Dear Team Captains!

Organizing committee of the 8th Baltic Sea Team Tournament wishes you and your teams Merry Christmas!
Now we declare the following statements and proposals:
1). 13 invited teams sent their players for the 8th BSTT. 3 federations asked for an extra team each: Finland, Germany and Russia. These requests were approved.
2). 6 teams did not fully satisfy the minimal rating values written in regulations (it is shown by yellow backgrounds in first sheet of the attachment). We approved these teams because ratings are close to required ratings.
3). I am sending you as an additional information in attachment an Excel workbook file. The sheet No.1 of this file shows the current standings according to all the lists without our changes.
4). We analyzed the players order by boards where 6 teams does not satisfy the rule "by ratings" of the regulations (it is shown by green colors in the sheet No.1). Thus we have some boards which categories could become better by regulations. As a first step we changed the order of all the players by rating values (it is shown with red colors on the sheets No.2 and No.3). Then the 1st board reached even category 11! This is represented in the sheet No.2.
5). After that we returned the boards 1-3 of Lithuania that were not "by ratings" (it is shown by magenta colors). Thus we could get better categories on boards 2 and 3. This is represented on the sheet No.3 (optimal as we think).
Dear Captains! We would like to know your opinion on these changes and if there are any objections we are waiting for them up to December 31.
Moreover: we are seeking for the 17th team with high ratings (see the news of 26.12.07). This will help:
1). To get an equal number of games with White and Black pieces for every player. And not to lose the categories reached in the sheet No.3.
2). Probably to get better categories on boards 4 and 5.

Best Wishes, Nikolay N. Poleshchuk. Saint Petersburg, 24.12.2007
Email: poleshchuk@peterlink.ru Web: http://poleshchuk.spb.ru/chess/8bstt.htm