The British at Bournemouth and Beautiful Boscombe (BBBB)

[David Gilbert]

Other than the chess itself, the most exciting thing about going to the British Championships is choosing the in-car and in-room entertainment. For Bournemouth the preparation started weeks ago and came to fruition this morning. It’s going to be Wolf Alice (they’re booked for Glastonbury I hear), the Killers, Justin Townes-Earle, El Vy and The National. I first became aware of Matt Berninger and The National when listening to (but not watching) one of the early episodes of Game of Thrones. Someone asked recently how to prepare for a stronger player - we’ll if you’re looking for musical inspiration play The Rains of Castamere over and over in your head.

So that’s done. Accommodation in Boscombe is booked. Boscombe is more duckier than Bournemouth don't you think? I’m anticipating the land train running between the two piers from around 9.00am each morning, if not there’s aways the bus or a walk in the warm morning sun along the promenade. My three entries are in, among the 131 total as of yesterday. That’s a good start. Well, are you going to the BBBB?

[IM Jack Rudd]

I am indeed.

[David Gilbert]

Golden sands, deck chairs and chess, and to top that a £15k donation to support the British announced at the Finance meeting last weekend. £15k. Top man. What a guy, makes you cry, and I did. The first GM names expected to appear shortly. 138 entries as of last Thursday's update. It's going to be so, so, good again. Jack and I will be there. Anyone else?

[Carl Hibbard]

Golden sands, deck chairs and chess, and to top that a £15k donation to support the British announced at the Finance meeting last weekend. £15k. Top man. What a guy, makes you cry, and I did. The first GM names expected to appear shortly. 138 entries as of last Thursday's update. It's going to be so, so, good again. Jack and I will be there. Anyone else?

Is that money for general support or only for appearance fees?

[Mick Norris]

Golden sands, deck chairs and chess, and to top that a £15k donation to support the British announced at the Finance meeting last weekend. £15k. Top man. What a guy, makes you cry, and I did. The first GM names expected to appear shortly. 138 entries as of last Thursday's update. It's going to be so, so, good again. Jack and I will be there. Anyone else?

Is that money for general support or only for appearance fees?

Some for IT support would be great, so as to get decent commentary on to chess24live if we are going down that route again

[David Gilbert]

Mark Jordon's newsletter announces that Michael Adams is back at the British for the first time since he played at Sheffield in 2011. Now that's interesting!

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Might be best to avoid the toilets by the cliffs!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/video_and_aud ... s/36133762

"Cliff landslip crushes toilets and lift"

[David Gilbert]

That really was snow in London this morning. Never mind, you'll be able to leave your thermals and woolly socks in the bottom drawer come July, it's gonna be hot, hot, hot, in Bournemouth this Summer. The entry list now includes Michael Adams, David Howell, Mark Hebden and John Emms and that’s just for starters. 159 entries overall. It’s gonna be a whoppa!

What was the last word in the Summer Holiday film script?

[Andrew Zigmond]

Just entered the weekender - back to the Soanes after a year when I sneaked into the Yates.

[David Gilbert]

Well done Andrew (some might detect it's a quiet day so far on Kos). You're on the list already, so that was quick work. I see the number of entries has now reached 234, which is a little ahead of last year and includes ten GMs. I'm building up my sun-burn for the occasion - in football management parlance I'm 110 per cent there already. Ouch!

[David Gilbert]

Here comes the sun. The forecast for Bournemouth is looking brighter day-by-day. Today’s entry total has reached 267, ahead of last year’s figure at this stage. The ten GMs (brilliant sponsorshipping from the mystery sponsor) will need to watch their step now they have been joined by four dangerous IMs. And I say it's all right. The over-65s, and over-50s, under-150 competitions are filling up and increasing in popularity. These competitions will be missed in the proposed revised format for 2017 and that’s a potential game-changer.

[Jon Mahony]

Can’t make the British this year sadly - There was a big shake up at work, putting us in huge teams of 30-40 and now annual leave, in the summer months, is harder to come by than rocking horse sh**

I shall be very morose catching up on the Andrew martin commentary online and remembering what a great time I had last year. Hey-ho, it is a bit far for us northerners - I shall book the leave around January to go next year!

[David Gilbert]

Can’t make the British this year sadly - There was a big shake up at work, putting us in huge teams of 30-40 and now annual leave, in the summer months, is harder to come by than rocking horse sh**

I shall be very morose catching up on the Andrew martin commentary online and remembering what a great time I had last year. Hey-ho, it is a bit far for us northerners - I shall book the leave around January to go next year!

Shame Jon. You’ll be missed, especially after your exploits in last year’s rapidplay. However, a lot of other people are choosing to head south this year. Richard Palliser’s entry swells the number of IMs to six. Is that a record? Someone will no doubt know. Overall numbers reached 346 this morning, that’s 50 more than at this stage last year, when final figures (thanks to a massive blitz entry) broke all records.

The recent rock-fall means the land-train's route is blocked so I intend to take the 30 minute stroll along the promenade from Boscombe Pier to Bournemouth Pier every morning. Beats stitching all those rugby balls.

[IM Jack Rudd]

Richard Palliser’s entry swells the number of IMs to six. Is that a record? Someone will no doubt know.

Nowhere near. The 2008 event (the second one I checked) had 12: Stephen Gordon, Graeme Buckley, Dietmar Kolbus, Thomas Rendle, Lawrence Trent, Jovanka Houska, Andrew Ledger, Richard Pert, Andrew Greet, Simon Knott, Susan Lalic and Jeff Horner.

[Kevin Thurlow]

David Gilbert said

" Beats stitching all those rugby balls."

Very good.