Return of Live Chess Tournaments

sodacat11

It was great to get back to playing live chess again in the recent Irish Championship, it has revived my enthusiasm for chess so much so that I made a last minute decision to go to Portugal and play in the Guimares Open http://chess-results.com/tnr549364.aspx I'm not a fan of huge opens particularly when there is more than 100 juniors playing but I just want to play chess. This kind of tournament is a rating minefield but I always think that if a player can't maintain his rating against all types of opposition then he/she doesn't deserve the rating in the first place. There are quite a few players on the ICU list who nurse their ratings by only playing in select events but each to their own I suppose even if I don't believe in such tactics.

The Northumbria Masters is also on and I expect that quite a few Irish players will be competing there too. City of Dublin comes next and then the European Seniors in Sardinia, Oh it is so good go be back playing live chess again!!

Incidentally. I was surprised and amused to discover that in Portugese the word cafolla means "disheveled"😊

MyPeopleDrankTheSoup

I came to boards.ie to ask the exact same question.

Anyone know if Cork Congree, Limerick open or Kilkenny are going ahead this year OTB?

sodacat11

Incidentally. I was surprised and amused to discover that in Portugese the word cafolla means "disheveled"😊 Upon arrival in Portugal I discovered that Google Translate is a load of rubbish and Cafolla means no such thing.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117795677#Comment_117795677

Kilkenny has definitely been cancelled

RooksPawn

According to Google Translate, the word cafolla does indeed mean disheveled in Portuguese.

It also means:

caffeine (Dutch)

coffee (Romanian, Afrikaans and Esperanto)

BUT

not coffee (Tamil)

Try it for yourself!

sodacat11

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117798300#Comment_117798300

I asked some educated Portugese people whom I presume know how to speak Portugese and they said that Goole translate is a load of bull. I know myself from past experiences using Italian and Czech that it is very inaccurate and will just make up any old thing when it suits .

sodacat11

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117798300#Comment_117798300

Try putting the English word disheveled in first and the Portugese translation is desgrenhado

sodacat11

Two irish entries for http://www.chessmail.com/assets/pdfs/ESSC2021_Italy.pdf the European Seniors Championship so far Peter Cafolla and Kevin James. Anybody else interested?

sodacat11

https://www.fide.com/calendar/51787 There's a European small nations team championship in Malta in November. Anyone interested in playing?

Retd.LoyolaCpt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117820681#Comment_117820681

i don't believe we're eligible for that.

RooksPawn

Ireland is not eligible; it's for tiny countries like Luxembourg, Faeroes etc. How exactly it's defined by FIDE I'm not sure.

BTW Tarun Kanyamarala beat an Italian GM with Black in an epic game today and now has 3/4 in the European Championships at Reykjavik. Trisha has 2/4.

sodacat11

I just played in an open in Portugal with over 300 participants. We wore masks and there was social distancing and temperature tests but no screens dividing boards. If there is a positive announcement by our government surely we could have a return to league chess and maybe tournaments like Bunratty , Cork and Galway could go ahead even if it had to be with reduced numbers and compulsory double jabs.

RooksPawn

Yes, OTB chess is creeping back. The European Senior Team Championships began today (in Prague), the German Senior Teams yesterday. The English Chess Federation just announced that the British Championship OTB will happen in October (including Seniors).

I think the dividing screens used in the recent Irish tournaments are probably not required in future so I'm interested to hear they didn't have them in Portugal.

The photos from Prague are maybe a bit worrying, though: no masks and no distancing, looks like a 2019 tournament:

https://www.estcc2021.net/gallery/photogallery/round-1/1-200-19/

sodacat11

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117825432#Comment_117825432

Bit of a joke that all the officials in Prague are wearing masks when no one else in the room is. The tournament that I attended did it well, temperature tests before each game, social distancing, mask wearing, sanitizers at each board , one way entry and exit routes from the venue and players had to produce a vaccination cert, test results or proof of Covid recovery before the first round. There was over 310 competitors so three big rooms were used. I think with this kind of template used we can safely return to club chess and live tournaments with no worries.

sodacat11

Great to have so many tournaments reappearing on the chess calendar, I've played 31 rated games in the last two months as I try to satisfy my craving for OTB chess and make up for the lost time during the pandemic. I am hoping to play in the Ennis Open and then in what must be one of the strongest opens in the world https://www.sunwaychessfestival.com/en/list/2021_0 In 2019 over 340 players attended including over 50 grandmasters and 100 other titled players. I don't expect it to be quite as strong this time but it is still an amazing looking tournament. I am hoping that the ICU will organise something around New Year apart from the GM and IM all play all groups, I am pretty confident that they will.