Southend 58th Easter Congress 2014

[John Wright]

Early notification that the traditional Southend Easter Congress will be running again in 2014. The dates are 18th to 21st April 2014.

We envisage a similar format and prize fund to last year (approx £6000). Our sponsor is also hoping to attract more female entrants by way of a generous prize fund. Watch this space.

The usual Civic Centre venue is not available for 2014. This is due to refurbishments.
However we are delighted to announce the Southend Adult Community College as our new, peaceful and pleasant venue;
http://www.southend-adult.ac.uk/southchurch.php
This is a short walk from Southend East Railway Station on the London Fenchurch Street Line.
There is also free car parking for over 70 cars (venue is close to the A13) and the venue is also served by a bus route.

More details to follow.

[John Wright]

The entry form has been uploaded to the ECF calendar.
Printed forms will be distributed in the near future.

[Roger de Coverly]

The entry form has been uploaded to the ECF calendar.

The old Civic Centre venue was within walking distance of the town centre. Participants might hope that there's something to do within reach of the new venue, as the combination of round times of 9.30 am and 4.30 pm with the 90 30 move rate is going to leave gaps of around two and a half to three hours between rounds for almost all the players. The e2e4 nine round event at Sunningdale also over the Easter weekend is using the same move rate, but with 10 am and 3 pm start times. Admittedly that does cause the occasional problem where the next round pairings cannot be made because of an unfinished game from the previous round and the whole round or a couple of individual games will then start late.

[Richard Bates]

Agree about the venue - being 2 miles from the town centre is rather a negative.

I am also mystified about the combination of round times and time control - are they really not a misprint? I think that e2e4 events run their rounds too closely together, but with the average game using 90' + 30" per move lasting well under 4 hours and very few games likely to last beyond 4 and a half hours, having 7 hours between round start times is absolutely unnecessary. One wonders if the published rate isn't supposed to be FIDE's 90' +30' at move 40 + 30" per move which would make far more sense with those round times*? And would be more consistent with maintaining a similarly leisurely rate of play (although knackering if you have/had a lot of games going the distance) to the previously used 2hrs + 1hr (which has presumably been ditched as a direct consequence of last year's last round controversy). Personally (although perhaps not for others) the old time control (/general rate of play) was, from a chess perspective, an attraction of Southend - 90' + 30" definitely is not.

*especially as the hours of play on the ECF calendar are listed as 9.30am-11pm. That's a 210 move game under 90'+30"!

[John Moore]

As a regular competitor at this event for more years than I care to remember, one of the problems has always been how to kill time between rounds (particularly since I no longer regard six pints as the ideal preparation for the afternoon round). But as Roger and Richard point out, the new time limits just don't seem to fit with the start times of the rounds. I mean you might get one game in one of the morning rounds that goes to 120 moves - even so, the players will still have a two hour wait for the afternoon round!

Perhaps John might ask the organisers if they really meant this.

[Kevin Williamson]

As a regular competitor at this event for more years than I care to remember, one of the problems has always been how to kill time between rounds (particularly since I no longer regard six pints as the ideal preparation for the afternoon round). But as Roger and Richard point out, the new time limits just don't seem to fit with the start times of the rounds. I mean you might get one game in one of the morning rounds that goes to 120 moves - even so, the players will still have a two hour wait for the afternoon round!

Perhaps John might ask the organisers if they really meant this.

The entry form confirms the stated round start times and the rate of play.
I think that’s a pity as the leisurely time control has always been one of the attractions of the Southend congress for me. I can understand the switch to an incremental time control though, especially after what happened last year (you just can’t take those GMs anywhere ).

I’m less concerned about the change of venue. I guess it can’t be easy to find a venue of sufficient size for the whole of the Easter weekend, and although a little further out of town it is near a station and a bit closer to the sea front which is not a bad thing with all the extra time to kill.

Six pints can be tempting after a particularly galling loss, but it wouldn’t help me much with the afternoon game and is not recommended to any junior readers of the forum .

[Kevin Williamson]

Well, that’s the weekend ruined then

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-27024139

(PS – I wonder why my apostrophes from my last post have gone weird)