The Four Nations Chess League does not accept responsibility for the content of other websites, to which this site links.
This website includes information on participants in the Four Nations Chess League in respect of name, grade, title, nationality and sex (team registration lists), as well as telephone number(s), email address(es) and postal address(es) in certain circumstances (team captains/managers, management board members, arbiters etc). Participants wishing this information not to be included on the website should contact the webmaster to have it removed, but should be aware that in this event they will not be permitted to play in the league.
News archive
Entry guidelines for the 2008/09 season here.
Entry guidelines for the 2007/08 season here.
Entry guidelines for the 2006/07 season here.
Index to 2008/09 season here.
Index to 2007/08 season here.
Index to 2006/07 season here.
Index to 2005/06 season here.
Index to 2004/05 season here.
Index to 2003/04 season here.
Index to 2002/03 season here.
22/9/10
4NCL Rapidplay
There are now 27 teams confirmed for the 4NCL Rapidplay:
AMCA
Barbican 1
Barbican 2
Bradford DCA Knights
Bristol 1
Bristol 2
Brown Jack
Cambridge University 1
Cambridge University 2
e2e4 1
e2e4 2
FCA Solutions
Leeds University Old Boys 1
Leeds University Old Boys 2
Leighton Buzzard
Metropolitan Police 1
Metropolitan Police 2
Mushrooms
NACCPO 1
NACCPO 2
On the Bit, Off the Bridle
Oxford 1
Oxford 2
Pandoras Box
RSJ
Sambuca Elite
Youth
You can still enter the team or individual competition - details here.
9/9/10
4NCL Rapidplay
We're now up to 22 teams confirmed entered for the forthcoming 4NCL Rapidplay:
Barbican 1
Barbican 2
Bradford DCA Knights
Bristol 1
Bristol 2
Brown Jack
Cambridge University 1
Cambridge University 2
e2e4 1
e2e4 2
FCA Solutions
The Finest of Renewalists
Leighton Buzzard
Metropolitan Police 1
Metropolitan Police 2
NACCPO 1
NACCPO 2
Oxford 1
Oxford 2
RSJ
Sambuca Elite
Youth
You can still enter the team or individual competition - details here.
The next Richmond Rapidplay event will be held on Sunday July 18th at the White House Community Association. Click here for details, including an entry form, previous results and forthcoming events.
The next Richmond Rapidplay event will be held on Sunday May 23rd at the White House Community Association. Click here for details, including an entry form, previous results and forthcoming events.
You can now download reports on the 4NCL from CHESS Magazine:- Weekends 1, 2 & 3 here and Weekend 4 here. There is also a special offer for 4NCL web site visitors here.
29/4/10
More on Division 3 ...
As already advised, the draw for Division 3, Rounds 9 & 10, has been published here. The draw for the final round will be made on Sunday evening after the results of Round 10 are known. It will be published here.
We expect to have extended live coverage of the final Weekend - here's the link.
With thanks to Dave Clayton.
19/4/10
Norm seekers
Any players who think that they are in line for a title norm at the final weekend (and who have not already done so) should contact Neville Belinfante, who will confirm their norm requirements.
17/4/10
Weekend 5 draw - Division 3
The draw for Division 3, Rounds 9 & 10, is now available here.
With thanks to Neville Belinfante and Dave Thomas.
Division 1, Round 7 games in PGN or in game viewer8/4 - includes correction to Hanley vs. Donovan, 9/4 - includes correction to James vs. Ferguson Division 1, Round 8 games in PGN or in game viewer
Division 3, Round 7 games in PGN or in game viewer Division 3, Round 8 games in PGN or in game viewer5/4 - includes correction to Sully vs. Dunlop, 7/4 - includes correction to Spencer vs. Tunks
With thanks to Neville Belinfante, Dave Thomas, Chris Ross, Claire Summerscale, Alex Holowczak, Jack Rudd, Katie Smith, David Sully, Feliks Kwiatkowski, Nigel Donovan and Jonathan Rogers.
A 9-round FIDE-rated invitation event and a British Chess Federation Grand Prix event over 5 days from 14th to 18th April 2010. 1/4 - this is now a Swiss tournament, GMs confirmed as playing are Keith Arkell, Tony Kosten, Colin McNab and Simon Williams.There is a new format that will enable players to gain norms. Two teams will play each other made up from four GMs, four IMs, five FMs and five top Junior players. Tournament Director is John Rawlinson, Chief Controller is Ewart Smith (BCF Arbiter). Any queries by email to John Rawlinson. Only one place in each category remains, conditions offered to GMs, free entry to IMs. Web site here.
There is a report on last weekend on the English Chess Federation site from their International Director, Lawrence Cooper.
1/4/10
Weekend 5 draw
The draw for the final three Rounds of Divisions 1 & 2 is now available:- Division 1 here and Division 2 here.
With thanks to Neville Belinfante.
30/3/10
Coulsdon International
The folks at the Coulsdon Chess Fellowship are looking for one non-English player to complete the field for a 10 player all-play-all. More details are here. Ideally the applicant should be rated 2246 or higher, but lower-rated players will be considered. Please contact Scott Freeman if interested.
AMCA Cheetahs have withdrawn from Weekend 4, so the draw for Division 3 has been revised - details here.
With thanks to Neville Belinfante.
23/3/10
Division 3 reports
Many thanks to Matt Lunn and William Jones of the KJCA Kings for these bumper reports on the first four rounds of Division 3:- Round 1, Round 2, Round 3 and Round 4.
23/3/10
Final weekend - hotels
From Mike Truran
Just a reminder that for the final weekend of the season you may want to book any bedrooms you need fairly soon if you have not already done so. I understand that whilst both Sunningdale and Wokefield currently have good room availability, the 4NCL's room allocations either have been or will shortly be released, which means that any remaining rooms are available for general public purchase or for any other events that might wish to book for that particular weekend.
Following representations, there has been a change to the Round 7 draw to avoid the two Bristol teams meeting. The other teams concerned are Nottinghamshire 2 and The Full Ponty. The draw for Round 8 is unchanged. The full draw is here.
With thanks to Dave Thomas.
17/3/10
Division 2 report
Thanks to Ben Purton for this report on Division 2, Round 5.
Anyone thinking of working or moving to the Bristol area may be interested in joining South Bristol Chess Club, who have just gained promotion to the 1st Division of their League and are keen to recruit strong players.
The next Richmond Rapidplay event will be held on Sunday March 21st at the White House Community Association. Click here for details, including an entry form, previous results and forthcoming events.
5/3/10
Barcelo Hotels
From Mike Truran
A reminder that the Barcelo venues hold our bedroom allocation for up to four weeks before the weekend in question, but that any rooms not yet booked under the allocation at that point will be released for general public purchase - captains/players will still be able to get rooms after that time at the 4NCL rates if they are still available, but because there is no guarantee of availability our advice is that they should make their bedroom bookings in advance of the four week allocation release point if at all possible.
A 5 round weekend swiss in a great hotel venue. For the first time the both the Open and the Major will be FIDE rated, so a perfect opportunity for 4NCL players to complete their FIDE rating and with an increase in prize money all sections offer first rate prizes. Enter online here.
3/3/10
Division 1 report
Elliott Auckland and Claire Summerscale report on the fifth round here.
Alas, Guildford 4 will not be at Weekend 3, so thanks again to Dave Thomas for revising the draw.
The odd number of teams means that there will be a triangular match between KJCA Knights (A) vs. Halesowen (B) vs. E2e4.org.uk 3 (C). On Saturday teams A and C will have White on boards 1, 4 and 5, while team B will have White on boards 2, 3, and 6. Provided board orders are unchanged all players will alternate colour on Sunday.
Registration lists, good for Weekend 3, are now available here. As agreed at the previous weekend's Captains' meeting, FIDE ratings for January 2010 are used.
12/2 - includes additions to the following squads:- FCA Solutions, The Full Ponty, Guildford, Hackney, Life in the Fast Lane, Pandora's Box, South Wales Dragons
With thanks to Neville Belinfante, the League's Registration Secretary:- please contact Neville with any queries, errors, omissions, etc.
11/2/10
Division 1 reports
Elliott Auckland and Claire Summerscale report on the third round here and the fourth round here.
I am sorry to report that due to a lack of entries I have been forced to cancel the event. Despite inviting over 50 players I received only five confirmed entries and this was clearly insufficient with just 10 days left before the event. There are still places remaining in the Major and Challengers event and I would encourage anyone wishing to play to contact Sean Hewitt here. There is also a simul with Grand Master Keith Arkell on the Friday evening.
With thanks to Neville Belinfante, Jack Rudd, Claire Summerscale, Chris Ross and Paul McMahon.
28/1/10
Solihull Chess Club
From John Green
Solihull Chess Club based in the Solihull area of the West Midlands region U.K. invites and welcomes you to join our club and play in the Birmingham and Leamington Leagues.
The club is well established, holds a high degree of respectability and standing within chess circles at local and national level.
We are a friendly club and still very competitive with teams at all levels in the two above mentioned leagues. Our success is based on team / player enjoyment, loyalty and dedication. Our intentions are always to promote the game of chess and strengthen our player/team potential. Our club is successfully moving forward in acheiving those objectives.
On behalf of the club and as chief scout / 2nd team captain I am seeking players of all strengths. My immediate wish list is - two players of plus 160 grade ( ie. in the 180's 200's would be most welcome) - two players of the 155 - 160 grade - and one player of the 130 - 135 grade.
Please contact myself John Green. Chief Scout and 2nd Team Captain or our Club Secretary Rob Anderton (details as below) for further information and / or view our website here.
We wish you all an enjoyable and prosperous chess season.
Contact details - John Green - Mobile 07976 832 517 or email. Rob Anderton - Mobile 079667 24235 or email
26/1/10
Captains' meeting
From Mike Truran
A brief summary of what was discussed at the captains meeting at the last 4NCL weekend:-
4NCL Northern League: This is planned to start in season 2010/2011 and venues have been booked. The 4NCL website (news entry 31 December) gives more information. Fifteen teams from the north and Scotland have so far expressed interest to varying degrees.
4NCL Team Rapidplay: There seemed to be some appetite to resurrect this at a more suitable time in the season, probably as a curtain-raiser to the new season. I will investigate potential venues.
Using the most recent FIDE rating list for board order purposes: This was agreed in principle, subject to confirmation from Dave Thomas that there were no significant implementation issues. I have since talked to Dave and confirmed that this can be done. We agreed that we would use the FIDE rating list extant at the registration deadline under rule 3.3, i.e. nine days before the relevant weekend.
Prohibition on using players for the first time in rounds 9-11 who have a higher FIDE rating than the players who have played in rounds 1-8: There was a general consensus that this would be unnecessarily restrictive and should not be introduced.
Relaxation of rule 7.1 (In Division 1 each match shall be played over eight boards and each team must include at least one male and one female player): It was agreed that this should be looked at again for season 2010/2011. I will send something round nearer the time (probably a range of options for Divisions 1 and 2, with captains voting for their preference).
The weather forecast continues to suggest that the worst of the weather is behind us, so the weekend will definitely be going ahead.
If you need to contact the arbiters urgently on the Friday evening or Saturday morning, please call one of the following:
David Welch: 07835 398518 Dave Thomas: 07793 118628.
You can also contact the hotel's reception desk to leave a message for the arbiters (probably best to leave the message for David or Dave by name) by phoning 01455 631122 and selecting option 0 (I've just tried it and it seems to work!).
The 2010 British Universities' Chess Association (BUCA) Championship will be played at the Barcelo Hotel in Oxford on Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th February 2010. It will be the first event of the reformed BUCA, which lapsed in the early 1990s shortly after the death of its founder, B.H.Wood.
The event will be open to all British University chess societies. Each society can enter teams of four players. It will be a five-round Swiss, with time limits of 30 moves in 60 minutes, with a 15-minute quickplay finish. Four-star accommodation at the venue is provided at discounted rates; the same rate as would be paid at the 4NCL.
Societies can find all entry details on the BUCA website and can email here for more information.
With thanks to Alex Holowczak.
13/1/10
Weekend 2
From Mike Truran - Wednesday
1. Although the weather has worsened again overnight, the forecast for the weekend still looks reasonably encouraging, and so we are intending that the coming 4NCL weekend will go ahead as planned. We will confirm this definitively tomorrow.
2. We shall be grateful if players allow extra time for their journey to ensure that as far as possible we can start matches as planned at 2 p.m. on the Saturday.
3. Although non-appearance will result in a zero score, default penalties under rules 10.2 and 10.3 will be waived for the weekend.
4. Wild card rules will be relaxed for the weekend. If wild cards in excess of those allowed under the rules are needed, the rules below will apply: (a) If a player or players are snowed in, and for no other reason, direct substitutes of similar or lower rating may be used, subject to this having been agreed in advance with Neville Belinfante, Dave Thomas or Dave Welch. This relaxation must not be used in any way to strengthen a team and the 80-point rules still apply. (b) Any request for direct substitutes must give the name/rating(s) of the player(s) snowed in and the same information for the substitutes. The list of such substitutions will be published at the venue. (c) The usual wild card fees will apply for wild cards fielded up to the limits in rules 4.5 and 4.6, but not for wild cards fielded in excess of these numbers.
5. Waiving of time lost on the clock by players arriving late will be considered on a case by case basis by the arbiters. Where such a waiver is sought in cases where the delay is due to the weather the relevant team captain should discuss this with the arbiters before the affected game(s) start(s). Time controls will be adjusted as necessary as determined by the arbiters.
6. If the weather deteriorates significantly on Saturday night/Sunday morning a shorter session may be played as determined by the arbiters to allow more time for players to get home on the Sunday evening.
7. The arbiters will confirm and expand on the above arrangements before the start of play on each day.
8. The awards dinner will take place as planned on the Saturday evening. Please note the new start time of 8 p.m.
Additionally, Barcelo Hinckley Island have confirmed that if players want to stay over on the Friday night as well as Saturday night they will automatically be upgraded to an executive room for both nights. They will also be putting this in place for all future weekends at all Barcelo venues that the 4NCL use (including the Junior 4NCL and the 4NCL Northern League if it proceeds).
The e2e4 Uxbridge International runs from 13th to 17th February 2010. There are three sections:
Masters offering players the opportunity to play for an IM norm. THERE IS 1 PLACE LEFT for a titled player.
Challengers is open to players rated 1900 or above (or graded above 150 ECF) and offers the opportunity to qualify for the next Masters event free of charge. Due to high demand a second Challengers section has been added to the event.
Major is open to players of any strength and offers the opportunity to qualify for the next challengers event, improve your rating or even get your first rating. Any unrated player who plays in any of these events will get a full FIDE rating as long as they (and all other unrated players in their section) score at least one point, whilst rated players get 9 FIDE rated games of chess (even if they play unrated players).
For the coming weekend Hinckley Island will again be offering an express check in facility on Saturday morning. When guests arrive they will be checked in by surname and the desks will be labelled by letter ‘A-G’ and so on. When they get to the appropriate desk they will given their room number together with a registration card and bedroom key. Guests will then be free to access their bedrooms, and can fill in the registration card (with credit card details) and return it to the front desk at their leisure.
5/1/10
Mind Sports
... have had to withdraw from the League. The draw for Division 3, Weekend 2 has been amended - details here.
Division 1, Round 1 games in PGN or in game viewer - 26/10 - includes correction to Cumbers vs. Berzinsh, 30/10 includes correction to Rogers vs. Snape Division 1, Round 2 games in PGN or in game viewer - some games to follow
The next Richmond Rapidplay event will be held on Sunday January 10th at the White House Community Association. Click here for details, including an entry form, previous results and forthcoming events.
23/12/09
Junior 4NCL
A spreadsheet with individual results from Weekend 1 of the junior event is now available here (Under 18 section to follow). With thanks to Claire Summerscale.
The draw for Rounds 3 & 4 is now available ... click here.
Please note that the draw includes a third team from e2e4.org.uk (welcome!) and the two teams who did not play in Weekend 1 have confirmed their participation.
With thanks to Dave Thomas.
28/11/09
Junior 4NCL
The competition starts this weekened, November 28th/29th, at Wokefield Park.
Test your skills with this endgame ... White to move, what would you play?
Click here for the solution - many thanks to Chris Howell for this.
14/11/09
Division 1 reports
Yang-Fan Zhou and Elliott Auckland report on the first round here and second round here.
8/11/09
From Lawrence Cooper, English Chess Federation Director of International Chess
I have at least one spare place in the London Chess Classic Women's Invitational which takes place from 8th to 15th December at London Olympia Conference Centre in Kensington. It is a ten player, nine round all-play-all and WIM norms will be available. Please apply to me for further details. Entry fee is £100 and includes access to the The Classic which includes world number two Magnus Carlsen, former world champion Vladimir Kramnik as well as England's top four players.
5/11/09
Jack Rudd reports
Thanks to Jack for the followings report on the Division 2 - Round 1 and Round 2. Thanks also to Claire Summerscale for the presentation.
The next Richmond Rapidplay event will be held on Sunday November 15th at the White House Community Association. Click here for details, including an entry form, previous results and forthcoming events.
A short video and some photos from Weekend 1 are now posted on the Atticus web site here.
With thanks to Steve Connor and Claire Summerscale.
23/10/09
London Chess Classic
As many of you will know already, the strongest tournament to be held in England for a generation will take place in London this coming December. There are details about the event here and here, and more information on the players here.
Running alongside the Classic, there will be a number of side events - entry form here - and the English Junior Rapidplay - details here.
Updated registration lists are now available here.
The deadline for registrations for the first weekend is Thursday midnight.
15/10 - includes update to Life in the Fast Lane. 16/10 - includes various further updates, all registered in time for Weekend 1.
With thanks to Neville Belinfante, the League's Registration Secretary:- please contact Neville with any queries, errors, omissions, etc.
12/10/09
FIDE ratings
FIDE have made significant changes to the methods of rating events run over a period of more than 60 days. We have had to choose between two systems. The better system of using up-to-date ratings for all purposes would seriously disadvantage unrated players trying to gain a rating through the 4NCL competition.
We have therefore decided to use the initial rating list for all purposes throughout the season. This will apply to ratings, part-ratings and titles, and we will also use the initial list for the 80-point rule throughout the season. All results will be submitted for rating after round 11 is completed. This system will guarantee that unrated players who play nine rated opponents and make a reasonable score will achieve a rating at the end of the season. Unrated players playing fewer than nine games can achieve a part rating based on all their games against opponents rated at the start of the season. The rating information given on the match sheets will be the same as that submitted to FIDE for all purposes.
The 5th Caterham Congress takes place at Caterham School in Surrey (near Junction 6 of the M25) from Friday 16th to Sunday 18th October. The Open section is FIDE-rated and the highest-placed player, not already qualified, will qualify for a place in the 2010 British Championship in Canterbury. Following the recent ECF grading revisions, the grading limits on the other sections are as follows: Major: U175; Intermediate: U150; Minor: U125. Chief Arbiter is Stewart Reuben. Other features are unchanged, including 5 rounds, prize pool of £1,175 plus permanent trophies, Club prizes, catering and bookstall. An entry form can be downloaded here.
With thanks to Peter Bayliss.
30/9/09
Division 3 - update
30/9 - Revised draw for Division 3 is available here. The teams concerned are AMCA Cheetahs, Beauty and the Beasts, Celtic Tigers 2 and Nottinghamshire 2.
We're pleased to report that AMCA have decided to enter another team next season, to be called AMCA Cheetahs. This brings the total number of teams up to the magic number of 64 and means that there will be an even number of teams in Division 3.
Fixtures for the first 2 rounds are now available here.
For this season, pairings for both days of each weekend will be made in advance and teams will be guaranteed one 'White on odds' and one 'Black on odds' over the weekend. Teams have been seeded in order of their finishing position last season, and the new teams in order of estimated strength. Because there are an odd number of teams, there will be one triangular match. Detailed board pairings for this will be circulated in due course.
