English Chess Forum

My latest blog on Chess.com - 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Online Chess' - features the newly created North East Online League, and says why local online leagues are a great way to keep chess clubs together during lockdown:

https://www.chess.com/blog/timpeterwall ... line-chess

I believe local online leagues are an important way for us to revive chess throughout the country, because:

a) they help keep local chess communities together;
b) they bring more people into playing online - including people who don't normally like online chess - because they are playing locally, against teams and players they know, not against virtually anonymous strangers;
c) organising these local leagues through the ECF's LMS gives players rated games, allows real time viewing of matches in progress; and
d) requiring players to be ECF members or supporters is a key way to boost membership figures, and keep the ECF afloat financially.

They are a good way to keep chess running provided you have a dedicated network of orgsnisers - for example if I was going to try and collect results and create league tables I wouldn't even consider the job unless I knew each team had a captain who would reliably convey their team results to me each week.

At the moment the only online UK leagues I know of are the 4ncl and county league ones but would be interested to hear if any smaller local leagues have managed to successfully stage online competitions.

Starting this Wednesday!

https://tornelo.com/chess/orgs/london-c ... ess-league

Manchester Chess Federation has been running a local online league since September 2nd.

The match cards and league tables are on the MCF LMS at

http://www.manchesterchess.org.uk/

MCF uses the Lichess platform

The London Chess League commences this coming Wednesday using the Tornelo platform.

See

https://www.londonchess.org.uk/

I'm populating the LCL LMS with fixtures today.

I did the fixtures for the online Manchester league and it only took 10 minutes

OTB normally takes at least 3 days!

The League of Mayhem - mainly for Essex and London clubs - has entered its second season after a successful first season. Games are played on Thursdays. Fortunately, in my opinion of course, it uses the Lichess platform.

https://www.leagueofmayhem2020.com/

The West Midlands Area Online League has been running since April, and has just finished it's Summer League after also running a Spring League.

It is being run through the ECF LMS and Chess.com.

ECF LMS page https://ecflms.org.uk/lms/node/59701/home
Chess.com page https://www.chess.com/club/west-midlands-area-league

Yes, we were delayed by surveying our member clubs

Then, some of the clubs that supported the idea didn't enter teams

My own club were using chess.com but commented how Lichess was better once the MCF used it

Herts are playing a formal-ish 45+15 league on lichess - round 2 was last Tuesday.

Five Counties Online League is on League Management System at https://ecflms.org.uk/lms/node/60543/home.

Currently 25 teams in three divisions, 45' + 15" and rated, Lichess, second season ends 22 December and it's open to approaches from new teams.

Adam Raoof wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 18, 2020 11:36 am

Starting this Wednesday!

https://tornelo.com/chess/orgs/london-c ... ess-league

Will the London Chess League Online be ECF Online Rated?

David Sedgwick wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 19, 2020 3:28 pm

Adam Raoof wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 18, 2020 11:36 am

Starting this Wednesday!

https://tornelo.com/chess/orgs/london-c ... ess-league

Will the London Chess League Online be ECF Online Rated?

Not on this occasion, no.

Thames valley Online will be ECF Online Rated.

The Coventry & District League, are running their second online league, with two Divisions: https://covchessleague.blogspot.com/p/online.html

We will not be rating it online, it is hard enough to encourage Clubs to stay active and cohesive, let alone telling people to pay for online chess, which they can get for free on lichess, and chess . com.

As a seperate plug, the Leamington & District League are running their first (individual) Online Championships, open to people inside and outside of the league. There will be prizes/trophies, but it won't be ECF Online rated, to reduce barriers for entry. https://tinyurl.com/ldclonlinechampionship2020

Hok Yin Stephen Chiu wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 20, 2020 1:01 pm

We will not be rating it online, it is hard enough to encourage Clubs to stay active and cohesive, let alone telling people to pay for online chess, which they can get for free on lichess, and chess . com.

What is this heresy?!

Would either of your competitions like to have online ratings calculated anyway, for free? I can do that. I have spare bandwidth right now thanks to, y'know, NE lockdown and no OTB league to organise.