chess championship now is history. It was a successful event. Under the patronage of Federal Councillor Samuel Schmid, States Councillor Dr. Hans Altherr and National Councillor Pascale Bruderer, it was supported well.

With 84 players from different countries of the world it was a huge participation. We also were surprised there were a lot of participants at the rapid chess tournament, despite the beautiful summer evening.

For finding sponsors we hired two external managers, but both of them soon gave up.  Reason: There are no donors.

For us, it was not easy to understand. We immediately took this job ourselves and we wrote letters sent to institutions, foundations, companies, chess clubs and individuals. We hoped and we saw, we got covenants for the financial security of our event.

This spring we heard from newspapers, the hotel Ekkehard will close in July. There we had already booked the entire infrastructure. Fortunately, the Radisson SAS Hotel offered us rooms and accommodations for the same terms.

Throughout the preparatory phase the most important communication medium was the Internet. A large part of the correspondence could be accomplished with e-mail. At our website we published news, bulletins and other information. Invitations and invoices were sent to the national associations.

Money transfers from every corner of the world not always were successful. Some countries could give money only upon arrival by cash. This had required confidence on our part.

Now the two weeks of the championships are over, and I must say that we have experienced exciting chess sports and we could meet interesting people from different cultures.

Our guests are happy and gave the organization warm thanks.

More information about the World Chess Championship can be found on our website http://www.chess08.com, there are the final results are listed and many photographs.

Gregor Maier, President Organization

Note: the detailed final report currently is only available in German: more...