With thanks to Neville Belinfante.
25/9/09
2009/10 Season
Details of arrangements for next season (dates, venues, format, prizes, entry fees, and the like) are now available here.
And the league rules for the forthcoming season are here - last (and hopefully final) update 14/6.
We've decided to run the 'Best Annotated Game' competition again ... a prize of £250 is up for grabs.
We'll keep a running list of who's entered here - updated 25/9.
20/9/09
More on the 2009/10 Season
Fixtures for the first 7 rounds of Divisions 1 and 2 are now available - click here.
With thanks to Neville Belinfante.
19/9/09
John Littlewood RIP
We were very sorry to hear about the death this morning (16/9) of one of the great figures of English chess, John Littlewood. For many years one of England's strongest players, John was a regular competitor in the 4NCL and he played in the British Championship as recently as last month. I cannot think of anyone who loved chess as much as John did ...
Our condolences go to his son Paul and to all his family.
From Paul Littlewood:
My Dad's funeral will take place on Thursday 24th September at 3 p.m. at St Helen's Crematorium, Rainford Road, ST HELENS, WA10 6DF (01744 677406)
This will be followed by a reception, to which all are invited, at Holland Hall Hotel, Lafford Lane, UPHOLLAND, Lancs. WN8 0QZ (01695 624426).
Family flowers only but donations in lieu of flowers to ARLAP please.
Details and an entry form for next season's competition are available here. All questions to 4NCL Chairman, Claire Summerscale.
Please note - ENTRY TO THIS TOURNAMENT IS FREE!
Reports on last season's junior event can be found here.
31/8/09
Ratings & Gradings
From Neville Belinfante, Registrations Secretary:
This season, the league will be using the new conversion formula of FIDE = 8 * ECF + 650 which the ECF recommends to match their changes to the grading system.
If team captains / managers believe there is a serious mismatch between FIDE rating and ECF grades, then they can use the get-out clause that is already in the rules - namely the 80 point rule can be breached if it is in the interest of the league and both captains and the Chief Arbiter agree.
The next Richmond Rapidplay event will be held on Sunday September 13th at the White House Community Association. Click here for details, including an entry form, previous results and forthcoming events.
20/8/09
Registrations
From Neville Belinfante, Registrations Secretary:
A reminder that the deadline for entering this season is the end of this month.
When players are registered, they should be existing ECF members, or applied for membership.
Players whose ECF membership need renewing are advised to do so before the end of the month because the rates are going up on September 1st. Details here.
The ECF have changed the login details to access the list of ECF members on their website. If team managers contact me, I shall pass on the details. ECF request that the login details are not circulated more than necessary.
I have started a Chess Fantasy Football League on the Barclays Site here.
The League is called "Premier Chess" and to join you will need to enter the following code 939236-190560
Some simple rules:-
1) Please register under your own name so I know who's playing 2) No multiple registrations just one team per person
I'll arrange a suitable chess prize for the winner at the season's end provided we get ten entrants.
Please could you circulate to any chess players you know. Look forward to seeing you next season!
15/7/09
4NCL Best Annotated Game - result
From Maxim Devereaux, on behalf of the 4NCL Management Board
The entries received for this award were of a very high standard, which caused great difficulty in selecting a winner. Ultimately, it was decided to split the prize, between Graham Morrison of NW Eagles for his video annotation of Emms-Morrison, and Tyson Mordue of Braille Chess Association for his annotation of Mordue - V.Jones, both games having been played in round 4 of the season.
Graham's video commentary was felt to be innovative and instructive. The format somewhat precludes deep and branching variations for reasons of clarity, but Graham struck an excellent balance between analysis and explanation, and gives credit to his own thought processes, post-mortem ideas from both sides, and computer analysis, as well as giving some interesting insights into chess psychology and preparation.
Tyson's more traditional approach was extremely detailed, and encompassed the history of the line played (a complex Poisoned Pawn Sicilian), as well as plans and ideas, and the thinking behind the moves played. The analysis was deep, well-explained and educational.
From Jonathan Grant, International Director of Chess Scotland
116th Scottish Chess Championships (International Open) - 11th to 19th July 2009
GM Keti Arakhamia-Grant and IM Andrew Greet of Division One champions Wood Green Hilsmark Kingfisher plus GMs Jonathan Rowson, Mark Hebden and John Shaw of runners-up Guildford-A&DC are amongst the invited titled players for the strongest ever Scottish Championship.
With over £5000 in prizes, excellent IM and GM norm opportunities, and a prestigious central venue in Edinburgh City Chambers, the 2009 Scottish Chess Championship is set to become the strongest open in the UK this year. Entries currently stand at 86 players.
Round 1 takes place from 14:00 to 20:00 BST on Saturday July 11th. The top 16 boards will be transmitted live here.
9/7/09
Jessie Gilbert Celebration International
Coulsdon Chess Fellowship (CCF) is hoping to arrange up to 3 all-play-all events as part of the Jessie Gilbert Celebration International. One of them would be for GM norms and the other 2 for IM norms. Currently there are a good number of applicants for these events other than FM and WFM players. As such, CCF is looking for such players to express interest to see how many events would be viable.
In addition, there will be an Open Swiss (British Championship Qualification event) which will enable the winning player to earn a free place in a future IM norm international. There will also be 2 events over 4 days and 7 rounds, morning coaching sessions, a junior event and a simul with Grand Master Keith Arkell.
The next Richmond Rapidplay event will be held on Sunday July 19th at the White House Community Association. Click here for details, including an entry form, previous results and forthcoming events.
21/6/09
Szombathely
Perhaps this will be of interest to 4NCL players:
GM and IM closed tournaments will take place from 15th to 23rd August in Szombathely, Hungary. Two Open tournaments are also going to be held from August 20th to 25th at the same place.
The GM tournament is planned to be around Category 10 and the IM event will be around Category 3-4. It should be a good chance to make GM or IM norms.
1st Big Slick Chess Congress, 26th-28th June at the Big Slick Poker Club, Unit 10 Royal Oak Centre, Brighton Rd, Purley, Surrey.
FIDE Open: This event will be FIDE rated, it will also be the last chance to qualify for the British Chess Championship. The highest placed player not already qualified will qualify for the 2009 British Championships in Torquay.
This is a 5 round tournament held over the weekend. Guaranteed Prizes: If entries exceed the expected amount then the prizes will go up: 1st £200 2nd £100 3rd £50 Rating Prizes: 2100-2000, 2000-1800, Below 1800
Full details can be found here. This includes a list of participants and an online entry form.
The chess events will be taking place in the day, separate to the poker. You can have a look at the poker club here.
The venue is about 20-25 minutes by train from Victoria.
The Masters event offers players (preferably 2150+) the opportunity of 9 competitive games of chess with the the chance to secure that all important IM, WGM or WIM norm.
The Challengers event offers players 9 competitive FIDE rated games for players rated above 2000 and for unrated players (graded 130 plus), the opportunity to obtain a full FIDE rating in one event. The winner of the Challengers will receive a superb package of free entry to the next Uxbridge Masters, together with free accommodation at the venue for the duration of the event - a package worth £300. A great way to pay for your entry to the Masters!
The Get Me Rated is aimed at players rated below 2000 or graded below 140 and is designed to get unrated players a full FIDE rating in just one event! Players will be placed in groups of 10 according to rating / grade so that all the players in a group are of a similar strength.
By playing in any of these events, an unrated player will be assured of achieving a full FIDE rating as long as all the unrated players score at least a 1/2 point.
All these events are scheduled so as to only require 3 days off work, and one lot of travelling - with special discounted rates for players staying in the hotel.
In a nail-biting finish to the 2008/09 season, WOOD GREEN HILSMARK KINGFISHER 1 secured the Division 1 title by holding GUILDFORD-A&DC 1 to a 4-4 draw.
In a similarly close climax to Division 2, OXFORD 1 pipped PANDORA'S BOX GRANTHAM to the championship on tie-break. POISONED PAWNS 1 and JUTES OF KENT were also promoted.
In Division 3, AMCA DRAGONS were runaway champions, whilst LITTLETHORPE 1, POISONED PAWNS 2 and WHITE ROSE 2 were also promoted.
Division 2, Round 9 games in PGN or in game viewer 15/5 - includes correction to the Borrowdale vs. Moore game score Division 2, Round 10 games in PGN or in game viewer 13/5 - includes corrections to the Pandora's Box Grantham vs. King's Head match Division 2, Round 11 games in PGN or in game viewer
With thanks to Neville Belinfante, Claire Summerscale, Dave Thomas, Malcolm Armstrong, Feliks Kwiatkowski, Jack Rudd, Ian Kingston and Graham Borrowdale.
15/5/09
Game viewer
Many thanks to our technical guru, John Saunders, for bringing the webmaster's attention to a new game viewer. It is like the old one, but has additional capabilities such as allowing the user to have black pieces at the bottom of the screen, change background and board colours and even move the pieces and try out different variations on the board.
Thanks to Jonathan Rogers for the following musings on the events of the recent season, particularly the final Guildford vs. Wood Green match - click here.
Hard to believe, but some folks may want to plan ahead to the season after next ... dates and venues for 2010/11 are announced here. We've also updated the Hotels page to show the room rates that will apply.
"I will be away at the weekend, arbiting at the Frome Congress. I invite submissions from anyone interested for games for my reports. Any annotated games that reach me by whenever I get back on Monday will end up in the appropriate report."
The next Richmond Rapidplay event will be held on Sunday May 10th at the White House Community Association. Click here for details, including an entry form, previous results and forthcoming events.
his amazing game against Gabor Pinter ... click here.
1/5/09
Girls' Day School Trust Championship
From Claire Summerscale
The 5th Girls' Day School Trust Chess Championship, supported by the 4 Nations Chess League, took place on the 25th April. You can read a report on this tournament here.
30/4/09
Division 3
From Dave Thomas:
The control team have been informed that Conquistadors have withdrawn from the 4NCL final weekend. This necessitates a repairing including a triangular match. The three teams in the triangular match will play two rounds, both Saturday and Sunday. At present we understand that one additional team will withdraw from the final round, so it will not be necessary for there to be a triangular match on Monday.
The revised pairings for round 9 are available here. The teams affected are: Wales Old Boys, Bristol 2, Littlethorpe 3, Halesowen, The Full Ponty, Mind Sports and Celtic Tigers 2
28/4/09
The Fastest Chess Player in the World
From Claire Summerscale:
Rosalind Kieran, a former Women's World Amateur champion and member of the Pride & Prejudice 4NCL team, is now the fastest chess player in the world!
Completing the 2009 London marathon in 2 hours 53 minutes and 30 seconds, running each mile in less than 7 minutes, she finished the women's race in 29th position. An amazing achievement.
FIDE Open (Open to all). This event will be FIDE rated and the highest placed player not already qualified will qualify for the 2009 British Championships in Torquay.
From David Cooper, former captain of Warwickshire Select 2:
Anyone who captained a 4NCL team 4 years ago may remember, with some annoyance, how often the mailing list was systematically targeted by peddlers of the "Nigerian scam", looking for victims to sting for an advance fee by promising a share in a non-existent fortune. It may still be going on to this very day.
Not being minded to tolerate their tricks, this led me take up the art of scambaiting - to its practitioners, a game with strategy and tactics of its own - and I recently had a book published, featuring a number of examples, under the title "Revenge on the Scammers" (£7.99 from Amazon), using the nom-de-plume Cazzy Jones, the central character that I created to take on the scammers.
Unfortunately my one and only chess based scambait to date, which co-starred a villainous trainer of my creation called Boris Chigorin determined to promote his pupils by foul means (coded yogurt etc) was rendered unfit for publication when the scammer - who had rather naively called himself Michael Adams! - latched on. However, the six tales in the book are all perfect working examples of baiting, and one of these days Boris Chigorin may reappear...
22/4/09
Barcelo Hotels
Barcelo Hotels have set up a bedroom booking facility for the 4NCL on their website which, as well as allowing captains/players to book online rather than by telephone, also compares the agreed 4NCL room rates with the currently best available online rate. This will allow captains/players to select the lower of the two rates (although we are assured by Barcelo that in the vast majority of cases the 4NCL rate will be lower than the best available online rate!).
To use this facility, please follow the instructions below:
On the home page use the section titled BOOK A HOTEL
Select hotel and arrival date, number of rooms etc
In the box for the Promotional Code type in CHESS
Then click on CHECK AVAILABILITY
This will then give access to the 4NCL rates. Follow the on-screen instructions for making bedroom bookings. Please note that it is important to use the Promotional Code for two reasons: (a) The 4NCL rate will not be displayed without the code (b) If the code is not used bedroom bookings cannot be tracked back to 4NCL-related bookings, meaning that the 4NCL will not receive the agreed commission on room bookings.
Click here for the FIDE crosstable for the season up to round 8 (Microsoft Excel spreadsheet). The spreadsheet shows players' FIDE rating performances.
The seven columns at the end are: A - score B - games against FIDE rated opponents C - score in games against FIDE rated opponents D - average rating of FIDE rated opponents E - expected score against FIDE rated opponents F - (actual score minus expected score) against FIDE rated opponents G - Tournament Performance Rating
In line with FIDE regulations all calculations are based on the October 2008 list, which was the active list when this season's league started.
Results for the league so far have been submitted in two batches. Rounds 1 to 4 for rated players went into the January list and are on the web here.
Rounds 5 and 6 for rated players went into the April list and are here.
Rounds 7 onwards for rated players and all results for unrated players will be submitted after round 11 finishes in early May, and these will be included in the July list.
Anyone who believes they are in with a chance of getting a norm this season should contact Neville Belinfante so that he can check what they require. He believes that Stephen Gordon and Mohammed Tissir (7.5/8) are virtually guaranteed GM norms, and Andrew Greet has a good chance as well.
With thanks as always to Neville.
9/4/09
Coulsdon International tournament
9/4 - by way of update, there is one space available for a player 2308 or higher. But hurry!
The folks at Coulsdon are looking for two more players for a forthcoming GM / IM norm tournament. Ratings at least high 2300s. Anyone interested should contact Scott Freeman.
Thanks to Jack for the following reports on Division 1 Round 7 and Round 8. Thanks also to Claire Summerscale for the photos.
31/3/09
Stephen Gordon
Congratulations to Stephen on clinching his final GM norm at the 4NCL this season. He has scored 7 out of 8 so far and even a 9th round loss to an unrated player would be sufficient to earn him a norm. We therefore anticipate that he will be awarded his GM title in July.
Click here for a report into the recent Junior 4NCL competition.
27/3/09
Congratulations!
From Brian Smith.
You might be aware that two of our team members were married on March 14th. Jovanka and Arne's marriage ceremony was at the Alta Ice Chapel - some distance inside the Arctic Circle (average March temperature is -5C). I think all the wedding participants showed extreme hardiness in dealing with the cold. Needless to say there was a "Frosty Reception" afterwards (sic !!!). We all give Jovanka and Arne our very best wishes for their new life together in Bergen.
Division 2, Round 7 games in PGN or in game viewer 27/3 - includes correction to the Kings Head vs. Warwickshire Select 1 match. Division 2, Round 8 games in PGN or in game viewer
Division 3, Round 7 games in PGN or in game viewer 27/3 - includes correction to the Conquistadors vs. Oxford 3 match. Division 3, Round 8 games in PGN or in game viewer
With thanks to Neville Belinfante, Claire Summerscale, Chris Ross, Ian Kingston, Jack Rudd, Malcolm Armstrong, Dave Clayton, Nick Larter, Jonathan Rogers, Kieran Smallbone and Feliks Kwiatkowski.
26/3/09
Division 3 report
Your webmaster enjoyed the following reports by Matthew Lunn on Division 3 ... more to follow, I hope ... Round 5 report and Round 6 report. Thanks also to Claire Summerscale.
25/3/09
Fixtures
By the way, fixtures for the final weekend for the top two Divisions are now determined. Find them here - Division 1 and Division 2.
With thanks again to Neville Belinfante.
25/3/09
Daily Telegraph
Malcolm Pein writes a daily column in the Telegraph. You can read his latest articles on the 4NCL here and here.
... from last weekend are now available on the Atticus site here. With thanks to Steve Connor.
24/3/09
From Lawrence Cooper
I'm compiling a list of all English players with title norms so would any player with a norm or anyone who knows of other players with a norm to let me know please (with dates and details if possible) as I think it would be beneficial to both organisers and players to have a master list to refer to.
Many thanks, Lawrence Cooper Alternate Director of International Chess lozcooper@hotmail.com
17/3/09
Apologies ...
The webmaster dropped a major clanger last time he tried to update the links on the right hand side of this page ... the result was the forthcoming round 7 match-ups for Division 3 teams were shown incorrectly. This has now been corrected ... and you can see the complete pairings here (this page has always been right).
Thanks to the eagle-eyed Neville Belinfante for pointing this out.
13/3/09
Hinckley Island - Weekend 4
The following information comes from the good folks at the Barcelo Hotel, Hinckley Island.
We would like to inform you of a special offer for the coming 4NCL weekend whereby anybody booking a room on the Friday night will be automatically upgraded to an executive bedroom for both the Friday and the Saturday night. We are also happy to offer a meal on the Friday night for the special price of £12.00 per head for two courses from the carvery.
We will also be offering special discounts on drinks over the weekend, which will include a reduced price wine list in our Brasserie (effectively four different bottles of wine with a 20% discount) and discounted key lines in the Triumph bar (one lager, one bitter, two different glasses of wine, coupe of house spirits).
One other key change we want to trial this month is the check in for the Saturday. We want to offer the 4NCL an express check in such that when guests arrive they will be checked in by surname and the desks will be labelled by letter (‘A-G’ and so on). When they arrive they will be given their room number together with a registration card and bedroom key in matter of seconds. The guests will then leave the desk and be free to access the bedrooms, fill in the registration card (with credit card details) and return to the front desk at their leisure.
Click here for a report on the final weekend of the Junior 4NCL competition.
With thanks to Claire Summerscale.
12/3/09
Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant
Many congratulations to Ketevan in being one of thirteen new Grandmasters having their titles confirmed yesterday by FIDE Presidential Board. Ketevan is the first woman to ever achieve the Chess Grandmaster title in UK. More details here.
With thanks to Brian Smith.
4/3/09
Weekend 21/22 March
We understand that bedrooms at Barcelo Hinckley Island for the weekend of 21/22 March are now fully booked. Hinckley Island have said that players unable to obtain bedrooms can, if they wish, have bedrooms at Barcelo Daventry at the same rates as those at Hinckley Island. Daventry is around 20 minutes by car from Hinckley Island. Should bedrooms subsequently come free at Hinckley Island, those players can be transferred back from Daventry on a first come first served basis. To that end, Hinckley Island have asked that captains confirm their rooming arrangements as soon as possible in order that if any bedrooms are now longer required they can be released to players who have not yet been able to obtain bedrooms.
The next Richmond Rapidplay event will be held on Sunday March 8th at the White House Community Association. Click here for details, including an entry form, previous results and forthcoming events.
15/2/09
Division 2 reports
Thanks to Jack Rudd and Claire Summerscale for these reports: Round 5 and Round 6.
With thanks to Neville Belinfante, Chris Ross and Claire Summerscale.
15/2/09
Daily Telegraph
Malcolm Pein writes a daily column in the Telegraph. You can read his latest article on the 4NCL here.
7/2/09
Pairings update - 10.30 am
Due to the weather conditions, Bristol 2 and Conquistadors cannot make this weekend.
Revised Round 5 pairings are as follows:
Sussex Smart Controls (5) vs. White Rose (6) Cambridge University 2 (5) vs. Guildford 5 (4)
With thanks to Neville Belinfante.
