English Chess Forum

We now have proposed venues and dates for all four FIDE senior events in 2024 although the World ones are provisional as yet. The venues seem, at first sight anyway, promising and more accessible than some of this years.

I have updated my pages at
http://www.chessmail.com/seniors/Seniors-calendar.html
and
http://www.chessmail.com/seniors/Seniors-news.html
(There are also some German events added for late 2023 and 2024.)

It's too early to make definite plans on the basis of FIDE Council decisions on the World awards since we saw what happened with Buenos Aires which turned out not to be the 2023 venue after all.
But if we go by the proposed dates in the bid documents available on the Events Commission website, we will get (in date order):


European Teams: 15-25 April at Terme Catez, Slovenia. (I note that the German senior calendar has still not picked up on the change of dates.) Simplest would be to fly to Ljubljana or if that option is unavailable, it is only about 100km drive from Trieste. The venue is close to the Croatian border but I am not sure how to get there from Zagreb.

World Teams: Galaxy Hotel, Krakow, Poland, "subject to the successful inspection" 1-12 July. Krakow has an airport used by Ryanair so that one is easy to get to.

World Individuals: "Constanta (Mamaia), Romania, subject to the successful inspection." The dates proposed by the organisers are from 5-15 September. Those dates suggest this would be only a 9-round tournament instead of the usual 11. The new regulations provide that it may only be 9 rounds though this year it will be 11.

European Individual Seniors: 18-29 October at Lignano Sabbiadoro, north-east Italy, which is also not far from Trieste but closer to Veniuce, I think. I don't know which Italian organiser this will be.

From the 2023 thread,

"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.

The venue for that event was some sort of college. Galaxy Hotel sounds familiar though. Krakow was a great place.

I have just happened to notice an announcement which came out rather quietly last week about the 2024 World Individual Seniors.

https://www.fide.com/news/3038

Looks like a very pleasant destination, although warm clothes will be required. Beats England in November, though.

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Thu May 30, 2024 10:27 am

I have just happened to notice an announcement which came out rather quietly last week about the 2024 World Individual Seniors.

https://www.fide.com/news/3038

Looks like a very pleasant destination, although warm clothes will be required. Beats England in November, though.

I saw a discussion on Facebook about the problems involved in getting there in November. Helen Milligan and Andy Burnett were two of those posting about it.

I've also just seen a post from Petra Nunn quoting the organiser:

Good evening
Easyjet has agreed with the Portuguese Chess Federation to schedule extra flights from Lisbon to Porto Santo before and after the World Senior Championships. There will also be scheduled flights from Billund (Denmark).
Notice that there are also frequent flights from several UK destinations to Funchal Airport (Madeira); from Funchal there are two daily flights with Binter Canarias.
However, the schedules for November are not yet published. We will inform you as soon they become available.
Notice that from Funchal it is also possible to travel by ferry to Porto Santo daily (except Tuesdays), which takes around 2h30. Again, the schedule for November is not yet published.
Best regards,
Paulo Rocha
Portuguese Chess Federation

LawrenceCooper wrote: ↑

Thu May 30, 2024 10:38 am

I saw a discussion on Facebook

Thanks Loz, I had no idea that others had done so much work already.

Personally, I like the sound of the ferry!

edit : Easyjet flights to Madeira look well priced. I tried to check times and got an error message.

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Thu May 30, 2024 4:39 pm

Personally, I like the sound of the ferry!

It was a subject of conversation at the English Seniors. The routes for getting there seemed to be as described above.

Roger de Coverly wrote: ↑

Thu May 30, 2024 5:27 pm

It was a subject of conversation at the English Seniors.

I'm surprised that the discussion didn't find its way onto this thread.