British Chess Championships 2011

[Roger de Coverly]

So is Ray really opening the Championships then?

Forty years since his previous and only win.

[David Gilbert]

I don't see any reason to change the current entry conditions. The point is that in previous years the new grades have been used to determine seedings and the first round draw for the graded championships. For example James Foster would have been top-seed in the Under-180 championship with a grade of 191. My question was whether there was a conscious decision not to use the new grades this year?

It might be worth saying that I've got concerns about a twice-yearly grading list. It was made clear at the London League AGM a couple of weeks ago that the League had no intention whatsoever of submitting grading data more than once a year.

One further point, it was interesting to see an 11th hour entry in the Major Open from Charlie Storey. He should stir things up. He's the new top seed, but his entry wasn't even in the list published this morning, so it must have been a really late decision.

[David Gilbert]

Will there be games from any of the morning events on the internet? I do hope so!

I shall be tuning-in from 9.30am tomorrow.

But please tell the players not to do their post match analysis on the board - this becomes very confusing for the internet watcher who doesn't know it's just analysis!

[David Clayton]

Will there be games from any of the morning events on the internet? I do hope so!

I shall be tuning-in from 9.30am tomorrow.

But please tell the players not to do their post match analysis on the board - this becomes very confusing for the internet watcher who doesn't know it's just analysis!

Hello David

Unfortunately there will be no live games this morning, sorry. I was at a wedding on Saturday and I didn’t arrive at the venue until Sunday lunch time, so there are still plenty of things remaining to be set up.

It is also quite hard work to put live games on in the morning as well as the afternoon for only one person. With the potential of only 45 minutes between the morning round and the afternoon round, the last thing we would want would be no live games in the afternoon because I didn’t have enough time to set things up for the afternoon rounds.

There are other reasons as well, such as we are adding more electronic facilities to the event, for example electronic displays instead of the manual demonstration boards, all of which add to the complexity of the event, so a 45 minute set up time is doesn't give enough time to resolve any problems that might arrive.

It is difficult for some players to change the habit of a live time of analysing over the board upon completion of their game when they are playing on the sensory boards. As you say, these moves get transmitted live and could end up on a pgn file. Perhaps in time they will become used to it.

So I am sorry to disappoint you in the morning, but I hope you enjoy the afternoon coverage of the event.

Regards

David

[andrew martin]

Live commentary can be accessed at : www.livestream.com/leylandchess from 3pm each day.

Thanks

[LozCooper]

Live commentary can be accessed at : http://www.livestream.com/leylandchess from 3pm each day.

Thanks

Who's the other commentator?

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

Who's the other commentator?

Maybe Alec Toll?

[John Moore]

It's a shame there's only 4 live games today - unless the rest are hidden somewhere else. Absolutely no criticism of Dave Clayton who does a great job but it was nice to have 14 games yesterday.

[Carl Hibbard]

It's a shame there's only 4 live games today - unless the rest are hidden somewhere else. Absolutely no criticism of Dave Clayton who does a great job but it was nice to have 14 games yesterday.

They are being tested on site but not on the web sorry - the broadcast thing is a load issue nothing more

[John Moore]

Thanks Carl - I have just reminded myself where to find discussion of the live games i.e under general chat.

[cjdemooi]

Nigel Short up to #47 on the Live Ratings list with 2700.5 and Mickey Adams still at #17 with 2728.7. It's going to be an exciting last round!

[Kirk Gornall]

Nigel Short up to #47 on the Live Ratings list with 2700.5 and Mickey Adams still at #17 with 2728.7. It's going to be an exciting last round!

It's amazing how many players are rated >=2700 currently. A year or so ago it was only around 30, and now it's nearly 50! Ratings inflation. Hopefully Nigel can win his last round game and remain 2700+.

[cjdemooi]

I'm sure it's been mentioned elsewhere but I can't find the thread offhand.

I would like to offer my congratulations to all the prizewinners from the Darwin Strategic British Chess Championships 2011 but especially to Jovanka and Michael. To anyone else who narrowly missed out or was just there for the experience, I hope you'll give it another go next year!

[Alan Burke]

I would just wish to thank CJ and all the other ECF staff responsible for making the 2011 British Championships such an enjoyable and popular event. It's popularity can obviously be seen by the number of entrants compared with other recent British Championships ...

Edinburgh (2003) 1009
Torquay (2002) 973
SHEFFIELD (2011) 966
Scarborough (2001) 960
Scarborough (2004) 940
Torquay (2009) 935
Canterbury (2010) 891
Great Yarmouth (2007) 824
Swansea (2006) 768
Liverpool (2008) 742
Millfield (2000) 711
Isle of Man (2005) 503

... and this despite the negativity of some who thought the attendance would be very poor, including our very own Carl Hibbard, who on May 9, 2010 (Congress Diary - British Championships 2011) wrote .... "I do understand the reasons but I can well see the number of entries being a disaster."

Anyone wanting to give a prediction for Whitley Bay ???

[Adam Raoof]

I would just wish to thank CJ and all the other ECF staff responsible for making the 2011 British Championships such an enjoyable and popular event. It's popularity can obviously be seen by the number of entrants compared with other recent British Championships ...

Edinburgh (2003) 1009
Torquay (2002) 973
SHEFFIELD (2011) 966
Scarborough (2001) 960
Scarborough (2004) 940
Torquay (2009) 935
Canterbury (2010) 891
Great Yarmouth (2007) 824
Swansea (2006) 768
Liverpool (2008) 742
Millfield (2000) 711
Isle of Man (2005) 503

... and this despite the negativity of some who thought the attendance would be very poor, including our very own Carl Hibbard, who on May 9, 2010 (Congress Diary - British Championships 2011) wrote .... "I do understand the reasons but I can well see the number of entries being a disaster."

Anyone wanting to give a prediction for Whitley Bay ???

Thanks Alan! Actually the number who played and paid is confirmed now at 951 - I will update the spreadsheet - so we slipped back a place at the end.

I will be the first to suggest that Whitley Bay will be somewhere between 800 and 850 entries, but we might get many more new players to that event as it is on the ferry link to Amsterdam!

The other thing is that the figures include players several times if they took part in more than one event. I would like to know the number of unique entries in the future as that, for me, would be an interesting statistic.