English Chess Forum

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 17, 2026 5:23 pm

I assume there is an exception for checkmate and stalemate

Well it can't be checkmate: that means it wouldn't be a draw

Madagascar (99) beat Portugal (49) today. Admittedly, I only checked the match because one of my 4NCL team players was involved. Levin for Chess.com seems to have missed this, though he spotted El Salvador beating Cuba. Few countries can have suffered more from a chess "brain drain" than Cuba tbh. ...

Correspondence chess has had a good and generally worthy innings, but isn't it now time to admit computers have made it basically obsolete? (certainly at the highest competitive levels, as perhaps opposed to a "bit of fun") The 33rd World Championship ended in 2025: https://www.iccf.com/event?id=10...

you may find that the present issues are resolved, but that the selection will go off the rails at some point in the future. What does "off the rails" look like, and under what circumstances? If you have people doing the selecting, then people might change and the new people might go off the rails....

Let's cut to the chase. Rather than discuss principle and process: for Samarkand, who is in the England team who shouldn't be, and who isn't in the England team who should be? The point about Shreyas was explained by the deadline for registration being before the British Championships. So those who ...

If you win or lose a game due to a phone default, can you expect this game to be included in your rating calculation? Yes Does it depend on the rules of the rating system or decision of the event organiser? No The reason I ask is because by opponent's phone sounded in the last round of the 4NCL Eas...

Roger de Coverly wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 12, 2026 9:11 pm

Alex Holowczak wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 12, 2026 8:51 pm

How else should one interpret, "That’s it now - we’ve reached maximum capacity."

That doesn't preclude the possibility that there are teams accepted but yet to be listed on the 4NCL site.

There are no teams that have been accepted yet to be listed on the 4NCL site.

Roger de Coverly wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 12, 2026 6:00 pm

Mike Truran wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 12, 2026 5:24 pm

That’s it now - we’ve reached maximum capacity.

At https://www.4ncl.co.uk/data/2627/runners_riders.htm
there are 36 teams listed for division 4. Is that everyone?

How else should one interpret, "That’s it now - we’ve reached maximum capacity."

It doesn't seem right to me that a 17 year old winner of the British Championship, who performed better than any of those who are on the team, would not qualify. To me it speaks of a bad qualification system, and when there is no qualification system in place at all, then it makes me think there sh...

For me personally I was disappointed to see how opaque the selection was, with it being purely a committee selection. How do you think England's cricket team is selected? Or our football team? Or our rugby team? I am not saying that selection-by-committee is the only way of doing it, but whenever I...

I've seen the list of GMs participating. The tournament seems quite a bit weaker than what it used to be. Is there a reason for that? I don't think they've yet announced the participants for this year's event. Presumably you are looking at the list for those in the 2025 Masters. I will let those wh...

MJMcCready wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 03, 2026 2:41 pm

I've seen the list of GMs participating. The tournament seems quite a bit weaker than what it used to be. Is there a reason for that?

I don't know where you're looking on the website, but nobody has published any entries for the 2026 event yet.

In the days at Olympia, which is literally just down the road, we would regularly get 250 for the weekender, but perhaps only 100 for the weekday tournament. So our thinking and approach is based on data, and motivated by allowing the maximum number of people to play that we can. At Olympia though,...

Players rated between 2000 and 2099 are probably not really wanted in the 9 rounds Swiss as they're excluded from the rating prizes. Why is it that English organisers for the most part don't follow the approach of many European organisers and structure their events as an Open A and Open B? The Open...

Andrew Smith wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 31, 2026 8:43 am

My view is that I am more likely to play a tournament if it offers me a discounted entry fee.

Well, yes. So would all the CMs. And the NMs. And the rated players. And the unrated players.