English Chess Forum

The 2nd Bournemouth Grand Chess Congress is being held in the last weekend in April at the Carrington House Hotel.

Excellent B&B rates including single rooms from £32 per person per night are available if booked by 31st March 2013.

Our inaugural congress last year not only attracted some 150 entrants, but was awarded ECF Congress of the Year 2012.
This year we're hoping to make it even bigger and better, with more prize money on offer and more playing space available.

Two British Championship qualification places are on offer to the two highest placed eligible Open competitors not otherwise qualified. For the first of these the entry fee to the British is waived, making this a particularly valuable prize!

Full details can be found here: http://www.bournemouthchesscongress.org ... /index.php
including online entry form, printable entry form, hotel description and list of entrants so far.

The congress has again already attracted a healthy number of participants, but note that March 31st is the final day before late fees will be applied to any further entrants. With a limited number of hotel rooms remaining, if you are thinking of entering then there is no better time to do so than right now!

2nd Bournemouth Grand Chess Congress online registration

Frequent updates including near real-time coverage of the top 3 boards can be found on the Bournemouth Congress website

Apologies for mentioning the actual playing of chess, but our favourite forumite Roger de Coverly has sensationally just beaten IM Ameet Ghasi with Black at the Bournemouth Grand Congress and with 3.5/4 going into the final round is in the hunt for the £1000 first prize!

Paul Cooksey wrote:Oh dear. As if it wasn't hard enough having to follow both the Zug GP and Alekhine Memorial at the same time, now I'm going to have to follow Roger too...

do you think it possible that Roger might find a brief moment to post something on the forum about his experiences and thoughts ?

seriously though....a fine win !

Phil Taylor-Bowd wrote:Apologies for mentioning the actual playing of chess, but our favourite forumite Roger de Coverly has sensationally just beaten IM Ameet Ghasi with Black at the Bournemouth Grand Congress and with 3.5/4 going into the final round is in the hunt for the £1000 first prize!

Next time I'll check the forum before asking anyone on facebook how they got on

Phil Taylor-Bowd wrote:Apologies for mentioning the actual playing of chess, but our favourite forumite Roger de Coverly has sensationally just beaten IM Ameet Ghasi with Black at the Bournemouth Grand Congress and with 3.5/4 going into the final round is in the hunt for the £1000 first prize!

No doubt Ameet lost because of the ECF membership scheme.

Sean Hewitt wrote:

Phil Taylor-Bowd wrote:Apologies for mentioning the actual playing of chess, but our favourite forumite Roger de Coverly has sensationally just beaten IM Ameet Ghasi with Black at the Bournemouth Grand Congress and with 3.5/4 going into the final round is in the hunt for the £1000 first prize!

No doubt Ameet lost because of the ECF membership scheme.

Seriously, best of luck to Roger in the final round. I'm going to check who he is playing (if the draw has been done yet), and then go and check out the two super-tournaments (Zug and Alekhine Memorial). We are really spoilt for choice with top-level chess at the moment.

I have already finished. With the same pairing as the last round as Exeter, but with White, we declined to fight. Having two British places on offer influenced the decision. On the strengh of the draw on board 2, Nick Pert's opponent settled for equal second as well.

The opening of the Ghasi game was derived from Kramnik Fressinet from the alekhine memorial last week. Much later the game was about level when he overlooked a Rook sacrifice in pursuit of mate.

Roger de Coverly wrote:I have already finished. With the same pairing as the last round as Exeter, but with White, we declined to fight. Having two British places on offer influenced the decision. On the strengh of the draw on board 2, Nick Pert's opponent settled for equal second as well.

Goodness. The organisers aren't going to invite any of you back, are they?

Seriously, congratulations on the R4 win. I presume other games still going will affect prizes and places in the British Championship? Let us know when that is decided and who ends up with what.

As part of the organising team I feel deflated to say the least! I still can't quite believe that somehow we ended up with 3 players on the top two boards who had no interest in fighting for a first prize of £1000. What's to be done? Should we be aiming to offer a first prize of 2K? 3?

Phil Taylor-Bowd wrote:As part of the organising team I feel deflated to say the least! I still can't quite believe that somehow we ended up with 3 players on the top two boards who had no interest in fighting for a first prize of £1000. What's to be done? Should we be aiming to offer a first prize of 2K? 3?

3 points for a win...1 for a draw?....

Phil Taylor-Bowd wrote:As part of the organising team I feel deflated to say the least! I still can't quite believe that somehow we ended up with 3 players on the top two boards who had no interest in fighting for a first prize of £1000. What's to be done? Should we be aiming to offer a first prize of 2K? 3?

Probably the opposite. I would have thought that large prizes would encourage players to halve out to ensure a decent prize, whereas this would be less likely to happen with smaller prizes, where an all or nothing approach is more likely to be followed.

Phil Taylor-Bowd wrote:As part of the organising team I feel deflated to say the least! I still can't quite believe that somehow we ended up with 3 players on the top two boards who had no interest in fighting for a first prize of £1000. What's to be done? Should we be aiming to offer a first prize of 2K? 3?

It appears that the players on board 2 presumed that Nick Pert, who was, I think, half a point ahead going into the final round, was a nailed-on cert to get all of that £1000. So they agreed a draw, and the draw on board 1 followed swiftly. Possibly there was a football match to watch as well? Anyway, you need to have large second and third prizes to ensure people compete for those once the main prize has been won. You could also put more of the money in a 'win bonus' pot, making going for a win worth the risk of losing. Roger also said: "Having two British places on offer influenced the decision." Remind me again how a congress ends up with two places to offer at the British Championships?

Ian Thompson wrote:

Phil Taylor-Bowd wrote:As part of the organising team I feel deflated to say the least! I still can't quite believe that somehow we ended up with 3 players on the top two boards who had no interest in fighting for a first prize of £1000. What's to be done? Should we be aiming to offer a first prize of 2K? 3?

Probably the opposite. I would have thought that large prizes would encourage players to halve out to ensure a decent prize, whereas this would be less likely to happen with smaller prizes, where an all or nothing approach is more likely to be followed.

Indeed. In my experience, if you pay the GMs conditions and have a smaller prize fund you'll get more GMs playing and they are more likely to play than halve out.