British Chess Championships 2011

[Sabrina Chevannes]

Have I come to the wrong thread? I thought this was about the "British Chess Championships 2011" - I've gone back a few pages and can't actually see anything about the topic!

[Adam Raoof]

Have I come to the wrong thread? I thought this was about the "British Chess Championships 2011" - I've gone back a few pages and can't actually see anything about the topic!

I'm sorry, I read this post in the hope that it might contain insults, inflammatory statements, or at least a hint of sexism. What is going on? I am reporting this post for being relevant.

[Sebastian Stone]

I recommend the 'foe list' tool.

What does that do?

[Ian Thompson]

I recommend the 'foe list' tool.

What does that do?

From the form where you set them up - "Foes are users which will be ignored by default. Posts by these users will not be fully visible. Personal messages from foes are still permitted. Please note that you cannot ignore moderators or administrators."

[Paul Sanders]

I recommend the 'foe list' tool.

What does that do?

Posts made by foes are hidden by default - you have to choose to see them. That way it's your own fault if you get irritated.

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/faq.php#f6r0

[Sebastian Stone]

Meh, nobody is that irritating. At least, not on this forum.

[Tryfon Gavriel]

Hi all

For live streaming of the British Championship, I have a feeling that ustream.com are offering a live streaming service free - maybe worth investigating.

Maybe because of this it seems also livestream.com offer a free channel, but you would need to carry adverts. Livestream are a bigger player than ustream I think.

Best wishes
Tryfon

[Mark Howitt]

I think it's entertaining to watch people bicker . Who knows, it might attract people to chess by knowing it's not just a 'silent gentlemanly game'- I have plenty of tales I could tell which illustrate that point further!

[Tryfon Gavriel]

Hi all

Just re-reading some of the recent pages of this thread.

It is my understanding that *technical planning* which Carl was implying I believe , includes making sure there is enough wi-fi capacity for relaying from the venue. I also think one needs a quality noise-reduction microphone input for commentators like Andrew Martin not to be sounding as if they are in an aquarium, which did seem a bit like the case last time. A condenser microphone which is USB enabled would improve sound quality immensely I believe - it did for my Youtube channel recordings. E.g.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Technica-AT2020 ... -1-catcorr

So whatever broadcasting method is used - e.g. playchess, livestream, or ustream.tv then that would be academic if two issues weren't addressed:

1) Wifi capability on site. Can the university (maybe it has a chess club there that can help our cause!?) do some trials with live streaming to see if it is possible from the venue there?!

2) Microphone quality

With regards to Carl's comment I believe about Chessbase and Silverlight (See page 18, 3rd from top) - that might restrict potential viewers. Unless a viewer has Chessbase software of course - playchess.com software client is free to download though (from http://www.playchess.com). And that would bypass a silverlight webbrowser issue. But it is a major step for someone to download the playchess.com client software, instead of just using a service like livestream.com - I believe livestream has been used as Gibraltar on more than one occasion and some US events - it seems good. It was good for raising the profile of the event I think.

Gibraltar-chess can be found here, and not the past recordings are all available:

http://www.livestream.com/gibchess

(scroll down to "Video Library")

One issue with livestream.com though which i would like to point out from my experiments yesterday with:

http://www.livestream.com/kingscrusher

Is that there is an upper limit of *50 viewers maximum* on the free version, unless permission is granted on the free version for more viewers maximum. The case would have to be put to livestream. The free version also carries these forced preliminary potentially annoying ads - but that is why it is free.

However, I believe that ustream.tv doesn't have an upper limit on viewers and is still free.

http://www.ustream.tv/

Hope these comments help in some way. Chessbase does sound good, but maybe there can be a livestream or ustream.tv "wrapper" around it, so that an ordinary web browser user can still see the relay without having to install software.

Best wishes
Tryfon

[cjdemooi]

If I could just mention that my expenses claims have been kept to a minimum and will be at an average of less than £180 a month. I believe every board member (and an extra individual or so who may be mentioned in this thread) gives up his or her time not for free but actually for not inconsiderable financial loss.

It isn't just the ECF's functionality that benefits from this sacrifice, its survival depends on it.

[Roger de Coverly]

Has anyone booked Endcliffe (the University accommodation) recently? A few weeks ago, if you keyed the promotion code CHESS, the price was higher than if you didn't. Did I deprive the Congress of commission income by remaining incognito?

[cjdemooi]

WGM Susan Lalic will be playing which is wonderful as unfortunately I've been unable to secure the participation of any of the other top female players. My apologies for yet another abysmal failure on my part.

[LozCooper]

WGM Susan Lalic will be playing which is wonderful as unfortunately I've been unable to secure the participation of any of the other top female players. My apologies for yet another abysmal failure on my part.

Susan is an IM. I think one or two more may enter albeit a lot of our top women are prevented from playing because of the minimum rating requirement and are also put off by the £200 entry fee.

[Roger de Coverly]

I think one or two more may enter albeit a lot of our top women are prevented from playing because of the minimum rating requirement

http://www.britishchess2011.com/qualify ... s_2011.htm would allow 4 nominations in total from the Junior director, the Home director and the Congress managers. In practice these nominations aren't used. It doesn't help for the entry fee of course.

[LozCooper]

I think one or two more may enter albeit a lot of our top women are prevented from playing because of the minimum rating requirement

http://www.britishchess2011.com/qualify ... s_2011.htm would allow 4 nominations in total from the Junior director, the Home director and the Congress managers. In practice these nominations aren't used. It doesn't help for the entry fee of course.

It's a shame the International Director isn't allowed a nomination