The Grangemouth hall is booked from 6pm on saturdays. Suits Donald Wilson as arbiter.
2013 Final will start 12.30 pm . I will alter rules to allow this.
Unless anyone knows a better venue , Grangemouth do for about £110.
Will give dates soon and revised rules.
No controversial changes this year, if a club wants a change for next year, please propose and I wil ask for vote

Please see below details of a slightly re-organised National Schools competition - an important change is that there is now a separate primary school event. Can someone push this out to all relevant PS organisers?

I am pleased to highlight this link: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.nationalschoolschess.org.uk">http://www.nationalschoolschess.org.uk</a><!-- m --> for the ECF National Schools Championships 2012/13.

Many thanks to Yateley Manor for steadfast sponsorship since 2008. Welcome to new sponsors, Winchester College, St. Catherine's Bramley and Heathside Prep, who generously agreed to sponsor for one year, allowing others an opportunity in 2013/14. Congratulations to Manchester Grammar School, who reign as Champions in the final year of the traditional format.

The new format is intended to widen participation.
- Free entry aims to attract all schools, especially state schools.
- U11 section was added to encourage primary schools with a level competition.
- U11 Girls and U19 Girls sections were added for self-evident reasons, inviting both girls schools and co-ed schools.
- The traditional age handicap is retained in only the U19 section. Preparatory schools have a more welcoming competition in the absence of a separate U14 section, which we were not prepared to organise for 2012/13. It was thought that establishing a championship for primary schools would lessen the pressure on secondary schools in the U19 section thus encouraging more participation. A complete revolution on a long tradition did not seem prudent before consulting widely.

Now that change is in the air, more conversations about format are bound to occur, with more evolution probable for the 2013/14 season. For this first year, we anticipate greater participation, heightened interest across the country and a more credible series of national school titles.

Your help to encourage schools to register is much appreciated. http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conten...CHOOLS.pdf

We've got the seniors, we've had the juniors and are about to have more ... tomorrow is also when our teams kick off in the Olympiad proper, in Istanbul. I see to recall that we did rather well when the event was held there in 2000, so here's hoping the venue proves lucky.

Games start tomorrow afternoon at 3pm Turkish time (which is 1pm over here), and will all be live. As far as I can see neither a seeding list nor a first round draw have yet been published, but hopefully that will change soon.

Good luck, folks!

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://wyco2012.tsf.org.tr/en/component/turnuva/?task=fileview&kid=76">http://wyco2012.tsf.org.tr/en/component ... iew&kid=76</a><!-- m -->

The organisers have just updated the teams taking part. We are seeded 36th of 39 teams. Here was me thinking it was going to be tough! Our team is Murad Abdulla, Daniel Deary, Andrew McCusker, Ian McDonald and Zak Roy. Four players take part each day and we intend to give everyone as equal a number of games as possible. Been told it was 35 degrees at 9.30 this morning so hats and sun tan lotion aplenty look to be the order of the day. We are all really looking forward to the event immensely in a very interesting city,

Robin.

Hi,
A question regarding all play alls. Based on experience with FIDE rated E2E4 events one of their attractions for unrated players is that they are all guaranteed to get a grading. My understanding is somewhere between vague and nil but I believe that the FIDE grading rules are different for APA compared to your usual swiss. Can you confirm and clarify?

One difference seems to be that ungraded players are assigned a start grade so that unlike in a swiss results against ungraded players do count for grading purposes. This does seem fair in most instances but am not sure why doing this is more valid in an APA than in a swiss?

What are the CS grading rules for APA - are they the same?

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.escc2012.eu/">http://www.escc2012.eu/</a><!-- m -->

Event started. See live games daily at link above (click "results"). Two Scots entered - Phil Giulian, Ian Marks. Rd 4 today. Good luck!

And the score was.....?

A few years ago there was quite a lot of talk about a reduction in the amount of players playing chess and general decline in the popularity of chess.

It seemed generally speaking with the smaller clubs numbers were declining, with the exception of some clubs, such as Hamilton, which at the time seemed to be increasing in size. This is no doubt down to the excellent work of Michael Hanley and others at the Club.

At Bellshill, numbers over the last few years have remained pretty constant, 1 season a player might leave and generally speaking a new member will come along - numbers are generally level.

It would be interesting to see where Chess was at today, are we still in decline? Has there been a resurgence in Chess amongst other clubs? Or have things really levelled out?

Just spotted this on the ECForum

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4640">http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4640</a><!-- m -->

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/kasparov-arrested-outside-pussy-riot-trial-courthouse">http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/kaspa ... courthouse</a><!-- m -->

Is it just me or are some topics disappearing without a trace?

I’m sure I saw a topic about the Aftermath of Motion 4 or something like that. I know we have new forum rules but its beginning to get a bit like China on the Chess Scotland forum. Surely this topic won’t be deleted as well? We've gone from no moderation to hyper moderation overnight. :\

Can I also make the point that disagreeing with someone else’s opinion is not a personal attack. Certain posters on here don't realise that and I'm not sure the new forum rules are explicit enough on that.