6/2/09
Weather update - 9.45 pm
The arbiters report from Staverton that the M1 and local roads are clear at the moment, but the Staverton car park is slippery. Please be careful on your arrival.
6/2/09
This weekend's Division 3 - special arrangements
From Claire Summerscale:
In reference to this weekend’s matches and the adverse weather conditions:
1. There will be no default penalties for team (or player) non-appearance, although a defaulted game is still a lost game.
2. Team captains have until Saturday 10.00 am to withdraw their team from this weekend’s play, or announce team changes. Please telephone Dave Thomas directly on 07793 118628 to withdraw your team (do not leave a message with the hotel). Team repairings will be published on the 4NCL web site and at Staverton Park at 10.30 am. Individual board pairings will be published at the usual time.
3. The scheduled start time of 2.00 pm Saturday will remain and matches that commence at this time will run for the usual seven hour session.
4. For teams (and players) unable to arrive in time for the scheduled start, matches will run for a five hour session (40 moves in 2 hours, remaining moves in 30 minutes), games to commence on arrival of opponent, up until a 4.00 pm deadline. This will allow teams (and players) affected by the weather to arrive up to two hours later than the scheduled start. A five hour session is the minimum allowed by FIDE for a game to be FIDE rated.
We request/expect team captains to remain in telephone contact with late arriving players and to keep opponents and arbiters informed of expected arrival times.
5. Matches on Sunday will start at the scheduled start time, and will run for the usual seven hour session, unless in the opinion of the arbiters weather conditions remain adverse (it is vital that team captains inform the arbiters of their opinions on Saturday night), in which case a five hour session will be played. The arbiters will make and announce this decision 1 hour before the start of play on Sunday. Teams (and players) wishing to play the shorter session in any event, may do this in agreement with the arbiters and opposing captains.
Click here for the FIDE crosstable for the season to date (Microsoft Excel spreadsheet). The spreadsheet shows players' FIDE rating performances.
The seven columns at the end are: A - score B - games against FIDE rated opponents C - score in games against FIDE rated opponents D - average rating of FIDE rated opponents E - expected score against FIDE rated opponents F - (actual score minus expected score) against FIDE rated opponents G - Tournament Performance Rating
With thanks to Neville Belinfante.
27/1/09
Division 1 reports
Thanks to Jack Rudd and Claire Summerscale for these reports on Round 5 and Round 6. The latter report includes an analysis of the Round 7 scenarios.
Division 1, Round 5 games in PGN or in game viewer Division 1, Round 6 games in PGN or in game viewer 20/1 - includes missing Tiller vs. Chevannes game. 21/1 - includes correction to Devereaux vs. Kosten.
Division 2, Round 5 games in PGN or in game viewer Division 2, Round 6 games in PGN or in game viewer - 22/1 - includes correction to Rose vs. Harley.
With thanks to Jack Rudd, Neville Belinfante, Claire Summerscale, Feliks Kwiatkowski, Bjorn Tiller, Maxim Devereaux and Matt Rose.
19/1/09
Lost property
A blue child's handbag was found on Sunday after play in the main playing hall. It has been left at the main reception desk at Sunningdale, and so can be reclaimed from there.
14/1/09
British Championships
The 4NCL and the English Chess Federation are delighted to announce that the ECF is offering a new means of qualifying for the British Championship (26 July to 8 August 2009 in Torquay) for players eligible to participate, based on a Performance Rating in the 4NCL 2008/09 season of 2350 or over (males) and 2120 or over (females).
Performance ratings must be based on 7 or more 4NCL games played against FIDE Rated players. Qualifying players will be expected to pay their own entry fees and expenses to the British Championship.
Division 2, Round 3 games in PGN or in game viewer Division 2, Round 4 games in PGN or in game viewer 9/1 - includes a correction to Wilson vs. Dickinson.
All games played by rated players in Rounds 1 to 4 will be sent to FIDE in time for inclusion in the January FIDE rating list.
With thanks to Neville Belinfante, Richard Miles, Claire Summerscale, Jack Rudd, Richard Myers and Tim Dickinson.
6/1/09
GM Title (provisionally) for Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant
We are very pleased to announce that subject to ratification by FIDE Presidential Board (scheduled for mid-March) Ketevan has climbed the final hurdle in achieving her GM title. Keti had already made her 3 GM norms, and after a superb 2600+ performance at the recent Dresden Olympiad and her results at the last 4NCL weekend, she has now achieved the required 2500 FIDE rating. So many congratulations to Ketevan on becoming the first ever female GM in UK Chess history. We will all keep our fingers crossed that FIDE give their stamp of approval in March.
Brian Smith and Claire Summerscale
24/12/08
Daily Telegraph
Malcolm Pein writes a daily column in the Telegraph. You can read his latest article on the 4NCL here.
The 81st Richmond Rapidplay event will be held on Sunday January 11th at the White House Community Association. Click here for details, including an entry form, previous results and forthcoming events.
17/12/08
Uxbridge Chess Congress
Sean Hewitt is organising a 5 round weekender with a FIDE Rated Open British Championship Qualifier plus U155, U125 and U95 sections. It is at a De Veres Hotel and offers discounted rates for chess players. It is only a few miles from M1 / M40 / M25 and less than half an hour by train from central London. The event will run 20-22 February 2009.
Full details are available here and an entry form can be downloaded here.
14/12/08
Division 1 reports
Thanks to Jack Rudd and Claire Summerscale for these reports on Round 3 and Round 4.
Dates and venues for next season are announced - click here for details. Also, updated information (including room rates) on the 2009/10 hotels here.
Further:-
1. The £10 booking deposit re Barcelo will no longer be required for 2009/2010 (NB it remains in place for the 2008/2009 season, but only because most of the bookings have already been made).
2. Barcelo have asked us to publicise the following message about their three course dinner promotions for this and next season:
Barcelo Hinckley Island Hotel
Three course dinner £13.00 per person.
For guests to benefit from this promotion they must pre-book the three course dinner at the time of making the reservation; this will then change the reservation from bed and breakfast to dinner, bed and breakfast.
If guests do not request for rooms to be changed to dinner, bed and breakfast at time of booking but decide on the day they would like to eat in the restaurant they will pay the standard full price for the three course dinner.
Barcelo Daventry Hotel
Three course dinner £15.00 per person.
For guests to benefit from this promotion they must pre-book the three course dinner at the time of making the reservation. Payment for the meal will be taken in advance and guests will settle the bed and breakfast rate upon check in. (Please note this procedure is different to Barcelo Hinckley Island).
If guests do not request for rooms to be changed to dinner, bed and breakfast at time of booking but decide on the day they would like to eat in the restaurant they will pay the standard full price for the three course dinner.
7/12/08
Bob Wade
The funeral will be on Tuesday December 16th at 10.15am at Eltham Crematorium, Crown Woods Way, Eltham London SE9 2AZ
It will be followed by a reception to be announced and in due course there will be a Memorial Service in central London.
All will be most welcome at all of these.
No flowers please.
Donations to the Bob Wade Memorial Fund care of the Executors of Robert Wade. The full details will be announced in the next few days (hopefully during the week starting December 8th).
3/12/08
Junior 4NCL
Thanks to Kyle Reed for another report on the recent Junior competition here.
29/11/08
Bob Wade
We were very sorry to learn of the death earlier today of Bob Wade.
Bob was a legendary figure on the British and International chess scene for many years. As well as his many other playing, coaching and writing achievements, Bob played regularly in the 4NCL. He represented Covent Garden in the league's inaugural season (1993/94) and played for Athenaeum as recently as last season. He will be sadly missed.
23/11/08
Junior 4NCL
We're grateful to Ravi Haria and Akash Jain for the following reports on weekend 1 of the Junior 4MCL:- Ravi, Akash.
A selection of games from the competition are available in PGN format or in game viewer, updated 21/11.
With thanks to Claire Summerscale and Neville Belinfante.
18/11/08
Forthcoming weekend
The Barcelo Hinckley Island hotel has now filled the 4NCL allocation of 300 rooms for the forthcoming weekend (the remaining 62 rooms having been booked by casual visitors and a coach party). The hotel has therefore arranged that:
Players still wanting rooms at Hinckley Island can be added to the waiting list on request.
Players (whether on the waiting list or not) will also be able to book rooms at the Coventry Hilton hotel at the same room rates as those for Hinckley Island (£43 one person in single or double/twin room, £55 two people in double/twin room). The Coventry Hilton is, we understand, only about ten minutes from Hinckley Island by car.
Should rooms become available at Hinckley Island for players on the waiting list, the reservations team at Hinckley Island will allocate rooms on a first come first served basis and will if requested cancel the equivalent rooms at the Coventry Hilton hotel if they have been booked by players on the waiting list - BUT NB YOU WILL NEED TO SPECIFICALLY ASK THE RESERVATIONS TEAM AT HINCKLEY ISLAND TO DO THIS FOR YOU.
Thanks to Max Devereaux for this photo report on Betsson and Babrican's participation in the recent European Club Cup.
24/10/08
European Club Cup
Thanks to Barbican 4NCL's Jonathan Rogers for the following update:
Barbican 4NCL participated in the European Club Cup for the fourth time in Kallithea. We hoped to match or even to better our previous record in 2003, when we made 8 matchpoints from 14 and finished in the top twenty, a record for any British Club. In fact it was Betsson.com who managed to do this, scoring 8 matchpoints and finishing 22nd out of 64 teams. Although Barbican 4NCL fielded a respresentative team (J Parker, S Collins, L d'Costa, M Devereaux, M Ferguson, J Cox, P Taylor) it lost its last round and so finished 33rd with 7 matchpoints.
The highlight of the week was undoubtedly our second round encounter with the eventual winners, Ural Sverdlovskaya. This team averaged over 2700, and was stronger even than the strongest team that Wood Green ever fielded in the 4NCL (round 11, 2006). We came out fighting, with Jonathan Parker having a dangerous position at move 25 against Teimour Radjabov, and Max obtaining an opening from which his opponent, Alexander Grischuk, feared he would be "crushed". (See further details on this, and our other matches, on Lorin d'Costa's website www.lorinsworld.com). Elsewhere too we seemed to have reasonable positions ... but we are very familiar with such unequal matches. When one thing goes wrong, so does another, and we lost 6-0: the first whitewash any Barbican 4NCL team has suffered at classical chess.
In the ECC, as in the 4NCL, almost everything hinges upon one's success in the close matches, and here things did not go our way. We lost 3.5 - 2.5 twice to teams who only marginally outrated us, and drew with a Danish team (Aarhus) whom we outrated (and had beaten in 2003). We would probably do better if we were to play the same opponents all over again, though it must be said that only one of our players (Mark Ferguson) made as much as a plus 2 score, and one really needs the whole team to be playing somewhat above par in this event (as we did in 2003, and as Betsson did this year).
We still intend to play the event again and hope that there will be three English teams in future.
Division 1, Round 1 games in PGN or in game viewer Division 1, Round 2 games in PGN or in game viewer 9/10 - includes additional games and corrections.
A 9 round FIDE rated Open event and a British Chess Federation Grand Prix event over 2 weekends. If you can’t do both weekends, there will also be two four round FIDE rated minor tournaments running along side each weekend. Friday 7th November to Sunday 9th November 2008 and Saturday 22nd to Sunday 23rd November 2008. Click here for details.
Update 5/11 - three GMs and three IMs have confirmed their participation, increasing the chances for norms.
The 80th Richmond Rapidplay event will be held on Sunday November 9th at the White House Community Association. Click here for details, including an entry form, previous results and forthcoming events.
17/10/08
Hinckley Island - catering arrangements
The following will be available at the forthcoming December 6th/7th weekend:-
During the day
1. Snack Bar
There will be a snack bar for players attending the event, open from 11 am. This will be effectively be a packed lunch option for the players, consisting of the following:
Baguette - choice of: Ham and mustard Cheese and pickle Turkey and cranberry Tuna mayonnaise Egg mayonnaise.
Crisps, chocolate bar or fruit.
Soft drink.
This will be charged at £5.00
2. Hot Option
The Triumph bar and Piazza bar will also be open for players who want to have a hot snack.
Evening
1. Snacks etc
The snack bar, Triumph bar and Piazza bar (above) will be open.
2. Brasserie Restaurant
The Brasserie restaurant will be open for dinner. The three course dinner option in the Brasserie will be at the price of £22.95 per person.
The hotel recommends that people wanting to eat in the Brasserie pre-book on check-in as they may not be able to get a table later in the evening.
Malcolm Pein writes a daily column in the Telegraph. To access the column on-line, you need to register, which is free. The daily chess column can be found by clicking the "Chess Club" link in the Arts section.
Alternatively, you can read his preview of the 2008/09 4NCL season here and reports on the first weekend here, here and here.
28/9/08
4NCL web site
We are always happy to publish your thoughts on the 4NCL, particularly games, reports, photos, etc.
In particular, we are pleased to announce that there will be a prize of £250 for the best annotated game played during the 2008/09 season.
Please feel free to contact us with any best game entries or other material for publication.
We also now have the round 1 draw for Division 3. The three AMCA teams are Dragons strongest, then Rhinos and finally Hippos.
David Welch explains the pairings for the top two Divisions as follows: The principle is that the teams were listed in their finishing position last year. They were divided into fours, with 1 & 4 going in to one sub-division and 2 & 3 going in to the other. Slight adjustments were made to keep teams from the same club apart.
The drop-out of Wood Green Hilsmark Kingfisher 3 gave us some small difficulty placing Wessex 2. We confirmed our judgment using the ratings of teams in round 11 of last season.
There are more details on how the pairings where made, and how rounds 8 through to 11 will be decided, here.
With thanks to David Welch and Neville Belinfante.
The 79th Richmond Rapidplay event will be held on Sunday September 7th at the White House Community Association. Click here for details, including an entry form, previous results and forthcoming events.
We are grateful at Malcolm Pein at Chess & Bridge for permission to re-publish the following articles which originally appeared in Chess Monthly magazine. Click here for the details.
In our boundless quest to perfect the league rules, we've had another little tinker, this time with rule 8.5. We've added the rider 'When calculating team average FIDE ratings, board 8 in teams in Divisions 1 and 2 will not be included'. You can enjoy the full fruits of our labour here.
Please note in particular the changes to team list submission deadlines and also the new default rules, which include (a) financial penalties for defaults and (b) the requirement for teams with a poor default record in the 2007/2008 season to post a bond which will be used to defray opposing teams' costs should those teams continue to default games in the 2008/2009 season. We will contact the teams to which (b) will apply individually. 4/7 - includes an amendment to rule 10.7.
Also, can we alert Division 2 captains in particular to the new rule 7, concerning female / junior players.
Please note in particular the changes to team list submission deadlines and also the new default rules, which include (a) financial penalties for defaults and (b) the requirement for teams with a poor default record in the 2007/2008 season to post a bond which will be used to defray opposing teams' costs should those teams continue to default games in the 2008/2009 season. We will contact the teams to which (b) will apply individually. 4/7 - includes an amendment to rule 10.7.
1/7/08
2007/08 4NCL complete
All the games from the 2007/08 season are now available for download.
Division 2, Round 9 games in PGN or in game viewer Division 2, Round 10 games in PGN or in game viewer Division 2, Round 11 games in PGN or in game viewer 22/5 - now includes the Kings Head vs. Pride & Prejudice match.
The 78th Richmond Rapidplay event will be held on Sunday July 13th at the White House Community Association. Click here for details, including an entry form, previous results and next year's diary.
Dr. Robert Howard of the University of New South Wales in Australia is carrying out a study of chess skill in internationally rated players. The study looks at effects of amount of practice, coaching and age of starting chess on chess skill and at chess players' views about chess skill. The study involves a short online survey. The survey is for anyone who has, or who ever has had, an FIDE rating.
The survey takes only about 5-10 minutes to complete. All responses are completely confidential. The survey is available in English, Spanish, Russian, and German.
To take part, you must know your exact FIDE ID number, which will be something like "14200887". ID numbers are posted on the FIDE website.
A summary and analysis of the study findings will be posted here when it is complete and will be emailed to any participant who requests it.
If you would like to participate, please go to this website.
For any queries, please contact Dr Robert Howard, University of New South Wales.
A team representing the National Alliance of Childhood Cancer Parent Organisations (NACCPO) will be playing in the forthcoming 4NCL rapidplay. More details on this charity are available here and there is a link to the NACCPO web site here.
Malcolm Pein writes a daily column in the Telegraph. To access the column on-line, you need to register, which is free. The daily chess column can be found by clicking the "Chess Club" link in the Arts section.
Alternatively, you can read his recent articles on the 4NCL here, here, here and here.
To follow on from Jonathan Rogers's piece which appeared on the web site yesterday, John Saunders has kindly made available Richard's own BCM-published memoirs. The link is here.
On Saturday, Jonathan Rogers belatedly received the Richard Furness Trophy on behalf of Barbican 4NCL 2, winners of Division 2 in 2006/07. Jonathan has kindly provided some memories of Richard - click here.
The 77th Richmond Rapidplay event will be held on Sunday May 18th at the White House Community Association. Click here for details, including an entry form, previous results and next year's diary.
We're going to hold a Super Rapidplay at the final weekend at Sunningdale. This event has been designed for your entertainment, as a fast, furious and fun way to spend your Sunday night at the 4NCL. I hope that as many of you as possible will be able to enter the tournament. You can download the entry form here.
With thanks to Claire Summerscale.
17/4/08
Transport to Wokefield Park
There will be the usual taxi shuttle service between Reading railway station and Wokefield Park at the forthcoming weekend 3rd to 5th May. Details as follows:
Saturday May 3rd: shuttle leaves Reading railway station for Wokefield Park at 11.00, 12.00 and 13.00. This includes an additional vehicle for the 12.00 and 13.00 trips. Monday May 5th: shuttle leaves Wokefield Park for Reading railway station at 16.00, 17.00, 18.00. Includes additional vehicle for the 16.00 and 17.00 trips. The cost of the shuttle will be £3.00 per person per trip, payable to the driver, please. People wishing to assure themselves of a seat will be able to pre-book. Please contact Claire Summerscale in advance with your name and the time of the trip you wish a seat for. Seats for people who do not pre-book will depend on availability.
14/4/08
London Marathon
From Claire Summerscale:
I'm always proud of my Pride & Prejudice team, but especially so today, as two members of the team have completed the London Marathon, raising thousands of pounds for charity. Congratulations to Rosalind Kieran (photo below) and Cathy Forbes.
Rosalind pounded round in the frankly outstanding time of 3 hours 29 minutes 44 seconds, finishing in an amazing 422nd place, out of the 35,044 people who started the Marathon.
The next Kings Head Rapidplay event will be held on Saturday 5th April at the Porchester Hall, W2. Click here for details and an entry form or contact the Kings Head 4NCL Captain, details on the team contacts page.
The 76th Richmond Rapidplay event will be held on Sunday March 30th at the White House Community Association. Click here for details, including an entry form, previous results and next year's diary.
The organising committee is now IM Susan Lalic, Angus French & Paul Dupré.
10/3/08
4NCL Rapidplay
As I'm sure you're already aware, Californian metallers Linkin Park and East Coast rapper Jay-Z are appearing at Milton Keynes on the weekend of 28-29 June.
The good folks at Harben House therefore advise that teams planning to play in the 4NCL Rapidplay should book their rooms sooner rather than later as available accommodation is likely to become scarce fairly quickly.
We are delighted to announce that Max Devereaux will be the new Team Representative Director on the 4NCL Board, and very much look forward to working with him in the future. Max has already attended his first 4NCL Board meeting and provided a lot of valuable input. Our thanks to all of the team captains who participated in the voting process, and to Stephen Hilton, who also put his name forward as a candidate.
Click here for the FIDE crosstable for the season to date (Microsoft Excel spreadsheet). The spreadsheet shows players' FIDE rating performances.
