English Chess Forum

Unfortunately the regulations for norms mean 7 round norms are pretty meaningless even if you get them. You can get a 7 round norm, but your combined norms need to be 27 games total so you inevitably need a 4th. Hardly inevitably. You can get norms counting for a maximum of 13 games. The 4NCL is an...

Here are the full games. Unfortunately the regulations for norms mean 7 round norms are pretty meaningless even if you get them. You can get a 7 round norm, but your combined norms need to be 27 games total so you inevitably need a 4th. [White "Ragger"] [Black "Cumming"] 1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d...

It depends what you want from a division though (and this applies to sport in general). If the main desire is that the best team wins and the worst teams get relegated then clearly it's hard to beat an APA, but there's a reason that a lot of leagues across various sports opt for playoffs. The main i...

I was amused to see that the French league has reverted to the 16 team, 2 pool format. I vaguely recall that they dropped the format shortly after the 4NCL adopted it so it seemed ironic that they have now reinstated it now that we have (thankfully) are returning to the 12 team all-play-all. Seemin...

I took the queen that my opponent had previously taken. There were no issues during the game, but afterwards the arbiter informed me that I should not have done this and that it was poor etiquette (and that my opponent would have been within his rights to complain). Surely this is kindergarten nons...

I had a peculiar case of ‘no spare queens’ in a game earlier this year. We reached a position where I had around 3 minutes to my opponents 20 in a king and pawn ending where I had a passed pawn that couldn’t be stopped (on about the 5th rank). My opponent’s king was on the other side of the board at...

Should a rule that forces most of Englands brightest young prosects who play for WGY into Div 2 be re-examined? This is a fair question, I'm not sure of the exact motivation for the rule change: prior to the pool system there were 2 teams per squad allowed. A situation in which there are 12 distinc...

Is the 5th weekend in June necessary, or will all the main teams have played each other before then? It could prove useful for norms. Whilst the main clashes will probably be complete by the end of the May weekend I suspect that the title and sorting out the Division 1 and 2 teams for next season w...

Incidentally I wouldn't mind an explanation of Karjakin's 27th and 28th moves, it's not like he was behind on the clock. I believe according to the "Russian school of chess" you should always repeat once so as to exert your dominance on the opposition. I'm not sure how seriously this is actually ta...

Klek-Gaal in the Women's section (board 3 of Germany vs Hungary) is well worth a look: the final position is agreed drawn with mate in 1 on the board! 2 Knights vs a pawn and Klek managed to usher the king to the corner and unfortunately force mate in 51 moves. Kg6! instead of Kf7 at the end would ...

Klek-Gaal in the Women's section (board 3 of Germany vs Hungary) is well worth a look: the final position is agreed drawn with mate in 1 on the board! 2 Knights vs a pawn and Klek managed to usher the king to the corner and unfortunately force mate in 51 moves. Kg6! instead of Kf7 at the end would h...

I believe Ravi was 2485 live before the tournament and is gaining 10.8 points, but has a lower rated opponent today so it won't be possible here but it probably sets him nicely for the first 4ncl. Despite our 0/3 start we now have a chance at finishing on a more than respectable 50% with a win today...

A shame there hasn't been more comment on this as it's been an entertaining tournament. Magnus looked in trouble yesterday but managed to hold on vs Shakh. His game in round 3 was very tense as a Dutch FM, who had dispatched me in the previous round, was excruciatingly close to holding Magnus to a d...

I see that Sussex Social Isolators defaulted their match in Division One last night. Any reason why? I saw a comment on Facebook that one family was stranded in the Lake District without wi-fi and there was also mention of a cheating allegation from round 1. This is not the case at all: the round 1...

Re the latest cheating allegation and apologies if this information has already been provided but is it known whether the player's games failed both the lichess and the Ken Regan s/w tests? Have any appeals been lodged? Yes, I believe the games failed both the lichess and Ken Regan tests (exact fig...