Continuing Leagues & Established Events Online

[Paul McKeown]

As for suspect games not being graded, there is an argument that any game played online is 'suspect'.

Your suggestion is therefore that any online game is liable to be one in which someone is using an engine, or involves a weaker player seeking advice from a stronger player. That is simply nonsense. Naturally, someone else could make the same suggestion about otb play, and be equally silly.

[JustinHorton]

Equally?

[Martin Benjamin]

Thanks to those like Paul and Adam who are floating initiatives of this kind. My views are similar to Richard Bates's, except that as time goes on, I think there will be considerably more interest. I don't want to spark more discussion about the rights and wrongs of particular strategies, but the much publicised Imperial College report states that this type of intensive intervention package will need to be maintained until a vaccine becomes available (potentially 18 months or more). I therefore think there is scope and a potential market for temporary leagues or individual events to be played online, but not for prize money, and I think that it would be simplest and best not to grade such games at all (or at least to keep a separate grading system for them, and not to include them in ECF grades). I just believe the temptation for too many people to get computer or book help at times during a game would be too strong. This would probably still happen to a lesser extent even if the games did not count towards ECF grading, but would encourage more people to join in, in the knowledge that it would not affect their ECF grade.

[Matt Bridgeman]

A lot of projections are saying spring next year before things might start edging towards anything approaching normality again. A term that used to get banded around a lot in the police is becoming ‘de-skilled.’ I’d think if over the board chess is effectively over for the next 15-18 months, chess players might well be in danger of becoming very rusty and de-skilled. Surprisingly there’s plenty of juniors as well as seniors who don’t like or particularly get great insight out of playing 3 and 5 minute games on chess.com. Probably some unrated, safe, competitive long play online games later in the year would keep keen players ticking over a bit. If the time control was reasonable, players might even be able to safely transfer the positions onto proper chess boards for a bit more reality.

[NickFaulks]

As for suspect games not being graded, there is an argument that any game played online is 'suspect'.

I don't think that is quite fair. Any game played online without a trusted arbiter in the room with each player is suspect.

[Matt Mackenzie]

I think people are treating this "18 months" thing as gospel when it is, in fact, highly speculative and not agreed on by other observers.

[David Blower]

After years of being dormant the Brewood Chess Circle chess.com page has being reactivated this past week, with us telling the club members to join us online. Our chess club committee were keen that members of our chess club could still continue to 1) interact with each other and 2) play chess against each other. As well as that various technical things like openings, and work for students to complete their Duke of Edinburgh Awards maybe added from time to time.

I don't claim for one moment that we are going to be as good as Richmond Juniors at this, but I am guessing that the vast majority of chess clubs will not be doing anything at all and at Brewood we are keen to avoid that.

[Brian Valentine]

Email despatched this afternoon:

"Dear League / County chess colleagues

I am writing to let you know about the ECF's package to support the move
to online chess given current circumstances.

As you may be aware the ECF currently provides online clubs on lichess
and Chess.com for ECF members looking to play ECF-rated games online. We
have several hundred members across the two clubs, and currently
schedule 4 or more club tournaments per week. We calculate and publish
ECF blitz and rapid online ratings on a monthly basis for results from
our online club events. These ECF Online ratings are kept completely
separate from the OTB grading lists, which are not impacted.

We are also running international events for club members on both
platforms, including England entries in the lichess Cup of Nations
tournaments and one of matches with other federations. In addition, we
have an ECF open club for social players who may not be ECF members,
with over 2,300 members on Chess.com and a regular schedule of
non-ECF-rated events.

Further details can be found below and you should note that the ECF
online ratings for members club events are 4 digit Elo ratings, which
are completely separate from ECF OTB grades given the different playing
conditions, and are published separately on a monthly basis.

https://englishchessonline.org.uk/

The ECF is now looking to extend this service to provide support for
leagues and clubs who are looking to schedule online club nights and
inter-club matches on internet provider platforms given current
circumstances.

The support package is based on leagues/clubs establishing online clubs
on one of the internet provider platforms (e.g. Chess.com or lichess)
and scheduling a series of online events - e.g. club nights, club
tournaments, summer leagues etc. We will be publishing guidance on
setting up an online club (based on provider guidance), ideas and
guidance on establishing online club nights and events, and minimum
standards for inter- or intra-club events to be recognised and ECF
online-rated. We will also be providing guidance on fair play and
anti-cheating measures.

Leagues or clubs will be able to get ECF-recognised events rated by
submitting results in the normal way to the ECF grading team, and we
will include these results in standard play, rapid or blitz ECF online
listings when there is a sufficient volume of results - either in July
to coincide with the final six-monthly OTB list, or otherwise later in
the year, aligned directly with one of the monthly online lists. As
above, you should note that online ratings will be held completely
separate from OTB ratings, with separate rating lists.

Please respond with any feedback on the above proposals including level
of interest from your league and member club, any points you think will
be important to consider, and areas where you feel the ECF could help
with a shift from OTB to online chess. We will be writing separately to
all clubs, but do feel free to forward this email to member clubs for
further feedback as appropriate.

Yours as ever
English Chess Federation"

[Richard Bates]

I wonder if it might be possible to develop a platform to host online simultaneous displays? This would have the added advantage of being a pretty cheap way to support chess professionals.

[Adam Raoof]

I wonder if it might be possible to develop a platform to host online simultaneous displays? This would have the added advantage of being a pretty cheap way to support chess professionals.

Lichess can do this already. I have taken part in and given a simul on that platform, and Simon Williams has done very well with his simul!

[Martin Crichton]

I joined Lichess a few days ago and played in an online event yesterday but it crashed so many times it was a torturous experience.

Their servers were struggling to cope with 27,500 games online at the same time.

good site but too many using it now that we are all at home.

[Adam Raoof]

Apologies for the poor user experience - something like that happened today, in the final round! I will stick with events on lichess and try out chess.com next week and see how they compare...

[David Sedgwick]

Speaking for myself, I have never played online chess and would feel at a considerable disadvantage if, for example, I had to play a London League match online. I would prefer not to play until the shutdown is over.

I suspect that your view may be different by the time this is all over, if it is going to continue until next year.

Paul, it looks as though your comment could prove to have been a considerable understatement. I have developed withdrawal symptoms far more quickly than I expected.

At least I didn't make the David Mabbs error of announcing my intentions in a letter to The Times.

[ben.graff]

I played in a lichess tournament for the first time this morning. I very much enjoyed it. We were playing 10 and 8. Server seemed fine but I might have been lucky. I normally play on ICC, but the Lichess tournament facility is very good. I personally don’t see the point of rated longer games online - when it’s faster it’s much harder for people to cheat.