It's probably worth checking with them but my understanding is when u have an open futures position u basically have a contract till the expirey date . So if the broker was to go belly up or the segregated accounts were wiped as long as u have an open posi u can then deal with the relevant exchange and have another broker take over management of the contract and then close it .
The scarey thing with IB and many other future brokers is they are also traders but in IB's case they are quite profitable or were on the last result .
Interesting comment about chess or lack of and I should re read the pdf's .