FIDE have changed their ratings policy so that tournaments completed before two weeks prior to the publication of a new list can be included. This means that all games in March, including the forthcoming Division 4 games, will be included in the next rating list due out on April 1st.
Transport arrangements - Sunningdale Park 15th/16th March
Following discussions with both the venue and to the main local taxi service Atlas Cars, it seems that the short distance between Sunningdale railway station and the Sunningdale Park venue does not warrant arranging a separate shuttle service. We therefore suggest that people arriving at Sunningdale railway station approach the Atlas Cars taxi rank, where we are told there are usually a number of Atlas Car taxis in attendance. Atlas Cars' telephone number is 01344 874874 for those who wish to prebook taxis or to call a taxi from the station. We understand the cost of the journey to be in the region of £5 or so, although on a per person basis this will of course reduce if chessplayers share taxis. For the return journey from Sunningdale Park to Sunningdale railway station, we suggest that people either contact Atlas Cars on the above number or arrange a taxi via Sunningdale Park reception.
3/3/08
Title norms
Anyone who thinks they are in line for an GM, IM, WGM or WIM norm should contact Neville Belinfante prior to the final weekend so he can check exactly what they would need.
We expect to have live coverage of the coming weekend's play. Here's the link.
With thanks to Dave Clayton.
19/2/08
Transport to Wokefield Park
There will be a shuttle service between Reading railway station and Wokefield Park for the forthcoming weekend. Details as follows:
Saturday March 1st: shuttle leaves Reading railway station for Wokefield Park at 11.00, 12.00 and 13.00. Sunday March 2nd: shuttle leaves Wokefield Park for Reading railway station at 16.00, 17.00, 18.00. We will run an extra coach (i.e. two instead of one) for the last two trips on Saturday and the first two trips on Sunday. The cost of the shuttle will be £3.00 per person per trip to help defray some of the costs of hiring the coaches. This will be collected by the coach driver. People wishing to assure themselves of a seat will be able to pre-book. Please contact Claire Summerscale in advance with your name and the time of the trip you wish a seat for. Seats for people who do not pre-book will depend on availability.
Division 1, Round 5 games in PGN or in game viewer Division 1, Round 6 games in PGN or in game viewer 18/1 - includes correction to Pein vs. Kilpatrick, 16/2 - includes correction to Tebb vs. Pert.
The 1st 4NCL Super Rapidplay will take place on the 1st March at Wokefield Park. This event has been designed for your entertainment, as a fast, furious and fun way to spend your Saturday night at the 4NCL. I hope that as many of you as possible will be able to enter the tournament. You can download the entry form here.
There is a correction to rule 2.3 (the date should have read 2007, rather than 2008). Complete rules here.
With thanks to David Welch and Claire Summerscale.
3/2/08
Golf, anyone?
Stephen Maguire is taking his son, Robert (KJCA Kings), to Staverton Park next weekend and is looking for someone who would like to play a round of golf on the Saturday or Sunday morning. Nothing too serious, just a friendly game. Contact Stephen if interested.
31/1/08
Shuttle to Staverton Park
The shuttle service between Northampton railway station and Staverton Park has now been arranged.
The schedule is:
Saturday 9th February - From Northampton Train Station to Staverton Park @ 11.00, 12.00 and 13.00. Sunday 10th February - From Staverton Park to Northampton Train Station @ 16.00, 17.00 and 18.00.
Just a couple of points to note:
1. The cost of the shuttle service is considerably higher than for Wokefield, so we will need to ask for a small contribution of £5 per trip for those who use the service to help defray some of the costs - still good value compared with the cost of a taxi from Northampton to Staverton. This will be payable on boarding the shuttle.
2. Given that space on each trip will be limited to eight seats, people will be able to book a seat on the shuttle coach in advance. If they want to do this, they should call Georgina Porter at Staverton Park on 01327 302001.
Photo report on the inaugural 4NCL Junior weekend - click here.
With thanks to Claire Summerscale.
24/1/08
Paul Littlewood - ECF President's award
Congratulations to Paul Littlewood, who was presented with the English Chess Federation President's Award for Services to Chess at the 4 Nations Chess League on the 12th January 2008. Thank you to David Anderton for presenting the award to Paul in recognition of his many years of dedicated work for chess.
Photo - Claire Summerscale
22/1/08
Mark Hogarth
Mark Hogarth's current work commitments mean that he has decided with reluctance to stand down as a director of 4NCL following many years of service to the league. Our grateful thanks go to Mark for his contribution to the Board over this time.
As a result of Mark's resignation, a vacancy for a team representative director on the Board has arisen, and we would very much welcome expressions of interest from any of the team captains who would like to be considered for this role. The main requirement of the role is to represent the interests of the teams on the Board, and in particular to attend (usually) two Board meetings a year and the various captains' meetings over the course of the season.
In the event of expressions of interest from more than one team captain, our suggestion is that a secret ballot be conducted to allow team captains to vote confidentially for their preferred choice. As part of this process, we would envisage each candidate providing a short election address setting out their background, credentials for the role etc. Incidentally, if anybody feels that a different process for the appointment should be adopted we would be glad to hear from them.
We should also stress that it is not a requirement to be a team captain to be a team representative on the Board, so if any team captain, whilst not necessarily wanting to be considered for the role him/herself, feels that any of their team members would be interested, we should be grateful if they would pass on the contents of this communication to those people.
We would be grateful for expressions of interest by the end of January please. Please contact Claire Summerscale.
The Wellington College International is a 9 round FIDE-rated tournament taking place over the next two weekends. IM norms possible, British Championship place available. Web site including entry form here. Further details from John Rawlinson, Wellington College, Crowthorne, Berkshire RG45 7PU (Telephone: 07717 337185, email here).
3/1/08
9th/10th February
We have secured Staverton Park as our venue for the 9th/10th February 2008 weekend.
We are pleased that we have managed to find a reasonably central venue at very short notice. The choice of Sunningdale and Wokefield Park for the other weekends was dictated as much by availability of venues as anything else.
3/1/08
Paragon Hotel - important notice
The new management team at the Paragon Hotel have refused to honour the agreed arrangements between the 4NCL and the hotel for the 2007/2008 season and have said that with immediate effect they intend to levy hire charges for the playing areas, totalling nearly £7,000 per day, and to withdraw the bedroom booking commission arrangements previously offered to the 4NCL.
Clearly this course of action on the part of the Paragon Hotel is financially untenable for the 4NCL and we have therefore had no option but to sever the 4NCL relationship with the Paragon Hotel forthwith both for the current and forthcoming seasons. Fortunately De Vere Venues have been able to step into the breach at short notice and the new venues are as follows:
2007/08 Season 9-10 February 2008: Staverton Park 1-2 March 2008: Wokefield Park
2008/2009 Season 18-19 October 2008 (previously "to be confirmed"): Sunningdale
Please can you therefore cancel all future room bookings with the Paragon Hotel as soon as possible, in order to reduce as far as possible the risk of cancellation charges being levied.
The Paragon Hotel have assured us that they will endeavour to ensure that no cancellation charges are levied for bookings made directly with the hotel (whether by phone, email or the Paragon web site) but given that no system is foolproof (particularly where the Paragon is concerned) you will need to check this and follow up with the hotel if this does happen.
There will unfortunately be some cases where captains/players have booked via third party websites such as Expedia - in such cases it may be both that cancellation charges are levied and that there is no redress, given that the booking was not made with the hotel, but hopefully these cases will be in the minority. The risk of this happening will be reduced if the bookings are cancelled as soon as possible.
I apologise for any inconvenience caused, but I'm sure you all appreciate that this course of action was necessary given the way in which the Paragon Hotel has behaved.
Please address any queries on this to Mike Truran.
2/1/08
Shuttle service to Wokefield Park
There will be the usual free shuttle coach service between the venue and the railway station for the forthcoming weekend (January 12th/13th).
The planned times are:
Saturday: 11 a.m. / 12 noon / 1 p.m. from Reading station to Wokefield Park. Sunday: 4 p.m. / 5 p.m. / 6 p.m. from Wokefield Park to Reading station.
Updated registration lists, good for the next weekend, are now available - click here. FIDE ratings from the January 2008 list are now included.
Congratulations to the following players on their first FIDE rating:-
George Tunstall (AMCA)
Megan Owens (Cambridge Uni)
Brandon Clarke (Littlethorpe)
Andy Johnson (Littlethorpe)
Radha Jain (Pride and Prejudice)
Sam Walker (Slough Sharks)
There are a number of Bristol players who are listed but can only play if their ECF membership is confirmed.
With thanks to Neville Belinfante, the League's Registration Secretary:- please contact Neville with any queries, etc.
1/1/08
Junior 4NCL
Full details of this brand new competition are now available. Click here to download an entry form and here for the Junior League Rules. All questions to 4NCL Chairman, Claire Summerscale.
UPDATE 1/1:- Our first two entries are Winchester College Wildcats and Royal Grammar School Guildford.
1/1/08
4NCL Rapidplay
We've received two entries to the Summer rapidplay tournament:- Metropolitan Police and Celtic Tigers.
Malcolm Pein writes a daily column in the Telegraph. To access the column on-line, you need to register, which is free. The daily chess column can be found by clicking the "Chess Club" link in the Arts section.
Alternatively, you can read his recent articles on the 4NCL here and here.
The 75th Richmond Rapidplay event will be held on Sunday January 20th at the White House Community Association. Click here for details, including an entry form, previous results and next year's diary.
The organising committee is now IM Susan Lalic, Angus French & Paul Dupré.
Division 4, Round 3 games in PGN or in game viewer 7/12 - Includes a correction to Kingston vs. Farrall. Division 4, Round 4 games in PGN or in game viewer
With thanks to Neville Belinfante, Robert Parker and Ian Kingston.
1. Although the date is firm, the venue for the 18-19 October 2008 weeekend has still to be finalised - we have provisionally booked a hotel, but we want to ensure that some concerns we have with its current performance in a number of areas are resolved before we confirm the booking.
2. We have tried to get a more central balance to the venues in response to a number of comments received.
3. We will be using a new hotel chain in the 2008/2009 season - the Barcelo Group (Hinckley Island and Daventry).
4. Hinckley Island is of a sufficient size to enable us to hold all divisions there - which we will be doing for two weekends during the season.
5. Please note the following instructions when booking rooms at Hinckley Island and Daventry:
Booking Details
To make your room reservation please call Barcelo Hotels 0870 161 0797
When making a reservation, a Barcelo Events agent will ask you for a £10 per person deposit, balance payable at the hotel. You can pay by Access/MasterCard, Visa, Switch and all major credit cards.
Sorry but deposits cannot be refunded unless under special circumstances of ill health, injury or other unavoidable events.
On receipt of your booking you will be sent a confirmation showing your reservation details, the deposit and balance payable at the host hotel. All reservations must be made through the central reservations office; please do not try and make a booking direct to the hotel.
3/12/07
Coulsdon Chess Fellowship (CCF)
CCF has one or two spaces left for its Christmas Internationals. They are possibly looking for an IM, maybe another FM and maybe an un-rated player to complete the field of the 2nd IM norm tournament. In addition, there are 3 or 4 spaces left in the Challengers' B event (where the winner will receive a free entry into a future IM norm international).
The English Chess Federation has launched an online chess club ... more details here.
28/11/07
Paragon Hotel
With immediate effect, room bookings at the Paragon should be made directly with Paul Upton, Revenue Development Manager (direct phone number 0121 606 4907, or by email). Please quote 4NCL when booking.
23/11/07
Division 4, Weekend 1
Division 4, Round 1 games in PGN or in game viewer 19/11 - includes correction to the result of Cork vs. Graham. Division 4, Round 2 games in PGN or in game viewer
With thanks to Robert Parker and Ian Kingston.
21/11/07
Cheddleton
Cheddleton have unfortunately had to withdraw from Division 4. This has meant that some Round 3 pairings have been changed. Full details are here.
Division 1, Round 3 games in PGN or in game viewer 13/11 - includes a correction to the game van Weersal vs. Shepley. Division 1, Round 4 games in PGN or in game viewer
I'm writing this in my personal capacity, rather than as 4NCL webmaster or ECF official ... I spoke to many of you who attended this weekend's 4NCL about the ECF OMOV campaign. Thank you to those of you who signed the petition and my apologies to all the folk I didn't manage to talk to. Several of you asked me to post the link - it's here.
Hopefully this will be of interest to anyone who cares about chess in England and not just 4NCL players.
8/11/07
A round of golf?
Stephen Maguire, who is taking his son Robert to Wokefield Park next weekend, would like find a partner for a round of golf either on the Saturday or on the Sunday morning. Nothing too serious just a friendly game. Anyone interested can contact Stephen via his wife Sue, here.
9.1 Prior to the two-hour deadline for the submission of team lists a team may nominate one male and one female player (Divisions 1-3) or two players regardless of gender (Division 4) as reserve players.
The draw for Round 3 is now available - click here.
30/10 - includes corrections to the round 1 match FCA Solutions 2 vs. Athenaeum.
With thanks to Neville Belinfante.
24/10/07
Sandhurst
... have unfortunately withdrawn from the League. For the coming weekend, their original opponents Sussex Smart Controls have been repaired into a triangular fixture against both Conquistadors 2 and Grendel's Mother.
Players who were originally registered with Sandhurst are able to join any other team in the League, although if they play this weekend it would be as a wildcard.
With thanks to Neville Belinfante.
19/10/07
Hastings Chess Club
Anyone in the East Sussex area interested in an introduction to chess, is invited to contact Richard Almond of Hastings Chess Club who is running a course starting November 6th.
The 4NCL management has asked the webmaster to compose some suitably exhortatory words to encourage you to enter next year’s rapidplay event. So here goes ...
Hear ye! Hear ye! Roll up to play in the 2008 4NCL rapidplay tournament, to be played on the weekend of 28-29 June 2008 at Harben House conference centre.
Malcolm Pein writes a daily column in the Telegraph. To access the column on-line, you need to register, which is free. The daily chess column can be found by clicking the "Chess Club" link in the Arts section.
Alternatively, you can read his recent article on the 4NCL here.
The top seeds, OSC Baden-Baden, boast the newly crowned 15th world champion amongst there number, Hilsmark will be 32nd seeds!
UPDATE! - Hilsmark had a tough 1st round draw against Bosna Sarajevo:
1.4
32
Hilsmark Kingfisher
½ - 5½
4
Bosna Sarajevo
1
GM
Arkell Keith C
2479
0 : 1
GM
Ivanchuk Vassily
2787
2
IM
Greet Andrew N
2441
0 : 1
GM
Almasi Zoltan
2691
3
IM
Houska Jovanka
2404
0 : 1
GM
Movsesian Sergei
2670
4
Tavoularis Nicholas
2246
0 : 1
GM
Sokolov Ivan
2673
5
Briscoe Chris
2273
½ : ½
GM
Short Nigel D
2649
6
WIM
Andersson Christin
2209
0 : 1
GM
Predojevic Borki
2645
With thanks to Mark Hogarth.
3/10/07
October FIDE rating list ... continued
Updated registration lists including October FIDE ratings will be available later this week. At least 20 registered players have got ratings for the first time.
With thanks to Neville Belinfante.
30/9/07
October FIDE rating list
A quick point about the forthcoming FIDE rating list. FIDE's deadline for games to appear in the October list was the end of August, which means that the first weekend's games will not be included. All first weekend results will be submitted before the end of November to allow them to be included in the January list.
The 74th Richmond Rapidplay event will be held on Sunday November 4th at the White House Community Association. Click here for details, including an entry form, previous results and next year's diary.
The organising committee is now IM Susan Lalic, Angus French & Paul Dupré.
There is an extensive photo report from the first 4NCL weekend on the Atticus web site - click here.
With thanks to Stephen Connor.
13/9/07
Captains' meeting
Claire Summerscale will chair a meeting open to all team captains on Sunday morning. If anyone has specific points for discussion, you may wish to contact Claire in advance.
13/9/07
Sunningdale shuttle service - weekend 15th/16th September
UPDATE - The Shuttle is provided by Atlas Cars. The driver has been asked to display a sign on the windscreen: SUNNINGDALE PARK CHESS.
There will be a shuttle service to/from the playing venue at the following times:
Saturday: Depart from station 11.00, 12.00, 1.00 Sunday: Depart from Sunningdale 16.00, 17.00, 18.00
The service is on a 'first come, first served' basis and cannot be booked in advance.
10/9/07
Bristol & Grendel's Mother
... have merged. A combined registration list is available here.
Registration lists good for the first weekend of the coming season are now available - click here.
With thanks to Neville Belinfante, the League's Registration Secretary:- please contact Neville with any queries, etc.
A few lucky people have managed to appear on more than one team's registration list. Perhaps the following could let Neville know who they want to play for:
The 73rd Richmond Rapidplay event, with a new prize fund of £700, will be held on Sunday September 9th at the White House Community Association. Click here for details, including an entry form, previous results and next year's diary.
The organising committee is now IM Susan Lalic, Angus French & Paul Dupré.
27/8/07
2007/08 seasom
The list of competing teams for the coming season has now been finalised - click here for the full list.
We are pleased to announce the appointment of Claire Summerscale to chair the 4NCL Management Board. Claire's appointment see the League headed by a woman for the first time. Claire takes over from Paul Littlewood, to whom we offer our thanks.
You may find Claire's pen portrait here and some details of Paul's time in charge here.
26/7/07
2006/07 4NCL complete
All the games from the 2006/07 season are now available for download.
Also, as a special treat, we have compiled all the 4NCL games since 1996. These are big files, so you may have to make yourself a cup of cocoa while they are downloading.
The webmaster has had some queries about the way last season’s results were submitted for FIDE rating. A particular issue arises when a game was played involving a player who did not have a rating when the season started.
When an event is submitted for rating, FIDE use the ratings as at the start of the event in question. For the 2006/07 4NCL, this means that July 2006 ratings were used and a player who did not have a rating in that list counted as unrated. Thus the result of any game involving that player did not count in his opponent’s rating calculation.
FIDE encourages national leagues to submit games in each rating period (see here), which is what the 4NCL does.
In other national leagues (e.g. France) each weekend is submitted for rating as a separate event. We have decided not to do this for the 4NCL because unrated players need to play a minimum of 3 games in an event to get a part rating.
Thanks to Howard Grist, the ECF International Rating Officer, for clearing this up.
I think I’ll go and lie down now.
8/7/07
Facebook
Some intrepid soul (a.k.a. John Upham) has set up a 4NCL group on the Facebook system. The link is here.
Congratulations to BARBICAN 4NCL, winners of the inaugural 4NCL Rapidplay. Barbican scored 18/20, second were Hilsmark Kingfisher on 17/20 and third were 3Cs Oldham on 14/20.
Full results / crosstables are now available here.
The next Richmond Rapidplay event, the 72nd, will be held on Sunday 15 July at the White House Community Association. Chess Bites and Francis Bowers will be back to provide catering and a bookstall. Click here for details and an entry form.
The organising committee is now IM Susan Lalic, Angus French & Paul Dupré.
24/6/07
4NCL rapidplay
The first 4NCL Team Rapidplay tournament takes place next weekend, 30th June / 1st July. Entry is open to any team - you don't have to be a current participant in the 4NCL itself.
Details on the venue, the De Vere Harben, are here.
UPDATE 9/5: We are now able to confirm that we have enough entries to enable the 4NCL's inaugural team rapidplay tournament to take place as planned.
The 4NCL will guarantee a prize fund of £1,000 if at least twenty teams in total enter the tournament, so please keep those entries coming in! The entry deadline will be extended accordingly.
21/6/07
De Vere Harben
Details (including directions) on the De Vere Harben, the venue for our Rapidplay tournament, are now available on the Hotels page.
20/6/07
Divisions 2 & 3, Round 11
Now available:- the Division 2 games in PGN or in game viewer, and the Division 3 games in PGN or in game viewer.
