2020 Chess Championships 2017/18!

[2020Chess]

It was a good event last year, with a good mix of playing levels. There were some super strong teams. There was one team with a 2300 FM on their bottom board, and other similarly strong teams. From memory I recall there were individual prizes for each board and grading prizes maybe I think. The venue/equipment were all very high standard.

The only downside was that it was not graded, a few non-uni team people who came along said this. Why is the grading subject to entries this time around? It really should be graded and guaranteed as such, people like to play for grading points (even in allegro), and it creates a historical record of all the games. If it is not graded again, it will possibly put off entries (would be a shame), and it would detract from the event. It is probably already on the back foot with the late start.

If I continue to be picky  a Sunday would have been better than a Saturday, as there is more available parking, and cheaper too.

To explain the reasoning, last time we had 40 people but 32 of them were students who don't mind whether its graded or not and will turn up regardless. You're right that the 8 club players from Wandering Dragons including yourself prefer it to be graded, however if we had done that last year it would have incurred a cost of £60 on us which would have brought about a loss (so we thought)

If this year we get just two extra clubs in as a result of grading that's an 'extra' £80 in entry fees, take off the £60 then leaves £20 minus the extra 8 players grading fee is 8 x £1.5 = £12 then we break even.

For all intends and purposes it can be considered that this event will be guaranteed to be graded as we're confident we can get at least four club sides entering this time around (and will publicly announce as soon as we do), if not refunds will be offered well in advance of the tournament taking place. As for it being a Saturday, students much prefer that day due to transport links and the fact that they typically (myself included!) leave their work for the next week to do on a Sunday to prepare for classes on Monday