ABERYSTWYTH - ARE YOU GOING?

[Stewart Reuben]

Alan Tate >This might seem obvious but a modest 800 competitors paying an extra £15 gives £12000<

That is incorrect. The U8, for examply, is just a one day event and the entry fee, i of course, much lower. £15 would have to be an average. Remember also the entry fees include VAT.

To hold the British in Dublin would feel very strange. It isn't in Britain, although in the British Isles.
Many would vote against holding the British Championship in Belfast. It would be far too dangerous.

[LawrenceCooper]

1993 Dundee University venue free. Plenty of English went, but fewer Scots. They had arranged their 100th Championship in St Andrews just a couple of weeks before and didn't tell me.

If only they'd consulted you earlier

[PeterFarr]

To hold the British in Dublin would feel very strange. It isn't in Britain, although in the British Isles.
Many would vote against holding the British Championship in Belfast. It would be far too dangerous.

The Isle of Man isn't in Britain either, technically. Northern Ireland is quite capable of hosting major events safely, if by "dangerous" you mean from a security point if view - e.g. it hosted stages of the Giro d'Italia.

I'm not really saying either is practical from a numbers of entry point of view though.

[Andrew Camp]

1993 Dundee University venue free. Plenty of English went, but fewer Scots. They had arranged their 100th Championship in St Andrews just a couple of weeks before and didn't tell me.

If only they'd consulted you earlier

Ho ho ho.

[Stewart Reuben]

1993 Dundee. 1994 Norwich both chosen by me at the same time. I chose 1993 for the Scottish event solely because McNab and Motwani, both from Dundee, had recently just gained the GM title. (They didn't play). The Scots were fully consulted. After the British was committed, the SCA decided much later to make something special of the 100th Sottish Championship, just as we did later in 2013. It took place in St Andrews, just a few miles away, just 2 weeks before the British.
I arranged free entry for Dundee juniors in 1993. After the dismal turn-out of Scots in Dundee, the SCA was most apologetic. They promised to move the Scottish Championship to Easter, when the British came to Scotland. This they duly did in 2003 and Edinburgh had 1007 entries, the second highest entry.
But 1993 lost money.
Ho ho ho indeed.

[John Upham]

Since sunday the organisers office (and many others) have been agog with excitement following the Twitter announcement by GM RD Keene OBE that he had been invited to attend the British Championships.

Despite significant investigations the identity of the inviter has yet to be determined.

There was speculation that it was a member of the S&B blogging team but this is unconfirmed.

Apparently Ray is attempting to find a time window to attend.

It is not known if a red carpet has been hired for the purpose.

[Jonathan Bryant]

It's not Andy Martin, then?

[benedgell]

.

[John Upham]

It's not Andy Martin, then?

Ray tweeted his invite last Sunday July 20th.

Andrew tweeted to Ray on July 23rd

Thanks to Ray Keene for the support. Can you bring 1000 copies of 'Man vs Machine' with you please that we can give away as prizes?

to which Ray replied

Aberystwyth-confirmed invite fr Andrew Martin the excellent British Champ commentator to join him-trying to make time to accept invite #fun

[Jonathan Bryant]

Ah, I see.

Well it wouldn’t be the first time that Ray had arrived at the British Championship with the ECF - the invitation giver aside - unaware that he was coming.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I'll take a punt at predicting the results today. If I can get 50% I'll be pretty chuffed.

Er, is this really the right thread to be predicting results? I'm going to comment on possible top board results in the main thread.

[benedgell]

Fair point. I'll copy it across to the other thread.

[David Pardoe]

Very sporting gesture from Keith Arkell to play Simultaineous against all comers this Saturday at the local Museum in Aberystwyth.
Hopefully, word will get round the North/Mid Wales area, and some of the local chess players will come along....along with interested holiday makers, and of course, a good number of Congress players.
One or two prominant notices in local Library, Museum, Post Office, etc..might help...and no doubt the ECF PR machine is doing its bit.

[Lewis Martin]

Very sporting gesture from Keith Arkle

Who?

[David Pardoe]

Point noted.
..Keith Arkell
Apologies....