Pictures from Coulsdon

The two players who got IM norms at Coulsdon last week; the picture on the left is of Rawle Allicock, seen here in conversation with Nicholas Tavoularis. The picture on the right is of Yang-Fan Zhou.

Coulsdon Christmas Internationals

As I said two posts ago, I have been away for the past week, at the Coulsdon Christmas International. I said, at the time, that I was only going to be an arbiter, but fate decided otherwise. Stephen Crowdy was too ill to travel back to England, and I was the only rated player available to take his place in the Challengers.

Illness proved to be a recurring theme in the Challengers section: Roger Hutchings was taken ill after three games, and there was much rearranging of fixtures while we waited to see if he was going to be well enough to play his games later in the week. Eventually, it turned out that he wasn't, and he withdrew from the tournament. Still, by playing three games and scoring one point, he ensured that he would get a partial rating from this event. As did John Torrance, who played seven games and scored one and a half points.

There will be more posts about Coulsdon in the next few days, but not just yet. Coulsdon to Bideford is a five-and-a-half hour journey, and I'm a bit tired.

Coulsdon Christmas Internationals

Next week, I will be out of the area, at an international chess tournament. This is not unusual for me. What is unusual, however, is that I am not attending as a player, but as an arbiter.

The event in question is the Coulsdon Christmas International; the CCF run three international events a year, and a number of players have got title norms or FIDE ratings from them, as you can see here.

There are two points of North Devon interest here. The first is my attempt to get myself a FIDE Arbiter norm. The second is the attempt of Roger Hutchings, who has emerged from retirement this season, to get himself a FIDE rating. To get a full rating from the event, he has to get at least one point with John Torrance also getting at least one point. If John Torrance fails to score one point, Roger can still get a partial rating, but he then needs to score at least one point against the rated players.