Category Archives: Club events

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Dear Club Member

Please see the note below from Ian Whittaker on a great coaching offer:

HYBRID COACHING FOR CLUB PLAYERS

As we approach the relaxation of lockdown and the possibility of OTB chess, we are delighted that GM Keti Arakhamia-Grant has agreed to lead a coaching programme to get players ready for battle!

Keti will run a series of 2-hour interactive evening weekly sessions on Monday nights for 5 weeks – on the Lichess platform and using Zoom initially but with the potential for face-to-face sessions in the club if at all possible. She will present an interactive lecture introducing the study theme, followed by “homework” for the following week. The homework is to be sent back to Keti individually and she will give feedback in the week between the sessions.

All participants need to have an account on Lichess, which is free and easy to register with, and the combination of Zoom and Lichess works well. If everyone is agreeable, we will also record the sessions – which is a useful option especially if someone is not able to attend any of the sessions, however it will only be made available to the participants for the period of the course.

In order to support this initiative, we would charge £40 for the 5 sessions and we need to get a minimum of 10 players to sign up – please can you advise Ian Whittaker (curator@edinburghchessclub.co.uk) asap if you are interested and wish to join in.

Once we have enough people signed up we will launch the coaching sessions with Keti!

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This week’s Chess Events (7.45pm start):

Best wishes,
Neil

Dear Club Member,

Last Tuesday we faced Liverpool Chess Club, the oldest chess club in England and established in 1837 (15 years our junior!). The final score was a win for Edinburgh, 123-114. We’ll hopefully be able to arrange a return match.

This week’s club events:

Wednesday Blitz Arena (7.45pm start, 1822 to join)

Saturday return match against Mechanics’ Institute (7pm)  Similar to last time, with a couple of tweaks. It will be 2 rapid games of 15+2 against the same opponent.  The match will take place on chess.com.  We’ll determine the pairings manually, so please let me know in the next couple of days if you would like to play.

Thanks

Neil

Dear Club Member,

Congratulations to Allan Buchan on making his first Correspondence Master norm in the British Correspondence Candidates event:
https://www.scottishcca.co.uk/news.html#item17

A reminder that tomorrow evening we play Liverpool in a 5+3 arena at 7.30. Open to all players with a lichess blitz rating of over 1400. You can join via the link below:
https://lichess.org/tournament/ZqdMWqdn

Our Wednesday blitz arena is at the usual time of 7.45pm. Use password 1822 to join.
https://lichess.org/tournament/7LlaNXdS

Best wishes,

Neil

Dear Club Member,

No Tuesday event this week, but we have arranged a match against Liverpool Chess Club on Tuesday 13th April. Liverpool are the oldest club in England (est. 1837).  It’s an arena format of 5mins + 3s / move, and will run for 90 minutes (you play as many games as you can). Anyone can play – the more players enter the better – and the top 5 scores count for the final result. Link is below.

We are also arranging a rematch against the Mechanics’ Institute on the evening of April 24th. Details will follow over the next couple of weeks.

Our usual blitz event runs this Wednesday.

Tuesday 13th April, Liverpool Match, 7.30pm start:
https://lichess.org/tournament/ZqdMWqdn

Wednesday 7th April blitz arena, 7.45pm start, 1822 to join:
https://lichess.org/tournament/nDnm6Hbz

Best wishes,

Neil

Dear Club Member,

Edinburgh Chess Academy

First of all a shout out to our Tiger Cubs coach Andrew Green, who through the Edinburgh Chess Academy has organised an online tournament for Scottish juniors with a £10,000 prize fund. The event takes place on June 12-13, and more details can be found on their website.  Please spread the word!

Scottish National Online Chess League (SNOCL)

The final round of the SNOCL  took place on Sunday. Unfortunately we finished with a couple of losses.  Thanks to those who played, and I did manage to win the afternoon blitz for a small amount of revenge.

This week’s events

Both start at 7.45pm.

Best wishes,
Neil

Dear Club Member

Last Saturday we had an online match against the Mechanic’s Institute from San Francisco. We lost a fairly well balanced match 15-11. The match was streamed by our opponents on their twitch channel. We are looking to set up a return match next month. [NB: The Mechanics Institute have included two annotated games from the match in their weekly newsletter]

One year ago we took the decision to close the club. We certainly did not anticipate the closure lasting this long. Hopefully with the vaccine rolling out, we will be able to open up over the summer. But this will depend on progress against the virus.

This weeks’ events are below. Both start at 7.45pm.

  • Tuesday Rapids (7 mins + 5s/move)
  • Wednesday Blitz (1822 to join)

Thanks

Neil