The 2020 Frank Scott Shield is nearing the business end with four players sharing top spot after round 3, and for only the second time ever, there’s no 100% winning records left.
Next week’s blitz will be our first Monday blitz, and it’s here. It’s down for the slightly earlier start time of 7:30. There won’t be a blitz the week after as senior 4NCL and Frank Scott Shield are both on, so the next blitz will be on Wednesday 11th November.
With lockdown back (the club can’t meet until the country moves to Level 2, and even then it needs the school to be agreeable), we’re going to try look at a way to change things around a bit in the new year. Tornelo is proving a success for the Frank Scott Shield and we may be able to run the blitz grand prix there (as it would do proper tournament draws, which lichess can’t do) We could also look at running a senior club championships there also. The third season of the 4NCL is planned for January and as things stand, we’ll be taking names for that closer to Christmas. Online, there is a Hull Online Congress this weekend as well.
Suggestions and feedback on the above welcome of course!
A familiar face came back to haunt the Ds as they and Cs saw their winning run brought to an end this week, but the Bs and the Juniors march on while the As picked up a familiar scalp.
Well done to Lara, who finished seventh in the U14 Girls section of the recent European Online Championships. Though her seeding of 41st was based on an old FIDE rating of 1516, she did face five of the top ten seeds, including Jorden van Foreest’s 1960-rated sister, while she took a win off the second seed, a 2000-rated WCM from Germany. The final standings are here.
The 2020 Frank Scott Shield got underway on Wednesday as we try to keep things relatively normal in the club – and as is relatively normal, we had a couple of upsets despite the huge ratings gaps.
For those playing in the 2020 Frank Scott Shield which starts this Wednesday, there’s a few notes we would ask players to be familiar with before the tournament starts.
At the AGM last week, it was agreed to use Tornelo for this year’s Frank Scott Shield. This is the platform used by the ICU for some of its recent junior tournaments and apparently gives more of a tournamenty feel than stand-alone lichess games. The tournament has been created here and the lobby is open if people want to join up. It’s no harm joining now to see if there’s any errors rather than finding out at 6:55 on the day of the first round!
The first round is Wednesday 7th October at the earlier-than-usual time of 7pm. Time control is the usual 60 + 15. The current entry list is here. The tournament will run for five successive Wednesdays until the final round on Wednesday 4th November.
The weekly club blitz will move to Mondays at 8 for the duration of the Frank Scott Shield.
Finally, while it is the time of the year for the new season’s club fees, we have agreed to hold off on these until we see what the club can actually do this season. Obviously while Dublin remains under Level 3, the club can’t re-open.
The papers from the AGM (accounts, previous minutes, reports) are available to any club member on request.
William had a good online win this week against a 12-year-old Canadian FM who this summer had made headlines by beating a GM in 12 moves. Anthony Atanasov beat Fabien Libiszewski in spectacular fashion in June – you can watch it here. He has also beaten Nakamura and Giri online, but now has lost to William.
For the second week in a row, our five 4NCL Online teams picked up four wins, and our D team are now top of Division 6 on tie-break.
The action gets underway on Wednesday at 8
