Chess WITH THE KNIGHT
THE Northumberland Rapidplay Championships, last held in December 2019, are back on the calendar – and hopes are high for a good turnout. The event will be held on Saturday, February 5 at Forest Hall Social Club on Great Lime Road, and players will be looking to get back over the board after the Christmas and New Year break.
The championships are traditionally organised once a year by the Northumberland Chess Association, which organises chess clubs and tournaments in Tyne & Wear and Northumberland.
They’re a great opportunity to play an entire tournament in just a few hours, and therefore attract many players for whom playing a whole weekend is impractical, due to family and other commitments. There’s an open section, and anyone either resident in Tyne and Wear or Northumberland, or who is a member of a chess club affiliated to the Northumberland Chess Association can take part and compete for the champion’s title.
Within the open tournament, the major champion will be decided by players under a certain rating, while the minor will this year be a separate championship – a tournament aimed particularly at players with either a modest rating, or who haven’t yet got a rating.
The third event is a junior championship, for players aged under 16 on the January 1 this year. This event gives players the chance to play two games against each opponent – one with the black pieces and one with the white pieces. The winners of each tournament will be the ones with the most points after six rounds.
No one is knocked out after a losing a game, you just play people on the same number of points as yourself.
The newcomers will include many people who have taken up chess in the last couple of years, and – while quite experienced in online play – possibly haven’t yet played a tournament over the board.
Local clubs are reporting talented players emerging from the pandemic lockdown with seriously good skills, but who just don’t have the rating to match them yet.
Gosforth, Forest Hall and South Shields, for example, all have new (unrated) members who are this year taking part in the slow-play over-the-board County Championships. The new players’ abilities at Rapidplay and Blitz may be even better, leading to some shock results.
To enter the Rapidplay Championships, go to https://northumberlandchess.com or contact the organiser, Tim Wall, via: timpeterwall@gmail.com.
This week’s puzzles are from the World Rapidplay Championship at the end of December.
The winner, who beat Magnus Carlsen and a host of other stars, was a teenager from Uzbekistan – 17-year-old Nodirbek Abdusattorov. In each puzzle, the next move forced resignation.