1st Kingston Invitational

[SMoss]

The inaugural Kingston Invitational, a Fide-rated 10-player all-play-all tournament, takes place at Kingston University from 20 to 24 July. This is the field:

IM Peter Large [Fide 2299, ECF 2353]
Steven Jones [Fide 2251, ECF 2339]
CM David Henry Maycock Bates [Fide 2240, ECF 2295]
FM Akshaya Kalaiyalahan [Fide 2158, ECF 2212]
NM Peter Lalić [Fide 2151, ECF 2269]
Michael Healey [Fide 2147, ECF 2281]
Timothy Seymour [Fide 2076, ECF 2145]
WCM Zoe Varney [Fide 2045, ECF 2094]
Peter Finn [Fide 2038, ECF 2176]
William Taylor [Fide 1959, ECF 2095]

The tournament controller is Adam Raoof, working alongside arbiters Mark Hogarth and Angus James. There are nine games, spread over five days: two games a day on the first four days, with the final game on Sunday. The time control is 90 minutes with a 30-second increment. The prize fund is £250 to the winner, £100 for second, £50 for third. There will be a £50 best game prize. These are the pairings: https://chess-results.com/tnr653371.asp ... ES&flag=30 The Kingston Chess Club website https://kingstonchess.com/ will run daily reports on the progress of the tournament and post annotated games in August. The club also hopes to produce a tournament booklet. A second, expanded invitational is planned for July 2023.

[David Sedgwick]

Stephen, I hope that all is going well.

Thank you for inviting me to help with this event. I am sorry that the clash with the Grand Chess Tour SuperUnited Croatia Rapid & Blitz meant that I was unable to accept your invitation. Unfortunately I won't be able to visit either.

Still. maybe next year.

[Nick Grey]

See you all in 12 hours.

[SMoss]

Thanks David,

Your advice was hugely helpful.

The tournament is going well (touch wood). Six rounds gone; three to go.
Current standings here: http://chess-results.com/tnr653371.aspx ... ES&flag=30
Daily reports here: https://kingstonchess.com/tournaments/
We intend to do an extended version of the tournament in July 2023, and are very interested in the possibility of running norm tournaments.

[Roger de Coverly]

Current standings here

One curio is that Peter Lalic is shown as NM which presumably means "National Master". Is this a new title the ECF have introduced without any publicity, or is he an NM of some other Federation?

[LawrenceCooper]

Current standings here

One curio is that Peter Lalic is shown as NM which presumably means "National Master". Is this a new title the ECF have introduced without any publicity, or is he an NM of some other Federation?

An internet search brings up: "The English Chess Federation awards the title of National Master to players who achieve an ECF rating of 200 or more (equivalent to a FIDE rating of approximately 2250). It also awards a number of lesser titles."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_title#cite_note-12
https://www.englishchess.org.uk/master-points-system/ (From 2013)

[Nick Grey]

Peter Lalic is also a KM - Kingston Master.

[Brendan O'Gorman]

Pix from round 5 https://brendanogorman.smugmug.com/Ches ... ional-2022