Tag: OCA

2020-21 Season Goes Online

With the Coronavirus epidemic still being a problem and government rules changing every 10 minutes it has been decided that the Oxfordshire Chess League will move entirely to an online tournament for the coming season. Notes from the AGM can been seen below with the new tournament starting at the end of October.

More information will be published in due course.

*Notes from AGM*

For the 20/21 season, the OCA league will not compete as we normally do.

Instead, there shall be two separate Swiss tournaments played online. The platform will be lichess.org. The first tournament starts on the week commencing Monday 26th October. This tournament will consist of six rounds with a game played every week for six weeks. Game time will be 45 minutes plus 15 seconds per move.

All the teams will be pooled together, with the fixtures pulled out of a hat.

Cumnor will enter both of our teams into both tournaments. Liam will run the first team while Steve will run the second.

During the meeting we found that a number of clubs had difficulty being able to put out all of their teams to play online. Most notably Banbury, whom are only able to field one team to play online this season. Bicester said they cannot field a single team. Didcot said it could field one team and Wantage stressed they were struggling.

The second Swiss tournament will take place after Christmas, and will consist of eight rounds, with a game played each week over eight weeks. Depending on how the first tournament works, may influence how the second tournament works. For example two tiers, one for stronger teams and the other for weaker teams.
Nothing concrete was concluded, but the general consensus is to make it as simple as possible.

Your new Over the Board chess grades will not be affected by these tournaments. These online games qualify for an ECF online grade.

It was suggested that only players with ECF membership may take part. This is one of the things that Ian is going to clarify.

A few clubs stressed a preference for a team to consist of four players only for the 20/21 on-line tournaments. This was voted out by a significant majority of the clubs wishing to maintain six boards. This of course means more of us can get involved in this season’s online competitive chess.

The Swiss tournaments will be played weekly. Matches will be played on the evening of the clubs normal club night. Therefore, if Cumnor teams are drawn first, then we shall play the fixture on Thursday as usual.

I believe only Cumnor and some of Cowley’s teams play on Thursdays. No club plays on Fridays.

Cowley Summer Blitz (& OCA Prizegiving), 24 June 2019

The Cowley Summer Blitz is taking place on the 24th June, Cumnor will be receiving the Second Division Trophy so please attend if you can.

“Cowley Chess Club invites you to its 2019 Summer Blitz Tournament, which will be held on Monday 24 June at Cowley Chess Club (at Rose Hill Methodist Church in the Main Hall downstairs), with Round 1 beginning at 7.15 pm. All chessplayers are welcome. (The presentation of the OCA team and individual trophies for the 2018-19 season will also be held during the evening.)

There will be ten games in the Blitz (five rounds playing games with both colours, with a digital clock and a time allowance per player per game of 3 minutes plus a 2 seconds increment per move added from move 1). The tournament winner may take either a prize from the prizes table or a cash prize of 10% of the entry fees. There will lots of other prizes of books, etc., on the prizes table, including grading prizes, prizes for juniors in various age groups, for the best slow starter, etc. (see below for lists of prizes and prizewinners in recent blitzes). We rely on donations of prizes, mainly chess books but also other (non-alcoholic) prizes, and these will be gratefully received.

Round 1 is scheduled to start at 7:15pm. Players who have not notified their entries in advance are asked to register by 7pm at the venue on the night, to enable pairing cards to be written and the first round draw to be completed promptly.

The Prizegiving for the Blitz will be at approximately 9:45pm. (It will be possible for young juniors for whom a 9:45pm finish is too late to play in either two rounds [8:05pm finish approx.] or four rounds [8:55pm finish approx.] if this is arranged in advance.)

Entry fee: £3, to be paid when you arrive on the night. We will also be glad to receive additional donations for the Lester Millin Memorial Fund, which supports Cowley junior players.

To help us make a prompt start, please register your entry in advance if possible by sending an email to gerard@fianchetto.co.uk giving the information requested below or by filling in one of these forms, hard copies of which will be available at the Cowley club (or otherwise getting the requested information to Gerard O’Reilly):

Name:

Club:

Current Grade (Standard-play rather than Rapidplay if you have one):

Age on 1 September 2018 if under 18:

Finally, if the entrant is a junior who can play in only the first two (or the first four) rounds, please specify which:

NB. Advance registration by email will be accepted until 4pm on Monday 24 June.

Gerard O’Reilly (Cowley Chess Club)”

ECF President’s Award for Steve Rumsby,

Cumnor Chess Club would like to offer our congratulations to Steve Rumsby.

The following was taken from the ECF Newsletter that has just been published and the Oxfordshire Chess Association website:

ECF President’s Award for Steve Rumsby, Banbury

Congratulations to Steve Rumsby from Banbury Chess Club, who was presented with his ECF President’s Award for Services to Chess.

The Award recognises that for over 30 years Steve has been the Chairman of Banbury Chess Club. Steve has overseen the growth of the club from initially fielding two teams in one league to the latest season where the club fielded four teams in the Leamington League, three teams in the Oxford League and entered all the available league cup competitions. In recent years, Banbury entered a team in the 4NCL. Virtually every year, Steve has captained one of the club teams.

Steve’s wider contribution to chess is seen in his work for the Leamington and District Chess League. He is, and has been for a number of years, both the league’s webmaster and fixtures secretary. At the start of the 2016-2017 season Oxfordshire County were unable to find a volunteer to captain the Under 150 county Team. Steve at short notice volunteered and led the county team to 5 wins from 6 matches. They ended that season as Chiltern League Champions. Steve has continued in this county captaincy role. Steve is highly regarded by chess players in an area stretching from Birmingham down to Didcot.