With thanks to Malcolm Armstrong.
17/6/07
Leicester 4NCL
The Leicester 4NCL side are running a couple of events that 4NCL players may be interested in.
Leicester FIDE Rated All Play All. Open to All. The aim of the event is to give players without a FIDE rating the opportunity to obtain a full rating in just one event. The tournament will consist of 4 rated and 6 unrated players. Provided they score at least 1/9 the unrated players are guaranteed to obtain a FIDE rating at the end of the event. The tournament will be held at The Plough Inn, Station Road, Littlethorpe, Leicester, LE19 2HS and will run 10-12 August and 18-19 August.
Leicester Weekend Congress (H E Atkins Memorial), Wyggeston College, University Road, Leicester, LE1 7RJ. 21-23 September 2007. British Championship Qualifier. 5 Sections Open / U150 / U125 / U100 / U80.
Contact for both events is Sean Hewitt, 07845 518 972, 0870 288 4393 (fax).
Click here for the final FIDE crosstable for the 2006/07 season (Microsoft Excel spreadsheet) and here for the ECF grading performances (text file). The spreadsheet shows players' FIDE rating performances.
First of all an apology - we have been running behind in posting games on the web site, particularly for Divisions 2, 3 & 4. Thanks to the efforts of Malcolm Armstrong, we are catching up. Game files will be posted on this page, or here.
10/6/07
4NCL Rapidplay
The confirmed list of participating teams is as follows:
Congratulations to JUTES OF KENT, winners of Division 4 and to PANDORA'S BOX, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY 2 and ANGLIAN AVENGERS, who are also promoted to Division 3.
Malcolm Pein writes a daily column in the Telegraph. To access the column on-line, you need to register, which is free. The daily chess column can be found by clicking the "Chess Club" link in the Arts section.
Alternatively, you can read his recent articles on the 4NCL here, here and here.
23/5/07
Transport from the Railway Station to Sunningdale
Message from Paul Littlewood, 4NCL Chairman:
I am aware that for those people travelling by train a further taxi ride is needed to reach the venue and this obviously adds to the expense of the weekend. Consequently a shuttle service is being introduced (paid for by the 4NCL) to help those people in this situation. However, if the take-up proves poor, the service will be discontinued so please use the shuttle if you can.
I would stress that this is a free service on a first come, first served basis.
Sunningdale
SATURDAY 26 MAY:
Depart from railway station for Sunningdale Park at 11.00, 11.30, 12.00, 12.30, 13.00 and 13.30.
MONDAY 28 MAY:
Depart from Sunningdale Park for railway station at 16.00, 16.30, 17.00, 17.30, 18.00 and 18.30.
Sutton Coldfield and London Masters 1 have withdrawn from the league. Conquistadors have kindly supplied a third team to make the numbers of teams even. As a consequence, some repairing has been done, and the new pairings are: Leicester vs. Weald Collective 1 Nottinghamshire 2 vs. Conquistadors 2 Pontypridd vs. Conquistadors 3
4NCL Champions are GUILDFORD-ADC 1, who take the title with a 100% record. GUILDFORD-ADC2 were runners-up.
Division 2 winners are BARBICAN 4NCL 2, who pip RICHMOND on game points. CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY 1 are also promoted.
Division 3 winners are KINGS HEAD. CHEDDLETON-POINTON and PRIDE & PREJUDICE are also promoted.
Congratulations to all the above-named teams.
The result of the Division 3, Round 11 match between Slough Sharks 3 and Wessex 2 may be adjusted.
A total of 6 title norms were achieved this season. Congratulations to the following:
11 round GM norm - Gawain Jones (Slough Sharks) 9 Round GM norm - Stephen Gordon (Oldham 3Cs) 9 Round GM norm - Stewart Haslinger (Oldham 3Cs) 11 Round IM norm - Stefan Macak (North West Eagles) 11 Round IM norm - Mike Twyble (Barbican 4NCL) 9 Round IM norm - Jack Rudd (Bristol)
18/5 - includes correction to the game Yeo vs. Horton, Division 2, Round 10. With thanks to Neville Belinfante, Paul Dupre, Steve Giddins, Malcolm Armstrong and Justin Horton.
We're sure this press release will be of interest to many ...
8/5/07
Guildford-ADC breaks all records!
Guildford-ADC rewarded their sponsors, A&DC the Godalming-based HR consultancy, with two records, when Guildford-ADC 1 became the first team to win the 4NCL with 100% scoring 11 out of 11 and Guildford-ADC 2 ensured an unprecedented top two finish, scoring 10 out of 11!
The next Richmond Rapidplay event, the 71st, will be held on Sunday 20 May at the White House Community Association. Chess Bites and Francis Bowers will be back to provide catering and a bookstall. Click here for details and an entry form.
The organising committee is now IM Susan Lalic, Angus French & Paul Dupré.
27/4/07
Division 4, Round 9
Click here for the draw. The triangular match will last two rounds.
With thanks to Neville Belinfante and David Welch.
Please note that the link for live games has changed to this.
We intend to have live coverage of the final weekend May 5th to 7th. With thanks to Dave Clayton.
23/4/07
Transport from the Railway Station to Wokefield Park & Sunningdale
Message from Paul Littlewood, 4NCL Chairman:
I am aware that for those people travelling by train a further taxi ride is needed to reach the venue and this obviously adds to the expense of the weekend. Consequently a shuttle service is being introduced (paid for by the 4NCL) to help those people in this situation. However, if the take-up proves poor, the service will be discontinued so please use the shuttle if you can.
I would stress that this is a free service on a first come, first served basis.
Wokefield Park
SATURDAY 5 MAY:
Depart from Reading railway station for Wokefield Park at 11.00, 12.00 and 13.00.
MONDAY 7 MAY:
Depart from Wokefield Park to Reading railway station at 16.00, 17.00 and 18.00.
Sunningdale
SATURDAY 26 MAY:
Depart from railway station for Sunningdale Park at 11.00, 11.30, 12.00, 12.30, 13.00 and 13.30.
MONDAY 28 MAY:
Depart from Sunningdale Park for railway station at 16.00, 16.30, 17.00, 17.30, 18.00 and 18.30.
17/4/07
April FIDE list
Because of the late inclusion of the Gibraltar tournament in FIDE's April list, lots of ratings will be revised and will be corrected when the next registration list is published later this month in time for the May weekend.
Division 1, Round 7 games in PGN or in game viewer Division 1, Round 8 games in PGN or in game viewer 19/3 - includes corrections to Cherniaev vs. Martin and Cooper vs. Berzinsh.
Click here for the updated FIDE crosstable (Microsoft Excel spreadsheet), showing players' FIDE rating performances.
Could anyone who believes that they are in line for a norm, please let Neville Belinfante know. The ones that Neville knows about are Gawain Jones (GM), Stephen Gordon (GM), Mike Twyble (IM) and Jack Rudd (IM).
Malcolm Pein writes a daily column in the Telegraph. To access the column on-line, you need to register, which is free. The daily chess column can be found by clicking the "Chess Club" link in the Arts section.
Alternatively, you can read his recent article on the 4NCL here.
The next Kings Head Rapidplay event, the 31st, will be held on Saturday 24 March at the Porchester Hall, W2. Click here for details and an entry form or contact the Kings Head 4NCL Captain Colin Mackenzie.
The 4NCL are thinking about holding a team rapidplay tournament over the weekend of 30 June - 1 July. The tournament would probably be based on teams of four players with an entry fee of around £40-50 to cover running costs, prizes etc., and would be open to all teams who wish to enter, whether or not they currently play in the 4NCL. We have provisionally booked De Vere Harben conference centre (a member of the De Vere Venues chain which the 4NCL already uses for its weekends) near Newport Pagnell in Buckinghamshire just off the M1 and not far from Milton Keynes, which has fast rail connections to Birmingham, Manchester and London. More details on the venue can be found here.
The 4NCL would like to get an early idea of the likely level of interest for such a tournament in order that the venue booking can be confirmed, so it would be very helpful if interested teams could get in touch as soon as possible with Paul Littlewood, David Welch or Mike Truran, whose contact details can be found here.
The next Richmond Rapidplay event, the 70th, will be held on Sunday 11 March at the White House Community Association. Chess Bites and Francis Bowers will be back to provide catering and a bookstall. Click here for details and an entry form.
The organising committee is now IM Susan Lalic, Angus French & Paul Dupré.
Top scorers after 6 rounds are the following with 5.5 out of 6: Dagne Ciuksyte (Guildford ADC), Nicholas Pert (Guildford ADC), Aaron Summerscale (Pride & Prejudice) and Michael Twyble (Barbican 4NCL).
On 10th and 11th February, the BWCA is holding its National Girls' Championships and, on 11th February, its Women's Rapidplay which incorporates the Under 16 and Under 21 Championships. IM Jovanka Houska is available for between-round coaching free of charge. Both the two-day event for girls under 14 and the one-day rapidplay are at the Elmbank Hotel, York.
This attractive venue is offering substantial reductions on room rates for players wishing to stay. For adults sharing a room, the rate is £30 per person per night including breakfast (single supplement £5). Children sharing with an adult are half price if aged between 10 and 16 or are free of charge if aged under 10.
The British Women's Chess Association (BWCA) has just launched a new website here from which entry forms can now be downloaded for the BWCA National Girls' Championships, 10th and 11th February, and for the Women's Rapidplay, 11th February.
Malcolm Pein writes a daily column in the Telegraph. To access the column on-line, you need to register, which is free. The daily chess column can be found by clicking the "Chess Club" link in the Arts section.
Alternatively, you can read his recent article on the 4NCL here.
18/1/07
Steve Giddins reports
Steve reports on the fifth round - click here and the sixth round - click here.
13/1/07
Wellington College International
The Wellington College International scheduled for February 2007 has been cancelled.
The 69th Richmond Rapidplay will take place at the White House Community Association, The Avenue, Hampton on Sunday January 7th. Click here for details and an entry form.
The organising committee is now IM Susan Lalic, Angus French & Paul Dupré.
12/12/06
SOS - Save our Scoresheets!
Despite Paul Dupre's heroic efforts, we're missing a few games from Division 4, Rounds 3 and 4. You'll find almost all the games below, but if there are any additions, corrections etc., please let the webmaster know.
Dates and venues for next season - click here for details.
9/12/06
Coulsdon Christmas International - urgent appeal
The good folks at Coulsdon are looking for one player of any rating to play in their Christmas International Challengers' event starting Monday. The winner of this event receives free entry into a future IM norm event.
I hope the following announcement will be of interest:
The 8th European Individual Championships for Men and Women will be held in Dresden in April 2007. Whilst open to all, these tournaments will be amongst the most prestigious events in next year’s calendar, and will be qualification events for the next World Cup (for men) or the next World Championship (for women). Full details can be found in the attached document.
The English Chess Federation would like to encourage some of our strongest players to participate and is offering some financial support to individuals. If you intend to play in Dresden and would like to be considered for such support, please contact Peter Sowray, the ECF International Director. Prompt applications would be appreciated, in all events by December 17th.
Malcolm Pein writes a daily column in the Telegraph. To access the column on-line, you need to register, which is free. The daily chess column can be found by clicking the "Chess Club" link in the Arts section.
Alternatively, you can read his recent articles on the 4NCL here, here and here. In the final article, you'll find a different perspective on the round 4 game, Gordon vs. Rendle.
Thanks to Helen Milligan for the latest batch of photos ... click here for more ... including the following one of Slough Sharks' Gawain Jones with his silver medal from the recent European Club Cup. Congratulations, Gawain!
Click here for the updated FIDE crosstable (Microsoft Excel spreadsheet), showing players' FIDE rating performances.
You should note that this season 4NCL results will be submitted to FIDE for rating every quarter. So your results so far should be reflected in the January rating list.
With thanks to Neville Belinfante and Howard Grist (ECF International Rating Officer).
15/11/06
Steve Giddins reports
Steve reports on the third round - click here and fourth round - click here.
We're hoping to have live coverage of the second weekend ... but no promises, as we're not sure whether we'll have the right technical bits and pieces at Coventry. It it all works, you should be able to see live games here.
With grateful thanks to Dave Clayton.
6/11/06
Message from the webmaster
I have recently been appointed to the post of International Director at the English Chess Federation (ECF). If you would like to discuss anything with me, I'll be at Coventry this coming weekend. Or if you prefer, you can email me here.
I thought you might be interested in an article that appeared in the Daily Telegraph yesterday, featuring the 4NCL's Sponsorship, PR and Marketing Director Mark Hogarth.
Pride & Prejudice will be making their small screen debut on Wednesday 25th October on the BBC 2 quiz show Eggheads at 6pm. More details here.
Photo - Claire Summerscale
19/10/06
Richmond Rapidplay
The 68th Richmond Rapidplay will take place at the White House Community Association, The Avenue, Hampton on Sunday October 29th. Click here for an entry form.
Ben Purton reports on Slough Sharks' performance at the recent European Club Cup in Fuegen, Austria - click here. Thanks, Ben!
15/10/06
National Federation membership
The webmaster has been asked to post the following message.
Captains and players should be aware that with effect from the next pair of weekends (11/12 November and 2/3 December) rule 12.8 regarding mandatory national federation membership will be applied rigorously. In other words, a non-wildcard player who is not a member of his/her national federation will be allowed to play in matches, but will be treated as an ineligible player in accordance with rule 8.6. This means that although the game in which an ineligible player plays will count for rating/grading purposes, the ineligible player's result will be scored as a zero regardless of the result of the game. To give an idea of the potential scale of the issue if captains and players take no action, around fifty players at the first pair of weekends were not national federation members.
Players who are not yet members of their national federation are therefore strongly recommended to join in advance of the next pair of weekends. Those players wishing to join the English Chess Federation should contact the ECF office (contact details on the ECF website here). Captains wishing to establish the status of their players as regards ECF membership are also able to access the ECF membership database, again by contacting the ECF office.
Division 4, Round 1 games in PGN or in game viewer Division 4, Round 2 games in PGN or in game viewer 6/10 - includes correction to the game Woolley vs. Fraser.
With thanks to Dave Thomas, Paul Dupre and Jos Woolley.
2/10/06
Lost Property
A magnetic chess set was left at the Paragon Hotel. The item has been rescued by Paul Dupre ... if anyone has lost it, perhaps they can contact Paul directly.
30/9/06
Hilsmark Kingfisher in Europe
Thanks to Lawrence Cooper for the following information:
Alongside Slough Sharks, Hilsmark Kingfisher will be representing England in the European Club Cup in Fuegen from 7th to 15th October. The team comprises Grandmasters Ulf Andersson and Keith Arkell, International Masters Simon Williams, Andrew Greet, Jovanka Houska and Lawrence Cooper and 4NCL regular Daniel Lindner and they will be joined by team manager Mark Hogarth in Austria.
The team has received tremendous financial support from Friends of Chess which has made our participation possible and we are therefore very grateful to them. We hope to reward them with a good team performance and one or two individual norms. The team is seeded 27th out of 61 teams which are headed by a Russian team with 4 2700s and 4 2600s!
Division 1, Round 1 games in PGN or in game viewer Division 1, Round 2 games in PGN or in game viewer 21/9 - includes correction to the game Abayasekera vs. Martin.
Ben Purton writes to say that he will be trying to update the Slough Sharks web site with news of his team's participation in the European Club Cup, taking place in Fuegen, Austria, from 7th to 15th October. Click here to visit his site.
If it proves difficult for Ben to update his site during the competition, we'll try to bring you news, reports and pictures on the 4NCL site.
Ben is grateful to Friends of Chess for helping Slough attend this event.
22/9/06
Metropolitan Congress
The Metropolitan Chess Club Congress is taking place on October 7th & 8th at the Bishopsgate Institute, close to Liverpool Street station in Central London.
You can download an entry form here (Microsoft Word format).
Malcolm Pein writes a daily column in the Telegraph. To access the column on-line, you need to register, which is free. The daily chess column can be found by clicking the "Chess Club" link in the Arts section.
Alternatively, you can read a recent article on the 4NCL here.
19/9/06
European Club Cup
Thanks to Slough Sharks's Ben Purton for pointing out that both the Sharks and Hilsmark Kingfisher will be playing in the European Club Cup, taking place in Fuegen, Austria, from 7th to 15th October. Hopefully we'll have more details nearer the time.
After due deliberation we have decided to relax slightly rule 12.8 which deals with National Chess League membership.
The following paragraph has been added, which will give Team Captains more flexibility in team selection and should hopefully lead to fewer defaults.
Wildcards are the only exception to this requirement, and may therefore play in the League at the weekend for which they are nominated as Wildcards without being required to be a fully paid up member of a national federation. Thereafter, however, once Wildcards become registered players under rule 4.3 they fall under the requirements of rule 12.8 in the same way as any other registered player in the League.
Message from Mark Hogarth, 4NCL PR and Marketing Director
The Surrey FIDE-rated Open is returning after a two year absence!
The tournament is six rounds and takes place over the August Bank Holiday weekend (Saturday 26th August to Monday 28th August) at Surrey University. The playing sessions are 5 hours.
First prize is £500 and there is a paid-for place in the 2007 British Championship. The tournament so far boasts at least one Grandmaster (Bogdan Lalic) and two International Masters (Graeme Buckley and WGM/IM Jovanka Houska).
The usual Major tournaments will also be taking place and a rapidplay tournament as well.
Please could I draw your attention to the following note which is on the 4NCL web-site about the meal arrangements at the venues:
We have evening buffet and mid-day packed lunch arrangements with many of the hotels. These do, however, have to be booked beforehand at the time rooms are booked to allow the hotels to plan ahead. Players will not be able to turn up on the day and expect to avail themselves of the evening buffet or mid-day packed lunch arrangements. The Initial Style conference centres in particular are out of town, so players not pre-booking packed lunches/buffets will need private or public transport to get to off-site restaurants.
In fact most of the centres will order food as required and so it is vital to let them know beforehand of your needs.
This is a different arrangement from last year and so I would appreciate it if you check with your players and ascertain exactly what meals they will require and then contact the venues to confirm your requirements... (otherwise you may find your player going hungry!).
11/8/06
In Celebration of the Life of Jessie Gilbert
Anyone planning to attend the funeral should note the message added today (11/8) at the bottom of this item.
We received the following message from Jessie's family:
Jessie’s funeral will be held on Thursday 17th August in Surrey.
All of her friends, and all those who wish to pay their respects, are more than welcome to attend to celebrate her life.
Jessie was a remarkable person who achieved so much and touched the lives of people of all ages from all around the world. It is impossible for her family to ensure that this invitation reaches everyone who may wish to attend her funeral, so please feel free to pass this message on.
If you would like more details about Jessie’s funeral please contact Alex Jones Funeral Directors on telephone number 01342 832534 as soon as possible.
A website has been created to attempt to serve as a tribute to Jessie and a place for people to contribute their memories and discuss Jessie: here
IMPORTANT NOTE (11/8): In order to attend Jessie's funeral it is ESSENTIAL to ring Alex Jones Funeral Directors on 01342 832534 as soon as possible to have your name added to the funeral attendance list. For security reasons, we MUST have the names of everyone who will be attending as there will be a list at the door.
Once your name has been added to the attendance list, full details of Jessie's funeral and the afternoon will then be sent direct to yourself via email (preferred) or by post.
Click here for the latest news from the 4NCL Management Board.
Further info for Managers and Captains (29/7)
The draw will be done at the middle weekend of the British Championship in two weeks time.
Registration lists not in when the draw is done could see the team suffering as a consequence so please make sure that they are in as soon as possible.
Team lists will be published on the web-site when they are all in.
Because the deregistration rule has only just been circulated it will not be applied during the next two weeks; i.e. if Captains think their teams are too "fat" they can slim them down immediately without penalty.
