Sutton Coldfield Online Chess Championship 2021

The Sutton Coldfield Online Chess Championship 2021 

As we now have a road map to freedom, and I'm sure a lot if not the majority of our membership will have had at least one jab by the time lockdown ends, I thought it would be wise to have an inter-club competition to get to know the new faces a little better and to get a look at how player strength has changed with no 'official' grading for over a year. Please see the attachment for a full set of rules regarding the club championship. It will run until the end of lockdown in June, although this is dependent on the government. 

The championship will be open to all club members of both chess.com and lichess, allowing you to choose which platform (or both) you would prefer to play on. I will post the rules on the club pages of those sites too. 

The championship will be a league/ladder format, meaning it is entirely up to individuals to decide how much or how little they wish to participate. It is also up to individuals to arrange their own matches, through email/phone if known or via the messaging functions available on both sites. It is also your responsibility report them back to me. I will then provide a weekly update on the progress of the championship. 

The time control for all matches will be 30 0. You can play anyone as much as you like, but you cannot play the same person for more than two games in a row, i.e. 1 with black, 1 with white. 

Scoring will be a little different to regular chess (see attachment) as I've tried to make the championship fair and equal to everyone, regardless of ability. If you are still unclear about the scoring system after reading the rules document do not worry, just focus on playing as many different members as possible and leave the rest to me, hopefully it will become clear as the championship progresses. 

The championship will begin tomorrow, April 29th, good luck to all! 

Neil Owen 

Sutton Coldfield Chess Club Online Co-ordinator. 

General Rules

• Games can be played on lichess or chess.com
• Entry is open to any member of the Sutton Clubs on lichess or chess.com.
• The competition will run from 29th March 2021 until 21st June 2021, but may be extended
• based on current Covid guidelines regarding over the board chess.
• Time control will be 30 0 (Thirty minutes each with no increment).
• It is up to members how much or how little they wish to participate.
• It is up to members discretion if they want to make the games rated or unrated on either chess server.
• Members are responsible for arranging their own fixtures and reporting the results to the Tournament Director (TD). The TD’s username on both websites is c0rnetto. Any disputes will be settled by the TD. The TD’s decision is final. If you wish to contact the TD about the championship via email (neil_owen@sky.com) please preface the title with “Sutton Online Championship” or your email may be missed.
• Please arrange fixtures and report results using both sites using the messaging function on those sites. Alternatively if other methods of communication are available (email, telephone etc) please feel free to use.
• For those that play across both sites, please let the TD know both of your usernames (if different).
• Members can play each other as much as they like, but no more than two consecutive games must be played against the same opponent (E.g. AABBCC, AABBAA are fine, AAAB is not). Any games falling foul of this rule will not be counted by the TD, regardless of the result.
  Strictly no computer assistance, this is a friendly internal club competition.

Scoring

• Members will be split into different categories by the TD based on playing strength (see table 1). Whilst any member is free to play any other member, the points available for each result will be dependent on the rating categories of each player. (see table 2).
• Categories will be determined by ECF grades. Where these are not applicable, or where a significant change in ability has occurred during the last issuing of OTB grades, the TD will use his judgement on playing strength.
• The TD reserves the right to change a players category based on performance. For example, if a member is beating the same opponent continuously to maximise their points, they may find that their category will increase, meaning they will get less points for subsequent victories against that and other opponents in the same category.
• Scores will be collated by the TD into a league table, which will be weekly updated by the TD. The member at the top of the league table at the end of the competition will be declared the Sutton Coldfield Online Chess Champion 2021.

Example: Three players take part. Tom, a beginner, Dick, graded 135 and Harry, graded 180. Harry plays Tom twice and wins twice, scoring a total of 2 points (-4 difference in categories). Harry then plays Dick, and wins one and draws one, scoring 4.5 points (-2 difference). Harry has a total of 6.5. Tom then plays Dick, and wins one and loses one. Tom scores 7.0 points (+2 difference in category). Dick having drawn against Harry gets 3.5 points, and won one against Tom gets another 3.0 points for a total of 6.5 points. Tom is then crowned champion, as he as accrued the most points (7.0).

Table 1 

Table 2 

A category 5 player beating another category 5 player will mean a difference of 0, so the winner will get 5.0 points. A category 5 player beating a category 1 player is a -4 difference and will score the category 5 player 1.0 point. However, if the category 1 player wins, that is a +4 difference so they will score 9.0 points.