It’s a Knockout !

The Summer Knockout competition has been launched.

Forest Hall Chess Club has entered 7 teams this year and the full list of fixtures is as follows :

Morpeth A v Forest Hall B
Leam Lane v Forest Hall G
Forest Hall E v Morpeth B
Tynemouth B v Gateshead
Morpeth C v Gosforth A
Forest Hall C v Gosforth C
Gosforth D v Forest Hall D
Jesmond v Forest Hall F
Forest Hall A v Alnwick
South Shields v Gosforth B
Tynemouth D v BYE

Competition format

Winners of Round 1 go into the Trophy, losers into the Plate, after which it is strict knockout.

Handicap system

Each team shall fall into one of five categories: Open, Major, Inter(mediate), Minor or Novice. A team’s category shall be determined by the grades of its players. For the purposes of this tournament:

If the grade of a team’s board 1 player is 120 or lower and the total grade of the team is 380 or lower, that team is Novice.

Otherwise, if the board 1 player is 140 or lower and the total is 470 or lower, the team is Minor.

Otherwise, if the board 1 player is 160 or lower and the total is 560 or lower, the team is Inter.

Otherwise, if the board 2 player is 160 or lower and the total is 650 or lower, the team is Major.

Otherwise, the team is Open. To summarise:

Where two teams are from different categories, the lower graded team shall receive one handicap point for each category their opponents are above them, plus one half point, to a maximum of 3½. Therefore:

Closing dates for rounds

The closing dates for reporting results in 2017 are as follows:

Round 1:                     Saturday 27^th  May

Round 2:                     Saturday 24^th June

Quarter Finals:        Saturday 22^nd July

Semi Finals:              Saturday 19^th August

Finals:                         Saturday 16^th September