Christmas Charity Rated Rapidplay Tournament

We will be holding our second annual ECF rated rapidplay at 6.45pm-10.00pm on Thursday 12th December at our usual venue at Morpeth RFC. £5 entry fee; six rounds of rapidplay chess; chess book prizes for the winner and best U1700 player. All entry money will be donated to the Braille Chess Association (except for cost of chess book prizes). You must have an ECF bronze membership (or higher) valid on the day of the tournament to play. Please send an email to morpethchessclub@gmail.com before 12th December to enter.

Last year, we had a total of 16 entries from Morpeth and Alnwick chess clubs and in a very close tournament, Roger Coathup was the overall winner and Andrew Hardy was the winner of the U1600 prize. This year, we should be able to cope with some more entries, so invites may go out to a select few 'Friends of Morpeth chess club' as well.

Details

The tournament will run from 6.45pm to 10.00pm on Thursday 12th December. There will be six rounds of rapidplay games with a time limit for each player of 8mins + 5secs a move. All games will be submitted for ECF rating, which requires players to be a valid member of the ECF (bronze or above) on the day of the tournament. To enter, please send an email with your name and chess club (if not a Morpeth member) to morpethchessclub@gmail.com before 12th December.

There will be two chess book prizes for (i) the overall winner and (ii) best performance by an U1700-rated / unrated player. The tournament will use the same Swiss Pairing system as last year, which, if you are not familiar, means that you are paired against opponents on a similar score in each round. So certainly in the later rounds, you should be playing opponents of a similar strength.

For Morpeth Chess Club members, this will be a Morpeth Rapidplay Grand Prix event: 10 points to the winner, 7 to second place, 5 for third, 3 for fourth, 2 for fifth and 1 for 6th.

Full rules of chess apply - if you've not played competitive games before, the main things are: touch move; no takebacks; and try to press the clock with the same hand that you moved your piece withNo need to write down your moves for this time control.

There will be a £5 entry fee (cash only on the night) and all money raised will be donated to the Braille Chess Association, with the exception of covering the costs of the two chess book prizes.

For the purpose of initial pairings and for eligibility for the U1700 prize, we will use the December 2024 official ECF rapidplay ratings (Either confirmed or provisional). If you do not have a rapidplay rating, then your ECF standard play rating (Either confirmed or provisional) will be used instead. If you do not have any ECF rating at all, please provide an estimate (eg chess dot com or lichess rating) - you should usually be eligible for the U1700 prize.