4NCL 2023-24 Division Two

[Graham Borrowdale]

Thanks for the review, Jonathan. It’s certainly a tough division, outside of those teams who might fancy their chances in Division 1. Teams getting promoted from Division 3 need to strengthen, not least because of the jump from 6 to 8 boards. Let’s hope the final weekend’s matches do not all go with seedings!

[Nick Burrows]

Well, what a superb advert for 4ncl chess that was. The first 3 places in Div 1 seperated by 1 game point (congratulations Loz!) The Sharks 2 promoted by half a game point, then my team staved off relegation by half a game point. Division 2 this season was a fantastic competition, lots of very evenly matched teams fighting tooth and nail for every half point.
Before round 11, we were mainly focused on the complex scenarios should we lose to Barbican (We needed Cambridge v Gonzaga to be decisive, match Sussex Martlets game points and Anglian Avengers not to win). I mentioned that were we to draw with Barbican, Anglian Avengers would need to beat The Sharks 5.5 - 2.5, but thats "quite unlikely". They won 5-3, meaning we needed an unlikely draw to stay in Division 2. A much worse position on board 5 was held. A losing endgame on board 3 was held. Then on board 2, Simon heroically held the draw despite giving up 406 rating points, to get over the line by the smallest possible margin.
Commiserations to Anglian Avengers who almost pulled off the unthinkable with a perfect "weekend", but fell just short.

[Jonathan Rogers]

I'll post my own reflections later but Nick has already summed up my general theme in his first paragraph above.

Nick was a non-playing captain yesterday and I can only hope that he was suitably "entertained" ... I agree that both his team and Anglian Avengers deserved to stay up but alas! As many as four teams fall to be relegated from division two! I don't think I know of any other chess league where one third of a division suffers this fate.

[Mick Norris]

Well, in Manchester we have some 6 team divisions with in theory 2 promoted and 2 relegated, but that's exceptional

Div 2 of the 4NCL does seem very competitive but with two Div 3s then the 4 down 4 up makes sense

I think the hard bit is getting the right balance between the two Div 3s

[Ian Thompson]

Well, in Manchester we have some 6 team divisions with in theory 2 promoted and 2 relegated, but that's exceptional

Div 2 of the 4NCL does seem very competitive but with two Div 3s then the 4 down 4 up makes sense

I think the hard bit is getting the right balance between the two Div 3s

The question to ask if whether it's a good idea to have two Division 3s. It's quite harsh on the Division 2 teams for a third of them to be relegated. It's tough on the Division 3 teams to only have 1/6 of them promoted. Perhaps 5 divisions would be better with 3 up and 3 down throughout.

Comparing the final tables of the two Division 3s is interesting. In Bishops, the two promoted teams were way ahead of the others in game points and the highest scoring team scored 29 game points more than the lowest scoring team. In Knights, the two promoted teams were not so far ahead of their pursuers and the winners only scored 15.5 game points more than the lowest scoring team. Not surprisingly, there were many more close matches in Knights than Bishops.