Why does 4NCL stop?
Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 8:18 pm
I mean, why doesn't 4NCL just carry on, all year round? I ask because, these past two years of my belated exposure to it, I haven't enjoyed playing the game so much for years, not since the 1970s certainly.
Presumably 4NCL doesn't stop because of tedious old traditions like a 'closed season'. Presumably it has something - a rather large something, possibly - to do with hotel bookings/prices during the summer months. Or maybe it's player demand. If neither, then I could see the argument for breaks in July-August & in December. But otherwise, game on - in June, Sept & Oct.
And then there's my second pipe-dream. Can we change the playing habits of at least the well-tutored 'top 1000' players so that quality weekend matches become the norm, shifting us from the bedlam of evening chess squeezed into that narrow space between work & sleep, games rattled off in the sepia twilight of a pub's back room? This would possibly involve, say, a 'Civic 4NCL' played regionally between city/town teams in jamboree-style at specific weekends. I accept this may not mean much in London, where there's plenty of chess on offer. But a 'Civic 4NCL' in the North/Midlands might stimulate the appetite.
Just thinking. Just asking, like
Presumably 4NCL doesn't stop because of tedious old traditions like a 'closed season'. Presumably it has something - a rather large something, possibly - to do with hotel bookings/prices during the summer months. Or maybe it's player demand. If neither, then I could see the argument for breaks in July-August & in December. But otherwise, game on - in June, Sept & Oct.
And then there's my second pipe-dream. Can we change the playing habits of at least the well-tutored 'top 1000' players so that quality weekend matches become the norm, shifting us from the bedlam of evening chess squeezed into that narrow space between work & sleep, games rattled off in the sepia twilight of a pub's back room? This would possibly involve, say, a 'Civic 4NCL' played regionally between city/town teams in jamboree-style at specific weekends. I accept this may not mean much in London, where there's plenty of chess on offer. But a 'Civic 4NCL' in the North/Midlands might stimulate the appetite.
Just thinking. Just asking, like
), so the more teams enter the lower the costs (which will be per team). I can't see it being more than £40 per team though, and hopefully less than that depending on numbers. The only other main cost apart from venue would be a modest array of trophies.
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