4NCL - The Four Nations League

Last updated - Thursday, November 20th

Recent updates

20/11

Junior 4NCL

Click here for a report on weekend 1.

A selection of games from the competition are available in PGN format or in game viewer.

With thanks to Claire Summerscale and Neville Belinfante.

18/11

Forthcoming weekend

The Barcelo Hinckley Island hotel has now filled the 4NCL allocation of 300 rooms for the forthcoming weekend (the remaining 62 rooms having been booked by casual visitors and a coach party). The hotel has therefore arranged that:

Players still wanting rooms at Hinckley Island can be added to the waiting list on request.
Players (whether on the waiting list or not) will also be able to book rooms at the Coventry Hilton hotel at the same room rates as those for Hinckley Island (£43 one person in single or double/twin room, £55 two people in double/twin room). The Coventry Hilton is, we understand, only about ten minutes from Hinckley Island by car.
Should rooms become available at Hinckley Island for players on the waiting list, the reservations team at Hinckley Island will allocate rooms on a first come first served basis and will if requested cancel the equivalent rooms at the Coventry Hilton hotel if they have been booked by players on the waiting list - BUT NB YOU WILL NEED TO SPECIFICALLY ASK THE RESERVATIONS TEAM AT HINCKLEY ISLAND TO DO THIS FOR YOU.

Contact details are as follows:

Coventry Hilton room bookings: Efia Reidburgundy 02476 841018

Barceló Hinckley Island waiting list: Melanie Hunt 01455 898561.

17/11

Teams and Players wanted

A list of players looking for teams, and vice versa ...

16/11

Divisions 3, Weekend 1

Division 3, Round 1 results
Division 3, Round 2 results
Includes correction to Fully Ponty vs. Wales Old Boys match.
Division 3 score table

Division 3, Round 1 games in PGN or in game viewer
Division 3, Round 2 games in PGN or in game viewer

Draw for Round 3 available here.

With thanks to Neville Belinfante, David Sully and Robert Parker.

5/11

Junior 4NCL

Rules for the competition are available here.

5/11

More on the European Club Cup

Thanks to Dave Ledger for this report on Betsson's performance in the ECC.

5/11

9th Wellington College International

A 9 round FIDE rated Open event and a British Chess Federation Grand Prix event over 2 weekends. If you can’t do both weekends, there will also be two four round FIDE rated minor tournaments running along side each weekend. Friday 7th November to Sunday 9th November 2008 and Saturday 22nd to Sunday 23rd November 2008. Click here for details.

Update 5/11 - three GMs and three IMs have confirmed their participation, increasing the chances for norms.

30/10

Division 3 photo report

Thanks to Claire Summerscale for this photo report from the opening Division 3 weekend.

26/10

European Club Cup

Thanks to Max Devereaux for this photo report on Betsson and Babrican's participation in the recent European Club Cup.

24/10

European Club Cup

Thanks to Barbican 4NCL's Jonathan Rogers for the following update:

Barbican 4NCL participated in the European Club Cup for the fourth time in Kallithea. We hoped to match or even to better our previous record in 2003, when we made 8 matchpoints from 14 and finished in the top twenty, a record for any British Club. In fact it was Betsson.com who managed to do this, scoring 8 matchpoints and finishing 22nd out of 64 teams. Although Barbican 4NCL fielded a respresentative team (J Parker, S Collins, L d'Costa, M Devereaux, M Ferguson, J Cox, P Taylor) it lost its last round and so finished 33rd with 7 matchpoints.

The highlight of the week was undoubtedly our second round encounter with the eventual winners, Ural Sverdlovskaya. This team averaged over 2700, and was stronger even than the strongest team that Wood Green ever fielded in the 4NCL (round 11, 2006). We came out fighting, with Jonathan Parker having a dangerous position at move 25 against Teimour Radjabov, and Max obtaining an opening from which his opponent, Alexander Grischuk, feared he would be "crushed". (See further details on this, and our other matches, on Lorin d'Costa's website www.lorinsworld.com). Elsewhere too we seemed to have reasonable positions ... but we are very familiar with such unequal matches. When one thing goes wrong, so does another, and we lost 6-0: the first whitewash any Barbican 4NCL team has suffered at classical chess.

In the ECC, as in the 4NCL, almost everything hinges upon one's success in the close matches, and here things did not go our way. We lost 3.5 - 2.5 twice to teams who only marginally outrated us, and drew with a Danish team (Aarhus) whom we outrated (and had beaten in 2003). We would probably do better if we were to play the same opponents all over again, though it must be said that only one of our players (Mark Ferguson) made as much as a plus 2 score, and one really needs the whole team to be playing somewhat above par in this event (as we did in 2003, and as Betsson did this year).

We still intend to play the event again and hope that there will be three English teams in future.