27/7/06
Jessie Gilbert
From Brian Smith, Wood Green team manager:
"By now many of you will have heard or read about the tragic death of Jessie. She was our friend and team colleague and loved to play the game that fascinates us all. Jessie joined the Wood Green team two years ago and was both the youngest and the most promising of our players. We will miss her dreadfully. Our thoughts at this time go out to her mother Angela, and to her sisters Sam, Annie and Jossie."
The webmaster was sent a nice bit of free software by the good folks at DGT Products. It's called Chess Theatre and it is designed for publishing and viewing PGN files. Whilst not normally in the habit of mentioning software on this web site (mainly because I can't usually make any of it work ...) I thought you might be interested in seeing the 4NCL games from last season in Chess Theatre - click here.
Malcolm Pein writes a daily column in the Telegraph. To access the column on-line, you need to register, which is free. The daily chess column can be found by clicking the "Chess Club" link in the Arts section.
Alternatively, you can read a recent article on the 4NCL here.
23/6/06
Rating & Grading
Thanks to Neville Belinfante, we are able to publish full details of the FIDE rating and ECF grading performances for the 4NCL season just gone.
The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice at once that this differs from the earlier one in that registered players who did not play any games have been removed; a couple of duplicate games have been removed; a missing result has been added; and the Nigerian players are regarded as rated in line with a FIDE decision just before Kirsan's re-election success.
This document shows the ECF grading performances of all players. The totals shown here might not match the final calculated totals, because the estimates of ungraded players are likely to be different when the ECF do their full calculations.
Since it started in 1993, the 4NCL has seen spectacular growth. Neville Belinfante has updated some statistics to show this, click here for the details.
12/6/06
2005/06 4NCL complete
All the games from the 2005/06 season are now available for download.
Congratulations to Division 4 Champions, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, and also to CHEDDLETON, BROWN JACK and GUILDFORD-ADC 4 who earned promotion to Division 3.
There's more stuff on the English Chess Federation web site about FIDE ratings and membership of National Federations. Click here and here to enjoy.
16/5/06
Divisions 1,2 & 3 - Final Weekend
Congratulations to WOOD GREEN 1, who retained the Division 1 title and the Dunworth Trophy on game point tiebreak after a 4-4 final round draw with runners up GUILDFORD-ADC 1.
... and Congratulations to BRISTOL 1, winners of Division 2, who now hold the Furness Trophy. WOOD GREEN 3 and SOUTH WALES DRAGONS 1 earn promotion to Division 1 for next season.
... and Congratulations to HILSMARK KINGFISHER 2, winners of Division 3, and to SLOUGH SHARKS 2 and POISONED PAWNS 1 who are promoted to Division 2.
Division 1, Round 9 games in PGN or in game viewer Division 1, Round 10 games in PGN or in game viewer Division 1, Round 11 games in PGN or in game viewer 16/5 - includes correction to the game Kennaugh vs. Pert.
The League would also like to congratulate the following players who achieved title norms:
3rd and final GM norm - John Shaw (Guildford) GM norm - Richard Pert (Wood Green) IM norm - Neil Berry (Barbican) IM norm - Nicholas Thomas (Warwickshire Select) - this was achieved in Division 2.
6/5 - includes a correction to the Division 2, Round 10 match Cambridge University 1 vs. Warwickshire Select 1. 8/5 - includes a correction to the Division 3, Round 10 match Poisoned Pawns 2 vs. South Wales Dragons 2.A corrected FIDE Crosstable will be published shortly.
With thanks to Helen Milligan, Neville Belinfante, Paul Dupre, Steve Giddins, Jonathan Rogers and John Saunders.
Malcolm Pein writes a daily column in the Telegraph. To access the column on-line, you need to register, which is free. The daily chess column can be found by clicking the "Chess Club" link in the Arts section.
Alternatively, you can read recent articles on the 4NCL here, here, here or here.
Click here for an updated FIDE Cross table in Microsoft Excel format. This includes a couple of corrections and some 'friendly' games which were played for grading / rating only.
We are grateful to Dave Clayton, and the English Chess Federation, for the live coverage of the exciting climax of this season's competition - click here.
27/4/06
IM Titles
The 4NCL would like to congratulate John Cox (Barbican), Stephen Gordon (Oldham 3Cs) and Dagne Ciuksyte (Guildford) all of whom had their IM titles ratified by FIDE at their Presidential Board meeting earlier this month.
8/4/06
2006/07 season
We're pleased to welcome Sutton Coldfield to the 4NCL next season, bringing the number of new entries to 3.
The BBC Ceefax chess pages, which appear as teletext (page 568) on BBC1 and BBC2 TV screens in the UK, are now available online - go here and enter '568' into the search engine. Ceefax Chess is edited by John Saunders and features the latest chess headlines, some games, forthcoming UK tournaments and contact details for UK chess federations. Of course, John also covers the 4NCL on Ceefax Chess.
25/3/06
2006/07 season
We're pleased to welcome our second new team entered for next season - Pandora's Box.
Malcolm Pein writes a daily column in the Telegraph. To access the column on-line, you need to register, which is free. The daily chess column can be found by clicking the "Chess Club" link in the Arts section.
Alternatively, you can read a recent article on the 4NCL here.
Message from Lawrence Cooper, Hilsmark Kingfisher captain:
The British Blitz Championship takes place next Sunday, 26th March, starting at 11.00. The venue is St. Leonards Sports & Social Club, Stafford, ST17 4LX. Details on the website here. Contact Lawrence by email or phone 01785 242269 (home). The prize fund is £500 including a £200 first prize, ladies, junior and grading prizes.
17/3/06
Norm hopefuls
Anyone thinking that they have a chance of an GM, IM, IWGM or IWM norm from this season's 4NCL, is invited to email Neville Belinfante so that he can work out exactly what they need.
12/3/06
Divisions 1,2 & 3 - Fourth Weekend
Press release - including a small selection of games.
We are very pleased to welcome our first new team for next season ... Jutes of Kent.
7/3/06
The 2006/07 season ... new venues
Just to clear up a bit of confusion about one of our new venues ... Divisions 1, 2 & 3 will be playing a couple of weekends at Initial Style Venues, Wokefield Park, which is near Reading in Berkshire. So please don't go to Wakefield ...
We are grateful to the English Chess Federation for permission to link to John's obituary on the ECF web site - click here.
27/2 - now includes the eulogy from John's funeral.
26/2/06
More about the 2006/07 season
OK ... it's what you've all been waiting for ... how do you enter a team for next season?
Firstly, we hope this page will answer most of your questions. You'll find details of dates, venues, prizes, entry fees, etc. Please note, in particular, that the closing date for entries is a month earlier than usual - entries by the end of June, please.
You'll notice that the 4NCL will be using some new venues next season ... details are here.
Revised rules for next season have now been published - click here for details.
Please note the following important changes for next season:
Placings in Division 4 will revert to being determined in the first instance on match points.
Division 4 will revert to using FIDE ratings as the primary determinant of board order.
There is a new rule (#12.7) requiring participants to agree to the 4NCL website holding certain of their personal details (name, sex, nationality, title, grade, etc.) if they are to play in the league.
There is a new rule (#12.8) requiring players to be a fully paid up member of a national chess federation in order for them to be treated as eligible players.
Various housekeeping changes have been made, e.g. the definitions of squads and teams have been tidied up and certain aspects of the 80 point rule have been simplified.
22/2/06
Just to clarify ...
The recent correction to a Division 4 result does not affect the draw for Round 7.
Slough Sharks supremo, Ben Purton, writes to advise us that the Sharks website is currently being updated. As well as 4NCL news, Ben is reporting on Anna Rudolf's progress at Cappelle la Grande. Anna, Slough Sharks's loyal WIM, has defeated one of the best women players in the world in Holland's Number 1 Z. Peng and also defeated an IM who recently came 3rd in the Brazilian championship.
Third time lucky?! Sorry about this, folks, but here's our third attempt at publishing dates for next season - click here for details. We have changed the dates of rounds 1 and 2 so that Divisions 1, 2 & 3 players can also go to the Isle of Man tournament.
Neville Belinfante has provided the latest FIDE Cross table, giving results for the first 6 rounds of the season. The table is in Microsoft Excel format and shows the individual results and performance against rating for every player.
Malcolm Pein writes a daily column in the Telegraph. To access the column on-line, you need to register, which is free. The daily chess column can be found by clicking the "Chess Club" link in the Arts section.
Alternatively, you can read recent articles on the 4NCL here or here.
6/2/06
John Robinson - funeral arrangements
We are grateful to Gerry Walsh for the following:
John's funeral will take place at the Church of St. Peter in Stannion near Corby on Wednesday 15th February at 11.30. Cremation will follow at Kettering Crematorium at about 12.15 to 12.30. Friends are invited to attend both services.
We are also invited by John's niece Sheila to a sit down lunch afterwards in Wicksteed Park Restaurant. This was a favourite park of John's and he spent a lot of his time walking therein.
Sheila has asked me to advise her of the numbers attending so that she can book the correct number of places. I have agreed to inform her next Saturday. Would those attending the lunch please advise Cynthia at the ECF Office.
Donations in lieu of floral tributes are invited to either St Peter's Church or Cancer Research.
Alex Baburin writes about the 4NCL in the daily e-zine Chess Today - click here for the magazine in Adobe Acrobat format.
Whilst not strictly related to the 4NCL, Alex has kindly provided the two most recent issues of the e-zine, which contain the views of GM Seirawan (CT-1914) and Alex (CT-1913) on FIDE and the forthcoming FIDE elections. These are available free to viewers of this web site: download CT-1914 in PDF, ChessBase or PGN formats, and CT-1913 in PDF, ChessBase or PGN. More info on the Chess Today magazine is here.
Published with permission.
3/2/06
John Robinson ... continued
Paul Kelly writes:
Always helpful and considerate ... a charming man who will be missed by the 4NCL and all who knew him.
He had a good sense of humour yet he carried on working for the 4NCL when he knew and it was plain to see that he was not in the best of health. A stalwart worker for British Chess. I will miss him.
Condolences to his family.
2/2/06
John Robinson
Message from Paul Littlewood, 4NCL Chairman:
It is with great sadness that I report that John died peacefully in his sleep yesterday.
My main contact with him was via the 4NCL ... he was always a pleasure to work with and I particularly appreciated his support during the difficult times when we sadly lost Richard Furness and then subsequently Steve Boniface.
A charming man who will be sorely missed.
All messages of condolence can be sent to the ECF Office who will pass them on to his relatives.
24/1/06
Divisions 1,2 & 3 - Third Weekend
Press release - including a small selection of games.
With thanks to Neville Belinfante, Paul Dupre, Arthur Brameld, Robert Parker and Paul Littlewood.
17/1/06
Steve Boniface
We received the following message from Steve's family:
Dear Friends, Colleagues and Acquaintances of Steve Boniface,
We are writing to thank you all for your kind words, tributes and memories of Steve that provided us with so much comfort at one of the most unexpected and saddest moments in our lives. It was a wonderful surprise to see that our brother and uncle had touched so many people’s lives unbeknown to us and, probably, to him as well. Steve was truly one in a million and in our struggle to come to terms with what happened, seeing the amount of people who had their lives brightened by him has made the last couple of months that bit more bearable.
We would also like to thank everyone who donated to The British Heart Foundation in memory of Steve. You raised a phenomenal £934.78 so thank you all.
We would have loved to have shown our gratitude to you all personally but the amount of people that held Steve in high regard, was so overwhelming it would have been impossible; but please know you are in our hearts and we appreciate all you have done for us since the untimely death of our beloved brother and uncle. We feel very proud of him.
Neville Belinfante has provided the latest FIDE Cross table, giving results for the first 6 rounds of the season. The table is in Microsoft Excel format and shows the individual results and performance against rating for every player.
Nobody has scored 6 wins out of 6, but congratulations to the following players on 5/6: Alexander Baburin (Wood Green), Nigel Ferrington (Wessex), Ali Reza Jaunooby (3Cs Oldham), Daniel King (Guildford-ADC), Chiedu Maduekwe (Wood Green) and Daniel Rosen (Poisoned Pawns).
The Nottinghamshire Chess Association have revamped their web site here - contains reports on the 2 Nottinghamshire teams playing in the 4NCL.
13/1/06
Pete Harrison
We were very sad to recieve the following message from Kieran Smallbone.
It's with great sadness I have to report that Pete Harrison passed away on Tuesday evening, following a long battle with cancer. At the tender age of 27, he had already given a huge amount to chess; whilst running the three Oxford 4NCL teams and organising the hugely successful Oxford University weekend and rapidplay tournaments, Pete still found time to entertain us with his alter-ego "Woody Woodpusher" in Chess magazine. For those of you not familiar with his dead-pan journalism, Pete's reports on Oxford 4NCL's progress can be found here.
But most of all I remember Pete as a great guy and a fantastic friend. He will be sadly missed.
Kieran
27/12/05
John Robinson
I am sure that many people will be interested in the following information about John Robinson. I am grateful once again to Sue Hale for keeping us posted.
Sue writes: "John has been moved twice and is now in Corby Community Hospital in the Rehab Ward. The address is Cottingham Road, Corby, Northants, NN17 2UN. He can receive calls on 01536 400070 if the staff are not too busy. Thanks on John's behalf to everybody who has written. Anyone who would like to can now visit (14.30 to 20.30) or send postcards as John is having difficulty opening letters."
Malcolm Pein writes a daily column in the Telegraph. To access the column on-line, you need to register, which is free. The daily chess column can be found by clicking the "Chess Club" link in the Arts section.
Alternatively, you can read recent articles on the 4NCL here or here.
The 44th Nuneaton One-Day Congress takes place on Sunday:- Mark Hebden and Andrew Greet will be amongst those competing. Details here if you want to enter.
Message from Sue Hale: "I have been visiting John in hospital and it would be good if any of his other chess friends are able to visit or write as he is rather bored. He is in Harrowden A Ward, Kettering General Hospital, Rothwell Road, Kettering, Northants NN16 8UZ. Official visiting hours are 3-4 and 7-8 but they are pretty flexible."
With thanks to Neville Belinfante, Robert Parker, Arthur Brameld and Paul Littlewood.
27/11/05
Membership of National Federations
With effect from the start of the 2006/2007 season, it will be mandatory for participants in the 4NCL to be members of the English Chess Federation (ECF) or an equivalent national federation. More details can be found on the ECF web site.
27/11/05
Registrations
As a result of John Robinson's recent illness, Neville Belinfante has taken over as the League's Registrations Secretary on a temporary basis. Please direct any issues relating to registrations to Neville.
Unfortunately John Robinson is unwell and will not be attending this coming weekend. The Arbiting team will consist of Dave Welch (Chief Arbiter), Neville Belinfante and Sue Hale.
Could we ask that any team lists submitted by e-mail should be sent to both Dave and Neville.
Also, if anyone has sent anything to John in the last two weeks concerning changes to registrations, could it be re-sent to Neville.
We're sure that everyone connected to the League will be wishing John a speedy recovery.
3/11/05
Steve Boniface
Steve's funeral will be on Thursday, November 10th. Details here.
Thanks to John Richards for the information.
31/10/05
Steve Boniface
John Richards and Bob Jones, close friends of Steve's, have written obituaries which I am sure will be of interest to many. We are grateful for permission to link to them. John Richards here and Bob Jones here.
31/10/05
Divisions 1,2 & 3 - First Weekend
Press release - including tribute to Steve Boniface and a small selection of games.
Division 1, Round 1 games in PGN or in game viewer 31/10 - includes correction to Arkell vs. Haslinger - thanks, Keith. Division 1, Round 2 games in PGN or in game viewer
We have been informed that the Nottingham Moat House and West Bromwich Moat House have recently changed ownership. They are now part of the Park Inn group (which owns among other chains the Radisson Hotel chain) and will henceforth be known as the Nottingham Park Inn and West Bromwich Park Inn.
The hotels have confirmed to the 4NCL that all bookings made to date will be unaffected.
We are very sorry to have to report that Steve Boniface, the 4NCL Chief Arbiter, died suddenly at his home.
Steve was an extremely able and popular arbiter and this news will come as a sad blow to his many friends in British chess. Steve had successfully taken over the reins of Chief Arbiter of the 4NCL from Richard Furness and he will be sorely missed.
We hope to be able to give you more information in due course. The new season will start as planned this coming weekend, 22nd/23rd October.
It is with great sadness that I learn that Keith Brown died yesterday.
Keith was a great chess enthusiast and one of the 4NCL controllers in the early days. His help was much appreciated when things ran rather less smoothly than they do now!
I do not have any details of funeral arrangements yet but I will certainly try to attend, both as a friend and representative of the league.
My thoughts go out to his wife Janet and his son and daughter.
27/9/05
The League's newest recruit
Congratulations to Mark Hogarth, the 4NCL's Sponsorship, PR and Marketing Director, and his wife Hilary on the birth of their first child, Lucy Jayne Hogarth.
A message from Mark ...Blonde-haired, blue-eyed little Lucy Jayne Hogarth was born on 31st August 2005 at 10:10pm. She weighed in at 7lb 7oz. Mother and baby doing very well, father is exhausted but ecstatic. Too early to say yet if she will be an e4 or a d4 player. Lawrence Cooper requested that we register her for this season just in case we're short of female players!
25/9/05
New season
The webmaster has had a bit of a spring clean in anticipation of the new season.
Info relating to the 2004/05 season can be found here.
The League Rules for the 2005/06 season are now finalised here. This latest version reflects a couple of minor changes to the update that was posted on the web site in March 2005, but are in essence unchanged from then.
The list of teams competing in the 4NCL for the 2005/06 season is now finalised. Click here.
Fixtures for the forthcoming season are announced as follows:
Division 1 - click here Division 2 - click here Division 3 - click here
The draw for Division 4, Round 1 will be seeded and so will follow once the player registration lists are announced. We expect to publish this draw a couple of weeks before the first weekend.
Barbican 4NCL will, for the third time in four years, represent the BCF in the European Club Cup, held this year in St Vincent, Italy, on 18-24 September. The team will again be generously financially supported in this competition by the Friends of Chess.
Click here for more details, including a selection of games. With thanks to Jonathan Rogers.
18/9 - The European Club Cup can be followed here.
23/8/05
BCF website of the year
We're chuffed to win an award for the British Chess Federation Website of the Year.
Message from Lawrence Cooper, Hilsmark Kingfisher captain - The British Blitz Championship takes place next Sunday, 17th July, starting at 11.00. The venue is St. Leonards Sports & Social Club, Stafford, ST17 4LX. Details on the website here. Contact Lawrence by email or phone 01785 242269 (home). The prize fund is £600 including a £200 first prize, ladies, junior and grading prizes.
Paul Dupre, Addlestone's Captain, has put together a fantastically comprehensive web page showing statistics from the season just gone. Paul's page analyses performance for each club, nationality, male / female, and probably loads of other stuff that I haven't managed to figure out yet! You can find this mine of information here. Highly recommended browsing!
If you have any comments or queries about this page, you can contact Paul directly.
One word of warning - this web page is huge. Depending on your browser settings, you may get a message saying something like "A script on this page is causing Internet Explorer to run slowly ...". If you let the script finish, it should work OK.
22/6/05
BBC Radio Five Live
Mark Hogarth, the 4NCL's Sponsorship, PR and Marketing Director, made a guest appearance on Tuesday night's Anita Anand show.
If you want to listen to the show, you can find a recording here. The entire show is 3 hours long, but Mark did his turns at about 50 minutes in, and then again at about 1 hour 40 minutes in, and you can fast forward through the other bits. Subjects covered include Michael Adams's match against Hydra, women / girls in chess, how does chess compete with Nintendo games for kids' attention, etc.
If you do want to listen, I believe you have about a week before the recording is removed from the BBC web site.
