Roll up, roll up! Spring has sprung and that means we have an exciting new tournament format for you.
The Summer, Autumn and Winter Rapids will follow giving us a full year. There will then be a play-off to find a new champion and the club’s historic rapid-play trophy will be awarded at the end.
If you want to take part, please email updates@batterseachessclub.org.uk
The tournaments will run along the same lines as the event we held before Christmas. Let me remind you of the details:
Everything you need to know about the 4 Seasons Tournament
All full members and affiliates are welcome to take part. The condition is that they are or intend to be ECF members for that given year. The Spring and Summer Rapids will be put forward for the 2019 August grading list and Autumn and Winter Rapids for the January 2020 grading list.
Each one will be run as a Swiss tournament. There will be a total of five games played. The time control will be 10 minutes per side with a 10-second delay.
The time control is as low as it is because 10 minutes is the minimum time allowed for a Rapid game to be graded as such. The 10-second delay acts as a cushion for the players. When it’s your turn, you have 10 seconds each time before your clock will begin counting down. It’s not as luxurious as an increment. It’s certainly better than neither increment or delay.
The minimum time control is in place to enable the tournament to get through five rounds of chess. Five games is an important number because once you play five games you’re eligible for an ECF Rapid grade.
The idea is to get as many new members graded as possible. There are many benefits to this. To name just a couple, it’s another way for captains to judge their rating for match orders rather than simply going off an estimate. Granted it isn’t a Standard play grading, so as always it’s largely up to the captain anyway. Secondly, it gives everyone a chance to play competitive chess on their home turf.
So this Four Seasons Rapids will produce their own winners. The four winners will then be invited back for an evening for the final. Details still to be worked out for the final. If the same person wins a second Rapid event in the same cycle then the person finishing second will go through. If the second was also a previous winner it will go to the third, and so on.
