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Presidents Awards for Services to Chess
Nominations are invited for the ECF Presidents Awards. The awards are made annually for services to the game of chess. Previous winners include B H Wood, The BBC, the late IM Bob Wade and a host of players and organisers. The recipient of the award will receive a plaque.
Nominations, with a short citation, should be sent (by 20 April 2012) to:
John Wickham, 55 Shakespeare Way, Taverham, Norwich, NR8 6SL or email j.r.wickham@btinternet.com (j NULL.r NULL.wickham null@null btinternet NULL.com)
Winners of the award will be announced on the ECF website and at the ECF AGM in October
The new half-year grading lists (both Standard and Rapid) are expected in the last week of January at http://ecfgrading.org.uk/ (http://ecfgrading NULL.org NULL.uk/)
This entry is part 12 of 12 in the series Gibraltar 2012
Nigel Short analyzes his win over Mamedyarov – run time: 20 mins – http://blip.tv/gibchess/round-3-nigel-short-5913372 (http://blip NULL.tv/gibchess/round-3-nigel-short-5913372)
This entry is part 11 of 12 in the series Gibraltar 2012
Participation of female players in this congress is very important to the whole ethos of this congress. Our webmaster, Steve Connor, reminded me I intended to comment on the passing of Elaine Pritchard, who died very recently and whose career spanned a major period in women’s chess. In a way, it is fortuitous that the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival can be regarded as a memorial to her. She was a child prodigy in the late 1930s (which must have been very unusual for a girl in that period). She remembered sitting on Vera Menchik’s knee. Vera was the first-ever Women’s World Champion and won the World Girls title the same year. Elaine won the World Girls in 1936 at the age of 10 and again in 1937. She was British Ladies Champion in 1939, 1946, 1955 and 1965. Her last FIDE Rating was 2150. In her period, women mainly played separately from men. For more, see http://www.englishchess.org.uk/?p=16227
This entry is part 10 of 12 in the series Gibraltar 2012
The Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival is a success on many levels. The social side to the tournament plays a major part and players meet and analyse games in the comfort of the hotel lobby, in the reception area, or wherever they can place a chess board after the competition is over for the day. Every evening there is a social event and on Wednesday night GM Howell showed his first and second round wins over Gislason and Javakhishvili.
If you missed it Macauley Peterson was there to record the event. Here is the link - http://blip.tv/gibchess/david-howell-masterclass-5911211 (http://blip NULL.tv/gibchess/david-howell-masterclass-5911211) (run time: 56:20)
The life-blood of publicity for chess tournaments is the games of the players. The better the games, the more they will be circulated. Since there were so many clashes at the top, there were a very large number of entertaining games considering it is only the second round. Some of the games will be anthologised and played over for many years to come in many different countries.
Monday evening there was the usual very pleasant ceremony to start the congress fully. The Minister for Sports, Leisure, Culture and Heritage Steven Linares was introduced by Stuart Conquest and then made a short speech. Miss Gibraltar, Michelle Pedersen, then did the Drawing of Lots for the first round in the Masters. This is a somewhat more elaborate affair than in most other countries. There then followed a buffet laid on by the Caleta Hotel with their customary hospitality. The highlight of the subsequent evening in the bar was Maria Jose Rescaglio Yarur, who plays in the Amateur, singing, accompanying herself on a stringed instrument.
The guidance is essentially to treat the January grading list as though it doesn’t exist …
Suppose you have an ungraded player in July who gets a grade in January. He will still be regarded as ungraded for the purposes of the competition, and as such he must be cleared to play in all sections bar the Open, as per the rules.
256 chess players from more than 60 countries have made their opening moves this afternoon in the Masters section of the 2012 Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival. In both cases the tournament has set new records. There are 56 Grandmasters and 36 International Masters. The top four women in the world are playing in the tournament: Judit Polgar, Hou Yifan, Humpy Koneru and Anna Muzychuk.
At the opening reception on Monday night Gibraltar Culture and Sports Minister Steven Linares welcomed all the players and thanked them for coming to the Rock to play in the tournament. Mr Linares wished all well in their game and hoped all would enjoy the festival.
Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival 24 Jan – 2 Feb 2012
[web 1 (http://www NULL.gibraltarchesscongress NULL.com) | 2 (http://chess-results NULL.com/tnr63931 NULL.aspx?art=2&rd=1&lan=1) | 3 (http://www NULL.gibraltarchesscongress NULL.com/live_games_masters NULL.htm) | 4 (http://www NULL.livestream NULL.com/gibchess2012)]
Round 1 starts at 14:00 this afternoon. Jovanka Houska faces Peter Svidler with black on board 1. Other pairings include Adams-Zhukova, Short-Melia, Sutovsky-Hanley, Sasikiran-Quillan, Iturrizaga-Ansell whilst Alex Lopez of Cork plays Judit Polgar.
Click the image above to visit the temporary page for the British Chess Championships 2012. The dedicated site will be up soon
Upcoming events
Go to the calendar 27-29 Jan Mulcahy Cup 2012, Cork, Ireland MAP Contact: Cork Chess Club Email (corkchess null@null gmail NULL.com) 28 Jan Jorvik One-Day Rapidplay, Wheatlands Lodge Hotel, 75-85 Scarcroft Road, York YO24 1DB Contact: Peter Cloudsdale Tel: 01904 767177 Email (cloudsdale_c null@null hotmail NULL.co NULL.uk) 28 Jan London FIDE Rapid Play, Willesden Contact: Sainbayar Tserendorj Email (londonrapidplay null@null yahoo NULL.co NULL.uk) 28 Jan London Junior FIDE Rapid Play, Willesden Contact: Sainbayar Tserendorj Email (londonrapidplay null@null yahoo NULL.co NULL.uk) 28-29 Jan 16th Dudley Congress, Dudley, West Midlands Contact: Norman Went Email (spectrumchess null@null hotmail NULL.com) 29 Jan 5th Millfield Open, Street, Somerset Contact: Matthew Turner Email (mjt null@null millfieldschool NULL.com) 29 Jan CCF Junior Rapid Play – English Chess Challenge Qualifier, Coulsdon Contact: Scott Freeman Email (chess null@null ccfworld NULL.com)
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