Sunday 29 September 2013

English League Chess

I finally got to see some chess on my holiday, with young Harry Press taking a board for the Leeds City Centre Chess Club. It was a second division match in the Yorkshire League, and Leeds were playing Sheffield E.
A number of things impressed me about the match. Firstly was the fact that the Sheffield team was an E team. As the matches are played over 8 boards, the means they would have at least 40 players willing to turn our for the club. That compares well with Australian teams events, which often struggle to get teams of 4 players to turn up. The other thing I noted was the match was played on a Saturday afternoon, which is often the peak time for other weekend activities. Nonetheless both teams turned up with a full complement.
The competition uses the slightly odd time control of 42 moves in 105 minutes, followed by 15 minutes to finish. I assume this is both historical, and to account to the fact that not all clubs use digital clocks (although Leeds were using them). In the end Leeds scored a 6.5-1.5 win, but they did out rate Sheffield on all boards. Harry was slotted in on board 5, and managed to help the team, picking up pawns, and then the point.


Frith,Shane - Press,Harry [A36]
Sheffield v Leeds, 28.09.2013



2 comments:

Brian Jones said...

I have been saying for many years that Saturday afternoon chess would be better than evening chess in Sydney as travel to away matches is easier at the weekend.
Sydney chess is still locked into old-fashioned Grade Matches which don't work in modern times!

Anonymous said...

I agree with Brian - but the truly modern solution is to have online team matches like what is happening in the current US Chess League.