I have just recently received the final Scottish Chess magazine which will have Peter Woods as editor. I would like to thank him for taking an already great magazine and making it even better. Good luck for the future Peter.

The Junior Saturday event will take place again this year at the Ayr Congress.

The event is open to all juniors graded under 1000.

Those wanting to play should simply turn up on the day. Play starts at 10.30pm, with registration at 10am. The entry fee is £2 per player.

I am on holiday just now. Free entry to the weekend congress of your choice to the first junior who can work out where I visited yesterday (it has a chess connection). Parents and clubmates are allowed to help!

The tough clue is....

hugh,harry and barry.

Congratulations to Elaine Bamber who beat Alistair Maxwell in the final. It was a short trip to get there though.

Keith

Just for today - useful if you were thinking of buying some software.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://shop.chessbase.com/en">http://shop.chessbase.com/en</a><!-- m -->

After 6 rounds Steve Hilton has a noteworthy 3/6

Steve's only 2 losses being against the 7th and 15th seeds both IM players. I think at least one of them is a former world champion .

Next opponent is an ungraded American whose games so far have resulted in 6 wins for the white pieces and 6 losses for the black pieces.

Steve will be ................. White

Hope the American's sequence continues

Congratulations to 13-year old Declan Shafi of Castlehill CC who beat Ian Brownlee of Lanark CC in the national final.

From what I have heard the game was entertaining and played in a competitive and sporting spirit. If I can get a copy I'll post it here.

The Nancy Elder tournament remains alive and kicking

Thanks go to Stirling Chess Club for hosting the game.

Keith

Bon Accord will be entering.
Are Dragons or another club taking the 2nd place ?

4.1. Every federation that intends to participate, with one or more clubs, must inform the
Organizing Committee before May 30, 2014 of its acceptance of the invitation, specifying
also the exact number of the clubs participating. A copy should be sent to Tournament
Director Dirk De Ridder, e-mail: <!-- e --><a href="mailto:ECU_DirkDeRidder@skynet.be">ECU_DirkDeRidder@skynet.be</a><!-- e -->

4.2. Afterwards, entry forms must be completed and returned to the Tournament office email <!-- e --><a href="mailto:eccc2014bilbao@gmail.com">eccc2014bilbao@gmail.com</a><!-- e --> no later than July 12, 2014, by fax or mail stamped by the Federation, also by official email. The date of 12 July 2014 is the registration deadline. In entry form basic team composition must be written.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.europeanchessclubcup2014.com/">http://www.europeanchessclubcup2014.com/</a><!-- m -->
European Club Cup 2014 Bilbao, Spain 12-Sep-2014 21-Sep-2014

From: "chess" <chess@rtu.lv>
Date: 7 May 2014 15:35
Subject: RTU open 2014
To: "fide@chessscotland.com" <fide@chessscotland.com>
Cc:


Chess Scotland,



We would like to invite members of your Olympic delegation to participate in the 4th international chess festival Riga Technical University Open that will be held in Riga (Latvia) from August 15th to 24th just after Tromso Chess Olympiad.



Last year the tournament became by far the strongest and biggest classical chess festival in the Baltic region. The biggest names of the festival were GMs Bartosz and Monika Socko, GM Igor Kovalenko, GM Jaan Ehlvest and GM Aleksej Aleksandrov. The main tournament gathered 173 players from 28 countries including 27 GMs and 85 titled players. More than 300 participants took part in the classical chess tournaments.



The program of the festival will feature five ELO tournaments and a blitz tournament. The prize fund is planned to be 25 000 EUR, 18 300 EUR of them for the main tournament with the 1st prize of 3 000 EUR. This year the venue of the festival is the international Exhibition Centre “Kipsala“ that will provide spacious and comfortable playing hall for all the tournaments. GM Alexei Shirov (2713, LAT), GM Kuzubov Yuriy (2639, UKR), GM Melkumyan Hrant (2633, ARM), GM Filippov Anton (2619, UZB), GM Daniel Fridman (2604, GER) and many others have already confirmed their participation.



In 2014 Riga is the Cultural Capital of Europe. Whole summer will be full of various exciting cultural events, including the week of the tournament. Thus Riga will be very interesting also from the touristic point of view.



Regulations of the tournament are attached to this mail.

For more information check our website <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://rtuopen.lv/en">http://rtuopen.lv/en</a><!-- m -->.



Best regards,

IO Egons Lavendelis

Tournament director

Training courses for coaches?

The English CSC
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://chessinschools.co.uk/training_courses.htm">http://chessinschools.co.uk/training_courses.htm</a><!-- m --> noticed this via twitter.

is there an equivalent here in Scotland at all, or has it been discussed at any point? (sorry if this is a many-posted question etc!)

Luke