(Chess) Life Returning To Normal

[Alan Walton]

The Polish Women's Chess Championship Mokate 2020 is currently ongoing in Ostrów Wielkopolski. Did I miss something? Are we back to normal now?

Maybe with the distance between players, good hygiene and strict rules around spectators then this should be fine; all-play-all have minimal interaction so risk is small I suspect

[Adam Raoof]

The Polish Women's Chess Championship Mokate 2020 is currently ongoing in Ostrów Wielkopolski. Did I miss something? Are we back to normal now?

Maybe with the distance between players, good hygiene and strict rules around spectators then this should be fine; all-play-all have minimal interaction so risk is small I suspect

I like the exhibition of analogue clocks!

[Kevin Thurlow]

"I like the exhibition of analogue clocks!"

Me too - I think one of my former clubs still has a variety of those!

[NickFaulks]

Did I miss something? Are we back to normal now?

Depends who you mean by "we". Continental Europe seems to be heading there.

[Tim Spanton]

Summer Prague is being run as tournaments used to be run. The number of players wearing masks is probably in single figures (out of 280 who turned up). Some idea of spacing can be seen from pix here: https://beauchess.blogspot.com/2020/08/ ... -hall.html

[Mick Norris]

Interesting set of clocks on the table

[Chris Rice]

The Polish Women's Chess Championship Mokate 2020 is currently ongoing in Ostrów Wielkopolski. Did I miss something? Are we back to normal now?

Maybe with the distance between players, good hygiene and strict rules around spectators then this should be fine; all-play-all have minimal interaction so risk is small I suspect

Hmmmm....seems strange spectators are going to all the bother of wearing masks while the players are shaking hands and don't seem to be bothering with social distancing.

[Alan Walton]

Perhaps the players/arbiters are being constantly tested, whereas spectators aren’t and they look a good distance away as well

I will always look at the positives rather than concluding the negative from pictures because we just don’t know

[Roger de Coverly]

Hmmmm....seems strange spectators are going to all the bother of wearing masks while the players are shaking hands and don't seem to be bothering with social distancing.

What we don't know are what are the current Polish laws and guidance about indoor social gatherings.

[John Upham]

What we don't know are what are the current Polish laws and guidance about indoor social gatherings.

See https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advic ... oronavirus

[Tim Spanton]

Here is pic from late on in round two of the Summer Prague Open (apologies - somehow I have attached the same pic twice, and do not know how to remove one copy!)
[img][attachment=1]

[Tim Spanton]

Handshakes are back to normal at Prague - one on meeting, one on pressing the clock to start the game, and one at the end of the game

[Wadih Khoury]

As I discussed with Tim, I personally find the Prague open to be very disappointing for its covid measures.
It genuinely is a normal tournament with a few bottles of hand sanitizer.
No one way systems, no table distanciation, no respect for personal bubbles.

Compared to Biel, I feel significantly less safe. I appreciate that there is a major subjective part to it as Prague could very well be safe, or Biel could very well have been unsafe. But it felt to me that Biel had a model that had the right balance of complying to the law, keeping people safe, while allowing life to go on.

[Matt Bridgeman]

For Prague the number of entries overall looks quite similar to January when we were there, but with the A group proving more popular this time around. The board spacing is definitely better this time though, as in January they had everyone in the same room, with the extra area under the archway partitioned off. The 'Czech Tour' is a business that's clearly keen to carry on, but I wonder how they'd react if chess players started to get ill?

[Chris Rice]

The Covid numbers start a lot lower for the Czech Republic than many of its European neighbours but they have been rising in the past few days according to this article. Enough for Norway to slap a 10-day quarantine for anyone arriving from there.