(Chess) Life Returning To Normal

[Wadih Khoury]

Paul, since you can run 9 board every Monday pm, have you considered maybe creating a "Covid 2020" league running on Saturdays and Sundays? This way you'd be able to get 2x9 boards (or even 4x9 boards) running most week-ends, which could prove more convenient for many players. This way players could at least enjoy one game per week.

[Nick Grey]

Paul. nothing on ccf to suggest open in 2020.

[Paul Bloom]

Paul. nothing on ccf to suggest open in 2020.

Really if you go to our homepage CCF Chess home page or ccf world then in the middle you will see clubs CCF all ages mondays 7.30 until late
When you click on the 1st line CCF all ages you will see our risk assessment outlined and booking details different options with the different payments inc drop down bars for Juniors and seniors
If you click on the 2nd line Mondays you will see our latest fixture list inc everyone currently signed up for this season
Lastly if you click on the 3rd line 7,30 until late and scroll down to longplay club divisions click on there and you will see the 4 divisions we have this season we will not be doing any raidplay or speed chess with the current situation
Hope this helps Nick

[Paul Bloom]

Paul, since you can run 9 board every Monday pm, have you considered maybe creating a "Covid 2020" league running on Saturdays and Sundays? This way you'd be able to get 2x9 boards (or even 4x9 boards) running most week-ends, which could prove more convenient for many players. This way players could at least enjoy one game per week.

HI Wadih yes good idea but the venue is used as a small community church almost every sunday that's why we only have 3 or 4 congresses a year Going back to Theo if you want to work something out and can drop Daniel an email we are considering once every 3 weeks for juniors as they should still be able to get all their matches in . I know its a long way to come but prior to lockdown Patrick was coming every week and I am guessing its a similar distance

[Brendan O'Gorman]

Paul. nothing on ccf to suggest open in 2020.

Really if you go to our homepage CCF Chess home page or ccf world then in the middle you will see clubs CCF all ages mondays 7.30 until late
When you click on the 1st line CCF all ages you will see our risk assessment outlined and booking details different options with the different payments inc drop down bars for Juniors and seniors
If you click on the 2nd line Mondays you will see our latest fixture list inc everyone currently signed up for this season
Lastly if you click on the 3rd line 7,30 until late and scroll down to longplay club divisions click on there and you will see the 4 divisions we have this season we will not be doing any raidplay or speed chess with the current situation
Hope this helps Nick

booking details: https://www.ccfworld.com/Chess/ChessClu ... 020-21.htm
fixtures: https://www.ccfworld.com/Chess/ChessClu ... xtures.htm

[Paul Bloom]

Thanks Brendan for your help posting the link

[Simon Rogers]

It seems that Coulsdon is the place to be for OTB chess.
Well done Paul Bloom and the crew at Coulsdon for keeping it going.
The only other OTB chess that is taking place in the UK at the moment is at Barrow Chess Club, Isle of Man and Northern Ireland.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Pretty sure there will be other chess clubs open dotted around the country.

Almost certainly must be a few in southern parts where the virus is currently less "active".

[Simon Rogers]

Pretty sure there will be other chess clubs open dotted around the country.

Almost certainly must be a few in southern parts where the virus is currently less "active".

So how is Barrow Chess Club going. Is numbers limited?

[Paul Bloom]

Thanks simon got to say Daniel Gliddon does most of the work at ccf and a big thanks to Dominic warner for letting us use the venue with the safety measures we have in place . Another successful club night last night which was our 4th week back all games started 7.30 most were finished by 10.30 and last match 11.15 yes you are right the Virus rates are quite low in the south east

[Simon Rogers]

Thanks simon got to say Daniel Gliddon does most of the work at ccf and a big thanks to Dominic warner for letting us use the venue with the safety measures we have in place . Another successful club night last night which was our 4th week back all games started 7.30 most were finished by 10.30 and last match 11.15 yes you are right the Virus rates are quite low in the south east

How many turned up?
Any interesting results or games?
If you can keep us all updated after each club event, it will be much appreciated.

[Paul Bloom]

Hi Simon yes as I say a good night was due to be 18 but I person dropped out last min so 16 8 good games 5 juniors 11 Adults ranging from division 2 1100 rating up to Premiership 2260 players . the last match finished had a rook and knight v rook ending {no pawns} and the rook and knight managed to win due to the rook and king player getting his pieces in the wrong position on the back rank the last move was a knight check where if the king could not come out due to the other king and if moved to the left on the back rank got mated with the web involving rook knight and king and if king moved to the right he would have his king and rook forked next move . that ending should be drawn with best play both sides which is why the player with just rook and king had given up his last piece for the opponents last pawn

[Chris Goodall]

Since all OTB chess is temporarily cancelled, and everyone currently has about 6 different grades, this seemed like the perfect time to launch: http://chessgra.de!

It's the "old" three-digit grades, but instead of grading periods it'll be a fully online algorithm (meaning memoryless, not "on the internet") and so instead of iterating 100 times to find new players' grades, it'll assign them a grading range as soon as they play a game. I am working on this maths problem, with reference to Mark Glickman. If I can boil all the uncertainly in a player's grade down to a set of error bars, which I believe I can, then I can lose the arbitrary 5-game cutoff for a grade to be official.

Everything will be done in a single text file, like Bitcoin. To keep the GDPR people happy, everyone has been assigned a callsign. You can't predict your callsign from your name or vice versa, but if you know your callsign you can check your game has been recorded correctly, because your opponent's callsign will have the same vowels as their surname, in the same order.

Capturing the games is the easy part; I have some nifty regex tools that can spot the chess results in a block of text.

I will grade ANY over-the-board chess that happens in England for a fee of £0. Friendlies, cups, leagues, ladders, Carlsen vs. Ding.

The output will also be available to the ECF if they want it, which could make this a useful service for:

- local graders who didn't sign up to do monthly updates
- players who don't want to join the ECF at Bronze+ level while it's unclear how much chess they'll get to play
- organisers who don't want to restrict their tournaments to ECF members, given the above

[Simon Rogers]

According to the ECF Calendar, the following events are still going ahead as planned:
Sunday 6th December Coventry & District Chess League Rapidplay, Coventry. Contact: Hok Chiu

Sunday 3rd January 2021 Hull Rapid 2021, Hull
Contact: Douglas Vleeshhouwer

Sunday 31st January Coventry Chess Club Rapidplay, Coventry. Contact: David Fuller.

[Mick Norris]

Coventry

Monday 3 August

Our congress which is scheduled for 6th December is still in the calendar but is increasingly unlikely to take place