17/6/05
2004/05 4NCL complete
All the games from the 2004/05 season are now available for download.
Please note - contrary to what you may have heard, the November weekend is at West Bromwich and the February weekend is at Nottingham. The full schedule is here.
10/6/05
Divisions 3 and 4 - Final Weekend
Congratulations to Division 3 Champions OXFORD 1 and also to SLOUGH SHARKS 2 and HILSMARK KINGFISHER 2 who won Divisions 4A and 4B respectively.
GUILDFORD-ADC 3 and CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY 1 join Oxford in gaining promotion to Division 2 for next season, whilst HILSMARK COVENTRY and SLOUGH SHARKS 3 are promoted to Division 3.
There was a dramatic climax in the final game in Division 3, as board 1 of the Numerica 3Cs 2 v. Poisoned Pawns 1 match reached its conclusion after almost 7 hours play. Poisoned Pawns had long ensured that the match was won, but needed to win the last game to bring their game score level with that of Cambridge University 1. Then, with match and game points equal, the third promotion place would have been theirs, having beaten Cambridge in Round 9, when four of the Cambridge team, delayed by traffic, arrived more than one hour late to find their games lost by default. Phil Adams bought off a fine last minute win to the rousing cheers of Cambridge players. Play through the decisive game here. Sadly Numerica were still relegated to Division 4.
Earlier, Brown Jack's hopes of promotion from Division 4, dented by a loss to Slough Sharks 3 on Sunday, were extinguished by a loss to the league leaders Hilsmark Kingfisher 2, whilst Slough Sharks 3 romped to a 5½ - ½ win versus Addlestone.
In Division 4B, Hilsmark Kingfisher 2 set a record by becoming the first team in 4NCL history to win all their matches in a season.
With thanks to John Robinson, Robert Parker, Mark Hogarth and Paul Dupre. Also to Chris Ross, for helping us with the Braille Chess Association game scores throughout the season.
This Excel spreadsheet, calculated by Neville's own software, shows the FIDE rating calculation for each player last season. It particular, it gives clear information on which of their opponents were rated and which were not.
Please note that FIDE rules for national leagues are that the player's ratings when the league starts should be used for the rating calculations for that league. Therefore the ratings shown on the crosstable are those from the July 2004 rating list which was the list in force when the league season started last September.
5/6/05
Ratings & Grades
The 4NCL results for the 2004/05 season were submitted for international ratings and BCF grading immediately after last weekend's games had finished, and so made FIDE's deadline of the end of May for inclusion in the July list.
You can find the FIDE crosstable here and the BCF grading summary file here. Both documents are in Microsoft Excel format.
If anyone spots any errors they should contact Neville Belinfante pronto. With thanks to Neville for the information.
We are very grateful to Dave Clayton for putting together the live internet coverage on the final weekend. Dave also found time to take some photos here.
Photos from the Wood Green vs. Guildford-ADC match. Press release with a small selection of games.
With thanks to John Robinson, Helen Milligan, Malcolm Armstrong and Arthur Brameld.
Congratulations to Division 1 Champions WOOD GREEN 1, who won the title on tie-break after a thrilling 4-4 draw with runners up Guildford-ADC 1.
Also to HILSMARK KINGFISHER 1, the Champions of Division 2, who will be promoted to Division 1 next season, along with SLOUGH SHARKS 1 and BARBICAN 4NCL 2.
The daily e-zine Chess Today frequently covers the 4NCL. You can also view a recent issue here (Adobe Acrobat), here (PGN format) or here (ChessBase format).
Barbican 4NCL had a remarkable final weekend. We are grateful to Jonathan Rogers for providing the details here. 6/5 - now includes game score.
6/5/05
A bit of boasting ...
The combined average ELOs of the Wood Green and Guildford teams in the last round (2640 + 2591/2 = 2616) is slightly higher than the likely line-up for the Porz-Werder Bremen Bundesliga first division play-off match this coming weekend (2653 + 2574/2 = 2614) - further evidence that the 4NCL can hold its head high as the equal of any league in Europe.
With thanks to Mike Truran.
6/5/05
Still more on norms
Congratulations also to John Richardson of The ADs, who made an IM norm.
The Welsh Chess Union have a web site here. There will be a page for the South Wales Dragons 4NCL team added for next season.
4/5/05
More on norms
As well as the three norms reported below, we omitted two other IM achievements:- John Cox (who scored 2 1/2 from 3 including wins against GMs Stewart Conquest and Peter Wells) and Tony Corkett.
Additionally, Andrew Greet became the ultimate "big hitter" scoring 11/11 during the course of the season! Andrew faced 10 rated opponents out of his 11 games and his rating performance for this was 3096.
As before, congratulations to all concerned.
With thanks to John Robinson.
4/5/05
Divisions 1 and 2 - Final Weekend
Three norms were achieved: David Howell secured his first Grand Master norm with 1/2 point to spare, drawing with GMs Ian Rogers and Jon Speelman. Lawrence Trent's Round 9 game gave him his third IM norm and Stephen Gordon also gained an IM norm for the second year running. Congratulations to all!
Malcolm Pein writes a daily column in the Telegraph. To access the column on-line, you need to register, which is free. The daily chess column can be found by clicking the "Chess Club" link in the Arts section.
Alternatively, you can read recent articles on the 4NCL here, here or here.
With thanks to John Robinson, Robert Parker and Paul Dupre.
19/4 - includes a couple of corrections in the match SCS 1 vs. Athenaeum.
24/4/05
Captains meeting - note from League Chairman Paul Littlewood
There will be a Captains meeting on Sunday May 1st at 11 a.m., taking place in the ground floor playing room at the hotel. I would like to discuss the arrangements for next season and also to reflect on any points that have arisen from this season.
The draw for the final weekend of Division 4 has now been made. You can find details here, or by clicking the name of team on the right hand side of this page.
Updated registration lists, showing players eligible for the final rounds of Divisions 1 and 2 - click here.
Arrangements are in hand for all games in the the final round match between Wood Green 1 and Guildford-ADC 1 to be broadcast live on the Internet. It may well be the strongest match ever in the UK, and both teams have each cooked up some surprises; are there yet more lurking as wildcards in those clenched fists I wonder?
Contact John Robinson with any questions on registrations.
We thought that 4NCL fans might also be interested in the German team competition, the Bundesliga, which concludes this coming weekend.
Stefan Löffler has kindly provided an English-language article which explains the current situation, the basics of the Bundesliga and dips into its financial sources. You can find the article here and also visit the Bundesliga web site here.
The Coventry International 9-round tournament takes place over the Easter weekend and offers IM and GM norm opportunities. Full details, including an entry form, can be downloaded here or are available at the event's web site here. Over 20 titled players have entered so far, including 5 players over 2600 (entries include Georgiev, Bauer, Tkachiev, Khenken, Efimenko, Kiriakov, Wells, Arkell, Pert, Greenfeld, Conquest, Cherniaev). The venue is a fabulous 4-star hotel with rooms at 4NCL prices (B&B prices £33 Single and £50 Double/Twin). Student bar prices agreed and low cost high quality meals (£6) /buffets (£5) / sandwiches, soup (£2.50) etc have been negotiated as well.
Jack Rudd reports on Bristol's third weekend of the 2004/05 season. Includes a selection of annotated games. Click here.
14/2/05
2005/06 season update
Just to let you know that we've had our third new entrant to the league for next season - another team from Wales. Full details to follow in due course.
Sorry - but we made a pig's ear of telling you about the hotel room rates next season. In particular, at our new venue (Paragon, Birmingham), it will be £37 for a single room, or £50 for a twin/double. Full details on our hotels are here here.
With thanks to John Robinson, Malcolm Armstrong, Arthur Brameld and Jonathan Rogers. Includes correction to game score of Round 5 Collinson vs. Wheeler.
Division 4, Round 3 games in PGN or in game viewer Division 4, Round 4 games in PGN or in game viewer(includes correction to Jeffries vs. Whelan and Makepeace vs. Forman).
With thanks to John Robinson, Rob Parker and Paul Dupre.
25/1/05
2005/06 season dates
Dates for next season will be published here shortly after a 4NCL Management Board meeting on February 6th. Watch this space!
23/1/05
Trophy presentations
The 4NCL has two new trophies for the winners of Divisions 1 and 2, and these were presented at weekend.
The Chris Dunworth trophy, named after the league's founder, was presented to Nigel Povah of Guildford-ADC 1, who won Division 1 last season. The photo above shows the Richard Furness trophy, in memory of the league's Chief Arbiter, being presented by Judy Furness to Jack Rudd in recognition of Bristol 1's victory in Division 2 last season.
23/1/05
2005/06 season
We're pleased to record a second new team has entered the 4NCL next season. We welcome the Celtic Tigers.
A list of players looking for teams, and vice versa.
18/1/05
Moat House Hotels
The Moat House hotels have asked us to remind people staying at the hotels that consumption of alcohol and food brought in from outside the hotels is not allowed. We have had a number of reminders from the hotels in the past, so clearly this is a matter of some concern to the hotels and one which is in danger of damaging the league's relationship with them. As you know, we receive our playing venues free from the hotels, and if the hotels withdraw this facility on the grounds that we are not complying with their requirements entry fees will need to rise significantly to cover the extra costs that we will incur.
16/1/05
Wellington International
The organisers of the Wellington International tournament are looking for IMs to play on 28/29/30th January and 12/13th February. Byes available if requested. 2 places left - fee of £150 available - first come, first served.
Please phone Andrew Martin on 01252 870235 or email him if interested.
By a remarkable coincidence, combinations decided three adjacent boards in the Division 2 match Bristol 1 vs. Perceptron Youth. Click the boards to see the solutions.
Malcolm Pein writes a daily column in the Telegraph. To access the column on-line, you need to register, which is free. The daily chess column can be found by clicking the "Chess Club" link in the Arts section.
Alternatively, you can read a recent article on the 4NCL here.
Jack Rudd reports on Bristol's second weekend of the 2004/05 season. Includes a selection of annotated games. Click here.
26/11/04
2005/06 season
We're very pleased to report that the 4NCL has already received its first new entry for next season!
Full details for 2005/06 will be published here during the summer. In the meantime any enquiries or expressions of interest should be directed to Mike Truran, the 4NCL's Finance Director.
One of the talking points of the weekend was the composition of Wood Green 1's team. With thanks to Helen Milligan for providing the photographic record here.
21/11/04
Nuneaton Rapidplay
The 43rd Nuneaton Rapidplay will take place on December 12th starting 10 a.m. at Etone Sports Centre, Leicester Road, Nuneaton. First prize in the Open section is £250 and there are also Under 160, Under 120 and Under 80 sections. Anyone wishing to play should contact Roy Woodcock.
We intend to bring you live coverage of Saturday's Division 2 top-of-the-table clash between Hilsmark Kingfisher 1 and Slough Sharks 1. Click here to follow play from 2 p.m. UK time.
We are grateful to the following for providing sensory equipment:- British Chess Federation, Stewart Reuben and Lancashire Chess Association. Also thanks to Dave Clayton, Mark Hogarth and Ben Purton for making this happen.
18/11/04
Hotel bookings
Team captains / managers should note that the hotels we use expect credit card details when reservations are made (in line with practice at most if not all hotels in the UK). They would also like room lists with the names of the players who will be taking the rooms as early as possible before the weekends (this facilitates checking in procedures) - or failing this, at least reconfirmation before the relevant weekends that the rooms are still required. This will avoid the risk of the hotels letting the rooms go beforehand because they don't have card details to confirm the reservations and no names to allocate to the rooms.
17/11/04
Would you buy a used car from this man?
No, nor would I ... But if anybody is interested in the following, they could contact Andrew Martin.
Vauxhall Vectra 2.0SRi T 981ENV 1999. FSH, Air conditioning, CD player, Traction control, Trafficmaster, all extras. New exhaust, battery, tyres. 107500 miles. Offered in excellent condition. Economical, reliable and fast. £2,199.
Of course, the 4NCL accepts no responsibility whatsoever for this clapped out old banger ...
The daily e-zine Chess Today frequently covers the 4NCL and celebrates its 4th birthday today. You can see some sample issues of the magazine here. You can also view the anniversary issue here (Adobe Acrobat), here (PGN format) or here (ChessBase format).
With thanks to John Robinson, Malcolm Armstrong and Arthur Brameld.
22/9/04
Divisions 3 & 4
After full consultation with all the parties concerned and with reference to rule 11.3 the Board has decided to award the vacancy in Division 3 to Southern County Stars 1. Meanwhile the new team in Division 4 is "The Conquistadors". Congratulations to both teams concerned.
As most of you will know by now, the Slough team has decided to withdraw from the league. It is extremely disappointing that it should have seen fit to do this so close to the start of the new season and that no apology has been forthcoming for the massive disruption to the various teams in the league that might have resulted. It is also sad to note that the e-mail confirming the withdrawal contains the usual ritual abuse of the board that we have become accustomed to from this particular quarter.
Despite the extremely short notice, we have been able to agree that Bristol 2 will move up from Division 3 to take Slough's place, and will take over the Slough fixtures in the fixture list. We wish to offer our grateful thanks to Poisoned Pawns 1, who could have put forward a case for claiming the vacant place, but who have graciously agreed to accept the board's decision in this case.
As regards the vacant position in in Division 3 resulting from Bristol 2 moving up to take Slough's place, we have a little more time to agree next steps, but will aim to finalise the position in the very near future.
Whatever the outcome of the Division 3 situation, a vacancy will arise in Division 4, and we are pleased to announce that a new team has stepped into the breach. Although the new team has still not decided on its name, its entry is definite and we will of course let you have the name as soon as possible.
If you like trivia quizzes, you'll probably enjoy the Metropolitan web site.
9/9/04
Amsterdam Women's tournament
Here's something that may be of interest to the 4NCL's many female players. The Women’s Chess Tournament is a weekend tournament for female chess players only to be played in Amsterdam over the weekend 15/16/17 October. You can download an entry form here (Microsoft Word format) or visit the tournament web site (currently in Dutch) here.
Updated registration lists for the forthcoming season are available here.
Duplications are down to six names, and of course, the player's wish is paramount. If any of the players below would confirm who they're playing for, we'd be pleased to hear. Contact John Robinson - he's the League's Registration Secretary.
Mark Campbell
Pia Cramling
Susan McFarland
Nigel Moyse
John Naylor
Peter Poobalasingam
UPDATE 9/9 - Richmond A and B have decided to merge their registered players and operate from a single squad.
Details of Division 4 fixtures are now published here.
As previously announced, Division 4 has been split into two sections. The Chief Arbiter, Steve Boniface, has divided the 28 teams according to:
Average strength of the squad
Maximum strength of the squad (i.e. the six highest rated)
Related teams allocated to avoid each other as far as possible
Performance last season where applicable
The size of the squad
Pairings for Rounds 1 to 8 are here, pairings for Rounds 9 to 11 will be published immediately after the conclusion of Round 8.
31/8/04
FIDE ratings
We've received a number of queries regarding the FIDE rating of last season's 4NCL. We'd like to bring to your attention an announcement that recently appeared on the BCF web site, as follows:
This is to advise that with immediate effect all matters referring to International Ratings are transferred to Chris Majer Director of Strategic Planning & Grading. All correspondence should be sent to The BCF Office in Battle marked for the attention of C Majer. Roy Heppinstall, Rupert Jones, Gerry Walsh
The list of teams competing next season is now finalised - click here for the details.
There is another record entry, with 12 teams in each of the top 3 Divisions and 28 (!) in Division 4.
Division 4 will be divided into two 11-round sections of broadly equal strength, with two teams from each section to be promoted to Division 3 (and so four to be relegated from Division 3) - further details (including pairings) will follow shortly.
In response to demand, the 4NCL have decided to set up an internet Discussion Group for a trial period. The Group is intended to allow 4NCL players, captains, officials, fans (!), etc., to share thoughts on the League and to discuss any matter of popular interest.
The Discussion Group is here. We are using Yahoo!, so you will need a Yahoo! login to join (click the link near the top of the page that says "Sign Up").
Enjoy!
7/7/04
Moat House - important notice about bookings
We understand that the telephone systems across the Moat House chain will shortly be changed so that calls made at weekends and outside working hours will be redirected to a central booking area. There is therefore every chance (as confirmed by the various hotels themselves) that any such calls will not be cross-referenced to the 4NCL booking arrangements, with all the attendant problems that will result. In particular, you may not get the specially negotiated 4NCL discount.
The hotels have consequently asked that calls to arrange 4NCL bookings are made during working hours. If a booking is made at weekends/outside working hours, please also place a follow-up call to the hotel during working hours to reconfirm the booking directly with the hotel in question.
1/7/04
2003/04 4NCL complete
All the games from the 2003/04 season are now available for download.
The 2003/04 4NCL games do not yet appear on the BCF's "Events Received for Grading 2003-4" list. We know (!) - this is in hand and the files will be submitted in time for all this season's games to be included in the next grading list.
UPDATE 1/7 - the 4NCL now appears on the BCF's list of graded events.
28/6/04
Divisions 3 and 4 - Final Weekend
Congratulations to Hilsmark Kingfisher 1 and Cambridge University who won Divisions 3 and 4 respectively. Wood Green 3 and Slough 2 are promoted from Division 3 and Oxford 1 and Poisoned Pawns 2 from Division 4.
In response to a few requests, I've made available this season's 4NCL games in a game viewer (as well as PGN format). So, for example, you can play through Division 3, Round 9 games here and Division 4, Round 9 games here. A full list on the Downloads page.
Thanks to Paul Dupre for his help on this. (Any problems, it's my fault not Paul's).
Malcolm Pein writes a daily column in the Telegraph. To access the column on-line, you need to register, which is free. The daily chess column can be found by clicking the "Chess Club" link in the Arts section.
Alternatively, you can read recent articles on the 4NCL here and here.
Updated list of player registrations are here. With thanks to John Robinson. Any queries, please contact John.
This update is valid for the final Division 3/4 weekend. For teams who play in both Divisions 1/2 and 3/4, the green highlighting shows where the player concerned is available.
Some strong players have made their debuts in Divisions 3 and 4 this season. Slough 2 are one of the teams that have strengthened their squads. Thanks to their Captain Ben Purton, we can introduce 5 of their new players - click here.
7/6/04
Division 4, Round 10
Here is the draw:
Cambridge University vs. Hilsmark Kingfisher 2 Nottinghamshire vs. Brown Jack Oxford 1 vs. Grendel's Mother Oxford 2 vs. Poisoned Pawns 2 Metropolitan vs. Hilsmark Kingfisher 3 Slough 3 vs. Sussex Mindsports Mindsports 2 vs. Braille CA The ADs 3 vs. Cheddleton Pontypridd vs. BYE
Now that the 2003/2004 season is nearly over it is time to start thinking about the arrangements for next season. Although there are still a few months to go before the start of the new season, please find here some useful information for both existing teams and potential new entrants.
STOP PRESS - we now have 3 NEW teams for next season.
26/5/04
Divisions 1 and 2 - Final Weekend
Guildford-ADC 1 won the Division 1 title in an exciting last round match against Wood Green 1. Many congratulations to Guildford's captain, Nigel Povah, and all his players on a well-earned victory.
The Division 2 title went to Bristol 1, who overcame their nearest rivals Wessex 1 in the final round. Guildford-ADC 2 were also promoted to next season's top division.
In a first for the 4NCL, we are planning to bring you live coverage of the final round match Guildford-ADC vs. Wood Green, starting 11 a.m. Sunday May 23rd. Click here to follow the action live. The games are available in PGN format here.
The 4NCL would like to thank Dave Clayton and Steve Hughes for their help with this - and also the British Chess Federation, the Lancashire Chess Association and Stewart Reuben for lending us equipment.
