FIDE senior events in 2023

[Keith Arkell]

And now I'm being told that it will next happen in 2024. Perhaps they are slowly breaking to me that the event is no more

[Mark Adams]

FIDE has just announced that the venue for the World Senior Teams will be held in North Macedonia, Ohrid, September 19-29. An invitation from the Organizers should be issued in May.

[Tim Harding]

FIDE has just announced that the venue for the World Senior Teams will be held in North Macedonia, Ohrid, September 19-29. An invitation from the Organizers should be issued in May.

If you go to this page on my website:
http://www.chessmail.com/seniors/Seniors-news.html
you can download PDFs with the details of the Ohrid bid, giving most of the information you are likely to need to make a decision about whether to play or not in Ohrid, which sounds like an interesting but somewhat inaccessible location.

The organisers will lay on transport to and from the Macedonian capital Skopje. The problem is that even getting there could be a nightmare. Bad enough from London, worse from Ireland.
Ryanair do not fly to Skopje.
I found British Airways fly to Zagreb with a connection to Skopje after a 10 hour layover, arriving very late.

Easyjet may fly to Skopje via Geneva but I haven't checked dates, times or prices.

One possibility is to get to Belgrade, via Zagreb if necessary and then a 6-hour 25-Euro Flixbus journey to Skopje and overnight there. I have used Flixbus once but this doesn't look great for Seniors.

Maybe there is a routing via Paris, Frankfurt or Amsterdam. Any suggestions?

I'm pretty sure I won't be going. A few email exchanges with English players today and the consensus seems to be we will wait to see what venue and date are announced for the individual seniors. That's likely to be in November, possibly Malta (as they bid for the team event).

[IM Jack Rudd]

The usual answer to queries of this nature is to check http://www.skyscanner.com and see what options they give.

[Ian Thompson]

Maybe there is a routing via Paris, Frankfurt or Amsterdam. Any suggestions?

My usual approach to finding this sort of thing out is to go to the destination airport website and see if it has a route map of direct flights to it. Ohrid airport does not, but it does have a summer timetable, from which it can be seen that transfers are possible via:

• Belgrade, Dortmund, Vienna and Zurich for return flights
• Amsterdam and Manchester for the outbound flight only

as well as a few other airports that are unlikely to be sensible routes if starting from the UK.

[Mark Adams]

Just heard from FIDE that "there's a 99% chance" that the arrival date for the World Senior Teams will be brought forward to the 18th Sept. Most annoying as flights have already been booked.

[Mark Adams]

The FIDE Events Commission are meeting with the Ohrid organisers today (5/5/23) to discuss the change of date. Apparently the departure date is remaining as the 29th so, I assume, they want a rest day included. I've been told that the organisers are aware that, as the dates were already published on the official FIDE calendar, they may have to cover the cost of changing the flights for those already booked.

[Mark Adams]

The regulations for the World Teams are now online. Official website is due to go live on May 30th https://fide.com/news/2387

[Tim Harding]

The official website for the World Senior Team Championships on Lake Ohrid is now live at https://seniorteam2023.fide.com/

The individual World Senior Championships will be held over 11 rounds (with a rest day) in Terrasini, north-west Sicily from 24 October (arrival day) to 6 November (departure). This is the third venue announced for that event, Sochi having been the original choice and then in April FIDE had provisionally agreed on Buenos Aires but that has evidently fallen through.

Regulations for both events can also be downloaded from my Seniors calendar page at http://www.chessmail.com/seniors/Seniors-calendar.html, while my Seniors news page (linked from there) is updated with a summary of the results in the just-finished European individual senior championships.

[Mark Adams]

We're flying out of LCY via Frankfurt to Skopje. i suggest you check the details on the Lufthansa site as it was cheaper than going via the ticket scanner sites.

[Tim Harding]

We're flying out of LCY via Frankfurt to Skopje. i suggest you check the details on the Lufthansa site as it was cheaper than going via the ticket scanner sites.

Thanks for the advice but personally, I shall not be going for reasons unconnected with chess.

From Ireland our options are more restricted, especially for trying to get to Ohrid airport with fewer than three flights.

The player who is hoping to organise Irish teams tells me that it's possible to fly to Skopje from Dublin via Frankfurt with Lufthansa or Turkish airlines. (Dublin-Frankfurt connections are good; there is no need to go via London. But a few Irish players live in GB and could follow your advice.)

A German senior player who knows the Ohrid area well says he certainly recommends visiting but it will take almost 3 hours by bus to reach the tournament hotel from Skopje airport.

The travel options from Ireland to the World individuals in Sicily are not good either. The last Ryanair flight of the year to Palermo is on October 23; to get home it will be necessary to go via somewhere in mainland Italy probably. My German friend says he is not very impressed by the organiser or the hotel either. He thinks probably they are opening just one wing of the hotel for the chess as normally it would be closed by that time of year.

So I will play some other tournament if I am able to travel in the late autumn.

Finally, I think it is not "green" for ACO and FIDE to run tournaments on islands and remote venues that in practice all competitors must take flights to reach.

[Mick Norris]

Latest FIDE news for next year, look forward to comments about these choices

CM2-2023/20 To award World Senior Team Chess Championships 2024 to Krakow, Poland, subject to the successful inspection.

CM2-2023/21 To award World Senior Chess Championships 2024 to Constanta (Mamaia), Romania, subject to the successful inspection.

[Tim Spanton]

I played at Kraków last year, and found it an attractive city (I posted some pix at my blog starting with https://beauchess.blogspot.com/2022/06/ ... -xxvi.html), an added bonus being it has its own airport.

I've played in Romania but have not been to Constanța. However it is on the Black Sea, which sounds promising.

[Ian Jamieson]

I played at Kraków last year, and found it an attractive city (I posted some pix at my blog starting with https://beauchess.blogspot.com/2022/06/ ... -xxvi.html), an added bonus being it has its own airport.

I've played in Romania but have not been to Constanța. However it is on the Black Sea, which sounds promising.

Yes, beautiful, walkable old town, Wawel castle, gardens, location of Schindler’s list, wieliczka salt mine, and Auschwitz is only about an hour or so away by bus although i’’m not sure if I’d recommend going to Auschwitz on the same visit to Krakow as playing in a chess tournament - the chess tournament might or might not seem very unimportant after a trip to Auschwitz depending on your views / background.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Yes, beautiful, walkable old town, Wawel castle, gardens, location of Schindler’s list, wieliczka salt mine, and Auschwitz is only about an hour or so away by bus although i’’m not sure if I’d recommend going to Auschwitz on the same visit to Krakow as playing in a chess tournament - the chess tournament might or might not seem very unimportant after a trip to Auschwitz depending on your views / background."

And there was an aviation museum...

I did the Auschwitz trip the day after the tournament ended, probably better that way round. It puts your own problems into perspective.