English Chess Forum

5 junior magazine There used to be one. It's archived on this forum. https://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewforum.php?f=26 It was cancelled to save money when the ECF lost its government funding of around £ 50,000 a year back in 2010. If you are interested in establishing a junior magazine, I suggest a cre...

Quite a creative way to promote exports to China
https://lindoresabbeydistillery.com/che ... ournament/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/newsbeat- ... -crowdfund

Not all crowdfunding stories have a happy ending, lets hope this stays as one.

John Upham wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 03, 2019 9:49 am

I predict that the "winner" of the tender will be UK Chess Challenge persons.

Who would like to bet against me ?

The timescale is laughable for anyone who was not pre-warned about the content of the tender.

Yes, how much do you want?

I viewed it too. It seems incredibly cumbersome and to be honest I cannot see anyone bidding for it. On the one hand I guess Alex and the ECF should be applauded for making the process transparent, but it just seems a very strange way to go about it to me.

Just taken a look at the entry form and I noticed this

"All players will need ECF silver, gold, or platinum membership. Any entrants without silver
membership will be rejected."

That seems a strange approach for a FIDE rated event. It hardly seems to encourage foreign players to take part.

In terms of opening, I think your guess is as good as mine. For what it is worth I'd guess that when Caruana has White we'll see more of the same. With Carlsen as White he'll want to get a level position and just play a game so maybe some pretty insipid stuff starting with d4.

The betting odds suggested that Carlsen had a 2 in 3 chance of winning at the start. Having reached this stage that now appears to have improved to a 3 in 4 chance. That seems wrong to me. I think it was 50/50 at the start and still is. Would Carlsen have been able to neutralise b4 in the Rossolimo ...

For the alternative perspective, I went to a local chess club this week and five members had been down to the match - they said it was brilliant. Each to their own I guess

There are twelve competitors in total. I do not know who they are.

Surely, Magnus is playing the best player that he has played in a World Championship match and finding it the most difficult. Why is that a surprise? I thought it was a 50/50 match at the start and nothing seems to have changed.

It is simpler than that. Gambling companies pay to produce poker programmes

I would be very surprised to see 12 draws. We are seeing more courageous opening choices from Caruana as White and tiredness, both mental and physical are sure to play a part. If we see a tiebreak then I think it will be because both players have won a game.

Congrats to my good friends Simon williams and Matt Turner on securing the 2 qualifying places to the British KO Champs in London, shortly - worth a minimum of £2,500 A player has now told me that we haven’t in fact qualified for the knockout but a pre-lim round with less prize money. Might be true...

Somewhat ominously the two lead news articles on the website https://www.wccc2018.com/ are one that is only available in 'European Spanish' and a bus timetable with no comment.