Odds are now available from Betsson for the final rounds. The Wood Green v Guildford encounter will decide the league, Wood Green are clear favourites at 6/4 on, but maybe Guildford will pull a few surprises. All the weekends match odds and overall markets can be seen here.
The new rules for 2004/2005 are here. These were decided upon after a full and frank discussion at the Board Meeting of 9th May and took into account all the various suggestions that have been made by interested parties in recent weeks. I draw your attention to the following changes:
1 Management
Team Captains/Managers meetings will now be arranged when necessary.
2 Team Registration Lists
There is no longer any need for Captains to provide a registration form for new players to John Robinson. However the forms will still be available on the web-site if Captains wish to keep a record for themselves. Please also note the new rule 2.4 which clarifies the squad options that clubs have when they have more than one team in the league. The changes in this section have meant various modifications in other sections but the next critical changes are in:
7 Match Arrangements
A lady player will still be needed for all matches in Division 1. However, because of some of the difficulties that Captains have come across, which has led to defaults on the Ladies Board, the rule has been modified for Divisions 2 + 3. This means that, on three occasions during the season, a male junior (with various restrictions-see rules) may play instead of a lady in Divisions 2 + 3.
8 Team Lists
A slight modification to the start of 8.3 which allows an equivalent rating to be used if a player does not have a FIDE rating. This was felt to be fairer because a Welsh rating, for example, may be more up-to-date than a BCF rating. This rule was also clarified at the end to explain how the 80 point rule works separately across the male and female/under16 junior Boards.
10 Split Weekend
This is a new section which explains the procedure at split weekends for clubs who have more than one team but only one combined squad.
We're grateful to BCF International Grader Paul Keevil for guidance on requirements for title norms - click here for the details.
12/5/04
Title Norms
Congratulations to Stephen Gordon (Numerica 3Cs) and Lawrence Trent (Barbican) who achieved IM norms last weekend. GM Norms can be achieved by Simon Ansell and Adam Hunt (both Betsson.com) at the final weekend.
Your webmaster particularly enjoyed playing this game. Thanks to Tony Corkett for pointing it out.
9/5/04
2004/05 update
More entries are already coming in for next season. Following the confirmed entry by a team from Gloucestershire, we're pleased to announce a new team from Surrey in Division 4 next season. As with the team from Gloucestershire, the name is still to be confirmed.
Anyone interested in entering a new team for next season should contact Mike Truran.
We'd like to take this opportunity to thank everybody who has generously donated to the Motor Neurone Disease Association in Richard's memory. We're delighted to announce that the total raised to date is £1,500. We will be splitting this amount equally between medical research into the condition and towards supplying equipment to MND sufferers. Richard would be so pleased that some good will come out of all his suffering.
Thanks also for everybody's messages of support. They've been such a source of encouragement for us all during this difficult time.
Odds are now available from Betsson for rounds 7, 8 and 9 of the first division. Will Wood Green 2 field a 'super sub' team to try and knock Guildford off the top of the league? At odds of 4 Wood Green 2 look an interesting bet. Wood Green 1 remain the odds-on favourites to win the league, while Guildford are 2/1 shots to take the title. All the weekend's match odds and overall markets can be seen here.
20/4/04
Richard Furness
It is with great regret that we have to inform you that Richard passed away peacefully in his sleep in the early hours of this morning, Thursday 15th April.
Richard's funeral will be on Friday 23rd April. There will be a service in our local church in Culcheth, followed by a gathering at a nearby hotel. Full details, including directions and instructions on tributes/donations can be found here.
We attach a recent photo, chosen by Richard.
"Cheers, best wishes and good health. Thanks for the memories. Richard" (Photo taken at Cochem, Moselle Valley, June 2003 - 3 weeks prior to becoming ill)
With thanks to John Robinson, Paul Dupre and Robert Parker.
3/4/04
2004/05 season
We're delighted to announce our first new entry for the coming 2004/2005 season. A team from Gloucestershire is so keen to join the league that they have already sent in their entry fee in advance of finalising their name. There is, however, no truth in the rumour that their captain Michael White camped out overnight in front of Paul Littlewood's new flat to secure his place at the head of the queue.
The event will be a 5 round Open FIDE Swiss tournament. Rate of play is 40 moves in 2 hours followed by all remaining moves in 30 minutes. No adjournments.
Timetable: Friday 16th April 2004 17:30; Saturday 17th April 2004. 9.00 and 15.00; Sunday 18th April 2004 9.00 and 15.00.
Entry for GMs and IMs is free and that the prize fund is £1300 making it an Elite Grand Prix event.
Now includes a free place to this year's British Championship as one of the prizes.
80 entries to date including: GMs Hebden, Arkell and Rowson, IMs Paul Littlewood, Baker, Wade, Berzinsh (Latvia), Crouch and Wall, IM-elect David Howell ... 11 players rated over 2300 ...
The tournament takes place at King Henry VIII school, Coventry opposite the railway station and walking distance from town centre. Paul Kelly of MindsportsLtd.com will be providing the Bookstall. Entries to Roy Woodcock (phone 024 76348 097).
You can download an entry form here; see an accomodation list here; or visit the tournament web site here.
30/3/04
Division 4, Round 7
Here is the draw:
Brown Jack vs. Metropolitan Oxford 1 vs. Cambridge U Poisoned Pawns 2 vs. Slough 3 Cheddleton vs. Hilsmark Kingfisher 2 Oxford 2 vs. Grendel's Mother Nottinghamshire vs. Mindsportsltd.com 2 Nidum Liberals 2 vs. Sussex Mindsports Pontypridd vs. The ADs 3 Braille CA vs. Hilsmark Kingfisher 3
The draw for Round 8 will be made after results from Round 7 are in. We hope to display it in the hotel before 11.00 p.m. on Saturday May 29th, and will be happy to email it to captains on request. A similar timetable will operate for other rounds except for Round 10, which will be on the website soon after the May Day Bank Holiday weekend.
Odds are now available from Betsson for rounds 5 and 6 of the first division. Despite their fourth position in the league, Wood Green are still odds-on favourites to retain the first division title. All the weekend's match odds and overall markets can be seen here.
Congratulations to Slough Captain Maxim Devereaux on his appearance on Channel 4 last night. Reports that Max has recently had dinner with Roman Abramovich are as yet unconfirmed ...
The draw for rounds 5 and 6 of Division 4 has been made - click here for the full details.
After Round 5, the current Division 4 leaders Oxford 1 will have played the teams which are at the moment placed 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th, so they are paired with Poisoned Pawns 2 who are currently placed 7th.
With thanks to Richard Furness, Helen Milligan and Arthur Brameld.
Despite an unscheduled break of over 90 minutes due to a fire alarm, Round 3 was successfully completed! Betsson take the lead in Division 1, Perceptron Youth lose their 100% record in Division 2 and are caught by King's Head and Wessex 1.
19/1/04
The fire alarm goes off!
Photo - Helen Milligan
Round 3's play was punctuated by the fire alarm going off. 192 players dutifully trooped out of the Moat House whilst Fireman Sam and his colleagues attended.
Photo - Helen Milligan
Thanks to all the players for their patience. Fortunately nobody died of hypothermia whilst waiting in the hotel car park.
Do you fancy taking part in a world record attempt and raise money for young people at the same time ... open to all ... click here for the details.
29/12/03
Division 3
Photo - Mark Hogarth
In a sign of the increasing strength of the 4NCL, two GMs featured in Division 3 team Hilsmark Kingfisher. Mark Hebden and Aaron Summerscale are pictured above.
We've made a few changes which we hope will make it easier for you to get around the web site. There is now a site index and the buttons at the top of each page will also take to various indexes. If you have any comments - or if there are any other additions we should be making to the web site - please email us.
Also we would welcome any contributions relating to the 4NCL for publication on the web site. For example, anyone fancy annotating their best 4NCL game?!
Revised registration lists here. Includes indication of where players are barred from competing in Divisions 3 or 4, Rounds 1 and 2 (either because they have played already, or due to the 80 point rule).
Please refer any questions to the Registrations Secretary, John Robinson.
Malcolm Pein writes a daily column in the Telegraph. To access the column on-line, you need to register, which is free. The daily chess column can be found by clicking the "Chess Club" link in the Arts section.
Alternatively, you can read recent articles on the 4NCL here and here.
There were some surprising results in Division 1, Round 2, with both Guildford and Barbican 1 dropping points. The European Team Championship had an impact on Barbican 4NCL, Slough and Wood Green.
With thanks to Richard Furness and Arthur Brameld.
22/10/03
Chess Today
Read coverage of last weekend's 4NCL in Chess Today magazine - click here to download it.
You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view Chess Today. If you do not have this software, it is available for free at www.adobe.com
Several players are now within sight of 50 wins in the 4NCL. But who will be the first to this milestone? Check out the current standings here for a list of players with most wins to date.
With thanks to Richard Furness.
23/9/03
European Club Cup
This year's European Club Cup starts on Sunday, 28th September in Rethymnon, Crete.
Among the competing teams are Barbican 4NCL, supported by the Friends of Chess in this competition, and Nidum Liberals. Good luck to both teams. You can follow their progress on the competition's web site.
Click here for more information on Barbican 4NCL's participation. With thanks to Jonathan Rogers.
You can find the final list of teams for the 2003/04 here.
We would particularly like to welcome 12 new teams this season - Braille Chess Association, Brown Jack, Cambridge University, Cheddleton, Grendel's Mother, Hilsmark Kingfisher 2, Hilsmark Kingfisher 3, Mindsportsltd.com 2, Nottinghamshire, Oxford 1, Oxford 2 and Pontypridd.
We are pleased to hear of a success story from Pontypridd Chess Club. Their captain, Dai James, writes:
It may interest you to know that since the acceptance of our entry into the 4NCL our membership has increased by a quarter and our local newspaper has confirmed it will print reports that we send them of our matches. In addition, a local company, Elmswood Carpentry, has provided the club with approximately £400 of new equipment. It shows the way the 4NCL captures the imagination, even for the smaller clubs like us.
Since it started in 1993, the 4NCL has seen spectacular growth. Richard Furness has put together some statistics to show this, click here for the details.
It is with great regret that we announce Chris Dunworth's resignation as managing director of the 4NCL National Chess League. Chris has decided that, after ten hugely successful years at the helm of the league, it's now time to move on to new directions and challenges, and is leaving the board with our very best wishes for the future.
It's safe to say that without Chris's vision and drive a decade ago the 4NCL National Chess League would either not exist or be a shadow of what it is now. Chris has changed the landscape of league chess in this country, to the extent that after a comparatively short existence the 4NCL National Chess League already compares very favourably with other national chess leagues across Europe, and indeed the world.
A number of questions have been raised recently about certain aspects of the organisation of the 4NCL National Chess League (for example, split weekends, finances, captains' meetings). We are hoping that our comments on the questions raised will shortly be published in the British Chess Magazine, and thought it would also be helpful if they were included on the 4NCL website - click here for our comments.
We will also post the text of the original questions on the 4NCL website if we succeed in obtaining the author's agreement to do this.
There is an interesting article on the 4NCL in a recent issue of the German magazine Schach Magazin 64. With kind permission from Otto Borik, an English translation appears on the 4NCL web site here.
The original article is also included in PDF format for those who would like to play through the selection of annotated games in the German article.
You may need a copy Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the PDF file. If you do not have this software, it is available for free at www.adobe.com
Malcolm Pein writes a daily column in the Telegraph. To access the column on-line, you need to register, which is free. The daily chess column can be found by clicking the "Chess Club" link in the Arts section.
Alternatively, you can read an article on the Division 4 here.
Numerica 3Cs have won Division 3; North West Eagles 2 and Mindsportsltd.com are promoted. In Division 4, Hilsmark Kingfisher are champions, with Wood Green 3 promoted. Congratulations to all the victorious teams!
In a topsy-turvy finish to Division 3, the three bottom teams going into the weekend (White Rose 2, Poisoned Pawns 2 and Southern County Stars) scored more match points during the weekend than the three top teams (Wessex 2, Numerica 3Cs 2, North West Eagles 2) at the start of the weekend! In fact Wessex 2 lost all three of their matches, allowing Mindsportsltd.com to take the third promotion spot.
With thanks to Richard Furness, Rob Parker and Mark Hogarth.
As the 2002/03 season comes to an end, the 4NCL Management Board would like to publicly recognise all those who have put in so much time and effort to make the league the success it is today.
Claire Summerscale, the British Chess Federation Director of Women's Chess, has set up a new website which aims to provide information on all aspects of women's and girls' chess. The site will give information on forthcoming tournaments (both mixed and single sex), tournament results, coaching and links to other chess organisations.
6/5/03
Norms
An unprecedented number of title norms were earned during the season. The following players will have their details submitted to the International Rating Officer for approval and subsequent submission to FIDE.
Grand Master norms :- Charles Cobb (Bristol), Adam Hunt (Betsson.com).
International Master norms :- Charles Cobb (Bristol), Stewart Haslinger (Perceptron Youth), Steve Dishman (Barbican), Desmond Tan (Wood Green), Lawrence Trent (Barbican), Lawrence Webb (Richmond).
6/5/03
Centurions
Congratulations to Chris Beaumont (Bristol), Gavin Wall (Richmond) and Richard Webb (Wessex), who all reached the milestone of one hundred games played on Sunday.
29/4/03
Auction
Congratulations to Tony Ashton of Numerica 3Cs who has won our hotel voucher auction.
28/4/03
FIDE Rating
National federations have to pay an annual fee to FIDE for each FIDE-rated player. The British Chess Federation requires all English FIDE-rated players to be members of the BCF. Although the 4NCL submits all games for rating, the BCF will from the start of next season, exclude from its final results submission, any player who is not a member of his/her national federation. If you wish to have your games FIDE rated you must take out membership.
With thanks to Richard Furness, Rob Parker, Helen Milligan, Arthur Brameld and Malcolm Armstrong.
15/4/03
Title norms
To work out your requirements for international title norms, you will need to use FIDE ratings as at October 2002. These ratings can now be found on the registration lists.
14/4/03
Journalists
We had a request from a journalist for the latest 4NCL results and tables in plain text format. Happy to oblige! - click here.
14/4/03
100 Club
Gary Quillan became the latest player to reach the milestone of 100 games in the 4NCL.
Which players have scored most points so far this season - details on all 4 Divisions here.
10/3/03
One hundred up!
During the March weekend, Paul Littlewood and Simon Ansell became the first players to reach 100 games in the 4NCL. Both are pictured below receiving commemorative certificates from Richard Furness.
Betting markets are now available for this weekend's first division 4NCL games. There are also markets available for the overall winners of division 1 and 2. For your FREE bet on the 4NCL please register here.
4NCL Chairman Paul Littlewood with news from last weekend's Management Board meeting.
27/2/03
European Club Cup 2003
This year's European Club Cup will be held in Rethymno, Crete from September 27th to October 5th. Up to 3 English teams will be eligible to play, as long as they finish in the top 6 of 4NCL Division 1. If more than 3 of the top 6 teams wish to play, preference will be give to the higher finishers.
The dates and venues for next season have been decided - details here.
25/2/03
Deadline for registrations
Following discussion at the Captains' Meeting in January the Management Board has noted the desire to reduce the 21-day registration period to 14 days. Normally we have had a two-month gap between weekends but this year our Spring weekends follow each other rather quickly. The April weekend follows the March weekend by only about a month and then the early-May weekend comes another month later. The Board has therefore decided to reduce the notice required to register players from 21 days to 14 days. This new rule will be effective for the April weekend and thereafter.
Full league rules - click here. This change applies to rules 3.3, 4.3 and 4.6.
Following a vote by the Division 4 captains, it has been decided that Division 4 will move to 7 hour sessions. The league rules have been amended to reflect this.
Who has played most games in the 4NCL? Click here for the details.
Next week - who has scored most wins in the league's history? With thanks to Richard Furness for the information.
26/10/02
Converting BCF grades
Following the British Chess Federation's announcement in August that it was to introduce a new formula for conversions between FIDE ratings below 216 and BCF grades, the 4NCL Board decided to implement this policy in the National Chess League. It has since transpired that the new formula was only envisaged for grades above 200. Indeed its impact on lower grades would be alarming, especially for a team with a mixture of Welsh ratings and BCF grades. After further consideration, together with input from a number of captains, the 4NCL Board has decided to revert to the original conversion formula, namely (BCF x 8) + 600 = FIDE equivalent, for all players. This is with immediate effect.
The recently published formula for converting BCF grades to FIDE equivalents is being reviewed, particularly as it applies to lower-rated players. Any 4NCL captains with views on this should contact Mark Adams.
A note will appear on the web site when a final decision is taken.
Good luck to Barbican and Bristol who are representing England in the European Club Cup in Greece from 22nd to 28th September. Both teams qualified for this prestigious competition as a result of their finishing in the top half of last season's 4NCL Division 1.
You can follow their progress on the official web site here.
A 4NCL Management Board announcement concerning Beeson Gregory's participation in the 2002/03 season. Implications also for Poisoned Pawns and Guildford-ADC. Click here for details.
For details of revised venues and dates for next season - together with arrangements for Division 4 - click here.
6/6/02
Qualifying Competition
The 4NCL Qualification Weekend took place on the Bank Holiday weekend, June 1st to 3rd.
The event was won by North West Eagles 2, with Numerica 3Cs 2 in second place and Poisoned Pawns 2 narrowly pipping Guildford-ADC 3 for third spot. The top 3 teams qualify for Division 3 next season.
With thanks to Arthur Brameld and Malcolm Armstrong.
20/5/02
European Club Championship
This prestigious event will take place from 22th to 28th September in Kallithea, Greece. Places are available for teams finishing high up in the 4NCL Division 1. Click here for all the details.
19/5/02
Chess Today
Read Alexander Baburin's coverage of the 4NCL in Chess Today magazine - click here to download it.
You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view Chess Today. If you do not have this software, it is available for free at www.adobe.com
Rules for the 3rd division qualification weekend on June 1st, 2nd and 3rd have been published. Click here for details and information on how to enter.
There is also a brief comment on the provision for a 4th Division (to be played at the West Bromwich Moat House) if a sufficient number of teams show an interest.
A slight modification to the eligibility criteria for 2nd and 3rd teams has been included after consultation with the Team Captains at the last 4NCL weekend.
2/4/02
Numerica 3Cs
Levy Gee 3Cs have changed their name to Numerica 3Cs.
2/4/02
Games from rounds 7 & 8 in PGN format
Division 1, Round 7 includes corrections to Ansell vs. Short and Emms vs. Cobb games
With thanks to Malcolm Armstrong, Andy Borg and Arthur Brameld.
20/12/01
Playoff weekend
We plan to hold an additional 4NCL event on 1-3 June 2002, the Jubilee Bank Holiday weekend. The weekend will feature a qualifying event for the 2002/03 season and will be open to the three lowest placed teams in Division 3 this season, together with any new teams who want to enter the league next season. The three most successful teams in the event will be eligible to play in Division 3 in 2002/03.
We are interested in assessing the likely support for this event. Prospective new teams are invited to contact Mike Truran or Paul Littlewood for further details.
The League Rules regarding defaults have been amended. Teams will be penalised one match point for every five defaults. For full details, click here and see rule 9.3.
Tony's family - particularly his Aunt Dev and cousin Pam - would like to thank all chess enthusiasts who either attended the funeral or sent messages of condolence since his tragic death. They are delighted that he made so many good friends all over the world.
The very sad news of the death of Tony Miles was announced yesterday.
Photo - John Henderson
Tony was Britain's first grandmaster and one of the world's top players for many years. He also was a great supporter of the 4NCL and was the mainstay of the successful Slough team that won the title three times.
Further details, including a message from 4NCL Chairman, Paul Littlewood - click here.
We regret to announce that Robin Pearce of King's Head died recently. Robin was a frequent competitor in the 4NCL. There is a tribute to him on the King's Head web site.