If any of you guys are going to Oban chess i found a good B+B near to venue, much cheaper than hotel and they have some rooms left,

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.thornloeoban.co.uk/">http://www.thornloeoban.co.uk/</a><!-- m -->

I would like to highlight the E2-E4 organised events and suggest that parents looking for a reasonable step up from the usual Scottish weekend congress should look at these events. They are generally held in excellent playing facilities and the ones that Jonny has played in have been 9 round all-play-alls in which all the players are relatively close in grade. Although there are two games a day so it does not give you time to prepare for opponents at the time, being an APA the draw is available in advance so that you can still do prep.

Travel Inn have a £19 room sale on. Be quick if you are interested these offers tend to disappear quickly. Consider Fri at Travel Inn and Sat at a Travelodge for best value. The Congress website will be updated with full details this evening but in the meantime visit:

http://www.premierinn.co.uk
http://www.travelodge.co.uk

And this evening - http://www.dundee-congress.co.uk/accommodation.htm
.

Play the Scottish Champion –
Simultaneous Display 30 Sept 2012



GM Jacob Aagaard, the current Scottish Chess Champion will be giving a talk on this recent success followed by a simultaneous display on
Sunday 30th September in Milngavie at Bearsden Chess Club.
From 2:30 -6:00 pm.

This is a great chance to find out if someone from your club can beat the Champion. Book prizes for those who do.

Entry fee for participants £6 Adult, £5 Junior
(Bearsden Club members or prospective members have a £1 (Adult) or £2 (Junior) discount)

Spectators welcome . Refreshments available. Tea/Coffee, soft drinks, biscuits

Reserve your place now by contacting Ian English

<!-- e --><a href="mailto:ianenglis@aol.com">ianenglis@aol.com</a><!-- e -->

0141 944 3093

who will give you payment details and confirm your place. Cheques payable to “Bearsden Chess Club”

This event is limited to around 40-45 participants but is likely to be very popular so we are trying to share this around by initially reserving 3 tickets for each of the clubs in the Glasgow League. This may change nearer the time.

See map below for directions to
Bearsden Chess Club at Cairns Church Hall, 11 Buchanan Street Milngavie G62 8AW

Hi Folks,

Good News I have managed to get the Glen for another year!!

The entry forms will be out in early September

GG

The Grangemouth hall is booked from 6pm on saturdays. Suits Donald Wilson as arbiter.
2013 Final will start 12.30 pm . I will alter rules to allow this.
Unless anyone knows a better venue , Grangemouth do for about £110.
Will give dates soon and revised rules.
No controversial changes this year, if a club wants a change for next year, please propose and I wil ask for vote

Please see below details of a slightly re-organised National Schools competition - an important change is that there is now a separate primary school event. Can someone push this out to all relevant PS organisers?

I am pleased to highlight this link: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.nationalschoolschess.org.uk">http://www.nationalschoolschess.org.uk</a><!-- m --> for the ECF National Schools Championships 2012/13.

Many thanks to Yateley Manor for steadfast sponsorship since 2008. Welcome to new sponsors, Winchester College, St. Catherine's Bramley and Heathside Prep, who generously agreed to sponsor for one year, allowing others an opportunity in 2013/14. Congratulations to Manchester Grammar School, who reign as Champions in the final year of the traditional format.

The new format is intended to widen participation.
- Free entry aims to attract all schools, especially state schools.
- U11 section was added to encourage primary schools with a level competition.
- U11 Girls and U19 Girls sections were added for self-evident reasons, inviting both girls schools and co-ed schools.
- The traditional age handicap is retained in only the U19 section. Preparatory schools have a more welcoming competition in the absence of a separate U14 section, which we were not prepared to organise for 2012/13. It was thought that establishing a championship for primary schools would lessen the pressure on secondary schools in the U19 section thus encouraging more participation. A complete revolution on a long tradition did not seem prudent before consulting widely.

Now that change is in the air, more conversations about format are bound to occur, with more evolution probable for the 2013/14 season. For this first year, we anticipate greater participation, heightened interest across the country and a more credible series of national school titles.

Your help to encourage schools to register is much appreciated. http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conten...CHOOLS.pdf

We've got the seniors, we've had the juniors and are about to have more ... tomorrow is also when our teams kick off in the Olympiad proper, in Istanbul. I see to recall that we did rather well when the event was held there in 2000, so here's hoping the venue proves lucky.

Games start tomorrow afternoon at 3pm Turkish time (which is 1pm over here), and will all be live. As far as I can see neither a seeding list nor a first round draw have yet been published, but hopefully that will change soon.

Good luck, folks!

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://wyco2012.tsf.org.tr/en/component/turnuva/?task=fileview&kid=76">http://wyco2012.tsf.org.tr/en/component ... iew&kid=76</a><!-- m -->

The organisers have just updated the teams taking part. We are seeded 36th of 39 teams. Here was me thinking it was going to be tough! Our team is Murad Abdulla, Daniel Deary, Andrew McCusker, Ian McDonald and Zak Roy. Four players take part each day and we intend to give everyone as equal a number of games as possible. Been told it was 35 degrees at 9.30 this morning so hats and sun tan lotion aplenty look to be the order of the day. We are all really looking forward to the event immensely in a very interesting city,

Robin.

Hi,
A question regarding all play alls. Based on experience with FIDE rated E2E4 events one of their attractions for unrated players is that they are all guaranteed to get a grading. My understanding is somewhere between vague and nil but I believe that the FIDE grading rules are different for APA compared to your usual swiss. Can you confirm and clarify?

One difference seems to be that ungraded players are assigned a start grade so that unlike in a swiss results against ungraded players do count for grading purposes. This does seem fair in most instances but am not sure why doing this is more valid in an APA than in a swiss?

What are the CS grading rules for APA - are they the same?