24/10

Richmond Rapidplay

The 80th Richmond Rapidplay event will be held on Sunday November 9th at the White House Community Association. Click here for details, including an entry form, previous results and forthcoming events.

24/10

Jack Rudd reports on Division 2

Thanks to Jack for the following reports on round 1 HTML, round 1 PDF, round 2 HTML and round 2 PDF. Thanks also to Kieran Smallbone for his contribution and Claire Summerscale.

22/10

English Chess Forum

The English Chess Forum, a home for lively discussion on the English Chess scene (including the 4NCL), has relocated here.

With thanks to Carl Hibbard.

22/10

Jack Rudd reports

An update to the round 2 report is available in PDF format.

Thanks also to Steve Connor for permission to use his photos from the European Individual Championships.

20/10

Divisions 3, Weekend 1

Division 3, Round 1 results
Division 3, Round 2 results
Includes correction to Fully Ponty vs. Wales Old Boys match.
Division 3 score table

Draw for Round 3 available here.

With thanks to Neville Belinfante and David Sully.

20/10

European Club Cup

Barbican and Betsson.com are currently competing in the European Club Cup in Kallithea, Greece. Web site here.

17/10

Jack Rudd reports

Jack's reports are now available in both HTML and PDF format for download.

Round 1:- HTML or PDF.
Round 2:- HTML or PDF.

With thanks to Nick Mitchem, Claire Summerscale, and - of course - Jack.

All information concerning Weekend 1 is now consolidated on this page.

17/10

Hinckley Island - catering arrangements

The following will be available at the forthcoming December 6th/7th weekend:-

During the day

1. Snack Bar

There will be a snack bar for players attending the event, open from 11 am. This will be effectively be a packed lunch option for the players, consisting of the following:

Baguette - choice of:
Ham and mustard
Cheese and pickle
Turkey and cranberry
Tuna mayonnaise
Egg mayonnaise.

Crisps, chocolate bar or fruit.

Soft drink.

This will be charged at £5.00

2. Hot Option

The Triumph bar and Piazza bar will also be open for players who want to have a hot snack.

Evening

1. Snacks etc

The snack bar, Triumph bar and Piazza bar (above) will be open.

2. Brasserie Restaurant

The Brasserie restaurant will be open for dinner. The three course dinner option in the Brasserie will be at the price of £22.95 per person.

The hotel recommends that people wanting to eat in the Brasserie pre-book on check-in as they may not be able to get a table later in the evening.

15/10

Divisions 1 & 2, Weekend 1

Division 1A, Round 1 results
Division 1B, Round 1 results
Division 1A, Round 2 results
Division 1B, Round 2 results
Division 1A score table
Division 1B score table

Division 1, Round 1 games in PGN or in game viewer
Division 1, Round 2 games in PGN or in game viewer
9/10 - includes additional games and corrections.

Division 2A, Round 1 results
Division 2B, Round 1 results
Division 2A, Round 2 results
Division 2B, Round 2 results
Division 2A score table
Division 2B score table

Division 2, Round 1 games in PGN or in game viewer
Division 2, Round 2 games in PGN or in game viewer

15/10 - PGN files now complete.

With thanks to Neville Belinfante, Jack Rudd, Claire Summerscale, Craig Hanley and Malcolm Armstrong.

Pride and Prejudice players Harriet Hunt and Elliott Auckland analyse.

11/10

Photos

Thanks to Meri Grigoryan-Lyell for these photos from the opening weekend at Sunningdale - click here.

10/10

Daily Telegraph

Malcolm Pein writes a daily column in the Telegraph. To access the column on-line, you need to register, which is free. The daily chess column can be found by clicking the "Chess Club" link in the Arts section.

Alternatively, you can read his preview of the 2008/09 4NCL season here and reports on the first weekend here, here and here.

9/10

2008/09 Registrations

Registration lists, good for the Division 3 first weekend, are now available here.

9/10 - includes corrections / additions to AMCA, The Full Ponty and White Rose squads.

With thanks to Neville Belinfante, the League's Registration Secretary:- please contact Neville with any queries, etc.

28/9

4NCL web site

We are always happy to publish your thoughts on the 4NCL, particularly games, reports, photos, etc.

In particular, we are pleased to announce that there will be a prize of £250 for the best annotated game played during the 2008/09 season.

Please feel free to contact us with any best game entries or other material for publication.

22/8

Junior 4NCL

Details and an entry form for next season's competition are available here. All questions to 4NCL Chairman, Claire Summerscale.

Please note - ENTRY TO THIS TOURNAMENT IS FREE!

Reports on last season's junior event can be found here.

CONGRESS ORGANISERS
Whilst we are happy to display entry forms for forthcoming congresses at the 4NCL weekends, please send any such information to Dave Welch. You can find Dave's address here.

Previous news updates can be found in the Archive.