English Chess Forum

Hi everyone,

Subject to the government lifting the pandemic rules, I will be organising a 6 rounds, 60+30, ECF + FIDE rated tournament at the same venue in Oxfordshire, accessible from London, South East and Midlands.

£30 entry fees, reduced to £20 for those 1900+ on both ECF and FIDE.

2 to 4 sections, (min 10, max 16 per section) organised by strength (average of ECF and FIDE rating), with a minimum of juniors and women/girls per section.
Current capacity of 48, could be extended depending on the situation nearer the event.

For those of you disliking masks, they will be recommended but not mandated at the board, but will be mandatory when moving inside the building.
All subject of course to changes in laws and recommendations as we near the date of the event.

Tournament rules and safety protocols here: https://tinyurl.com/4rmu5jsy

Registration link here: https://tinyurl.com/9398mpdm

Wadih Khoury wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 28, 2021 11:07 pm

For those of you disliking masks, they will be recommended but not mandated at the board, but will be mandatory when moving inside the building.

Isn't that likely to be a home made extension of what is and isn't legal? In my view, "restrictions lifted" should mean what it says. In other words the rules (none) that would have applied in August 2019.

Roger de Coverly wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 28, 2021 11:20 pm

Wadih Khoury wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 28, 2021 11:07 pm

For those of you disliking masks, they will be recommended but not mandated at the board, but will be mandatory when moving inside the building.

Isn't that likely to be a home made extension of what is and isn't legal? In my view, "restrictions lifted" should mean what it says. In other words the rules (none) that would have applied in August 2019.

Yes indeed. I do not plan to go with the lowest possible set of rules (and may also be restricted by the venue's rules).
The virus will still be around in August, and if I can keep a few rules, hopefully not too restrictive, it should benefit us all greatly and limit risks.

Regarding masks:
* recommended at the board, but not mandatory
* mandatory when moving inside the building
* no restrictions when sitting in one of the allocated waiting rooms
* no restrictions outside (large playground with a few benches)

So really the mandatory part concerns a tiny proportion of the time spent at the event.

Some updates:

• The participant list is now online and can be found here: https://www.vegaresult.com/vega-trn/index.php?id=608 We have a nice range fron 900 to 2100
• There is a very limited number of free entries for players rated 2000+ FIDE
• Given the overlap with the British online, some players expressed an interest in another tournament. I am therefore considering organising a similar event on August 21st-22nd

Please share with your friends and clubs (adults or juniors).

The tournament went really well, I operated at maximum capacity of 48 and managed to keep players without games at a very low level!

Many adult newcomers to over the board chess, which was really pleasing.
Section A was really strong with most players 2000+

No organisation or player issues to report. As often, by the last couple of rounds, the youngest children in the lowest section started to become a bit tired and therefore disruptive, and had therefore to be managed a bit more sternly.

Results here:

Section A: https://www.vegaresult.com/vega-trn/index.php?id=609
Section B: https://www.vegaresult.com/vega-trn/index.php?id=610
Section C: https://www.vegaresult.com/vega-trn/index.php?id=661

Well done Wadih, very impressive.

It sounds very good, although I find a little worrying the phrase "managed to keep players without games at a very low level!"

Tim Spanton wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 09, 2021 5:53 pm

although I find a little worrying the phrase "managed to keep players without games at a very low level!"

It does look a bit weird on the cross table that one of the co-winners in Section A received a full point bye in the last round.

Roger de Coverly wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 09, 2021 6:30 pm

Tim Spanton wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 09, 2021 5:53 pm

although I find a little worrying the phrase "managed to keep players without games at a very low level!"

It does look a bit weird on the cross table that one of the co-winners in Section A received a full point bye in the last round.

Yes, his opponent informed me 30 minutes before the round start that he would not come back for round 6. It is unfortunate, but people have their circumstances and I respect that.
Given that I had no un-paired player in that section, I felt that I had no choice but to give a full point Bye as it is not the contestant's fault.

I may have decided to re-pair the whole section at the last minute, but that would have impacted all the pairings and messed up the players' preparation.

I am open to hear suggestions on how to best deal with final round forfeits.

Tim Spanton wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 09, 2021 5:53 pm

It sounds very good, although I find a little worrying the phrase "managed to keep players without games at a very low level!"

Very poor wording from my part.

In my first event, I probably had almost every round someone unpaired (people dropping out, people taking byes).
In this event, I only had to give out 3 full point Bye over circa 130 games.

I was therefore expressing satisfaction that nearly everyone managed to play the full 6 rounds.

My usual rules when I was running tournaments were:

Player withdraws after round starts - no re-pairings (except possibly "player whose opponent hasn't arrived" versus "player who got the bye").
Player withdraws before pairings published - do the draw again
Player withdraws between those two points - do a "minimum disruption" re-pairing: do a re-pairing such that you change as few pairings as possible for the pairings to still look normal (eg trying to avoid multiple downfloats from the same scoregroup, floats that skip a scoregroup etc).

(So in this particular case, I would have re-paired so that Rathbone-Jones played Baer, Chaplin played Nevett-Farman, and Szarka got the bye.)

Sounds like a great weekend. Well done Wadih.