World Cup-style summer KO launched

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(Newcastle Chronicle, 22 March 2024)

As sports look to recruit more players and grow their fanbase, new formats emerge and the calendar seems to get more jampacked every year. Globally, there are hardly any breaks in the football or cricket seasons in various competitions.

A similar situation exists in chess, and the North East’s top knockout teams competition has been revamped with World Cup-style qualifying groups to give clubs more games over the summer – but also to give players a holiday in August.

The new Northumberland Summer Knockout Cup and Plate will run from early April to mid-September. All-play-all group stages will be played until mid-July, and then qualifiers in both competitions will compete in semi-finals and finals in the first half of September.

A total of 22 teams of four players each have signed up, which will see two groups of six teams playing at Gosforth Chess Club’s venue, the Gosforth Empire Club on Salters Road, one group of six teams playing at Newcastle’s venue, The Old George Inn off the Bigg Market, and another group of four teams playing at Morpeth’s venue, the Morpeth Rugby Club.

The top teams from each group will go through to the Cup semi-finals, while the second teams from Gosforth and Newcastle will go into the Plate semi-finals.

To even up the odds, the second team in the Morpeth group will go into a playoff with the best third-placed team from the other groups to decide the last Plate semi-final place.

The semi-finals and finals will be played at Gosforth.

Matches will be run on a ratings handicap system, where the higher a team’s average rating, the more points it needs to score to win.

Round 1 fixtures will be played on April 8 at Gosforth, April 9 at Newcastle and April 10 at Morpeth. New players interested in joining one of the teams can get captains’ contact details from: timpetewall@gmail.com.

Group A (Morpeth)

Morpeth A
Morpeth B
Tynemouth
Alnwick

Group B (Gosforth)

Gosforth Empire
Gosforth Regents
Gosforth Jedis
Newcastle C
Jesmond
Forest Hall Magpies

Group C (Gosforth)

Gosforth Salters
Gosforth Ivy
Gosforth Otterburns
Forest Hall Badgers
Newcastle University
Newcastle A

Group D (Newcastle)

Leam Lane
Gateshead
Tynedale
South Shields
Newcastle B
Gosforth Centurions

The next Newcastle Open Blitz tournament (with a time control of 5 minutes plus 3 seconds per move for each player) takes place on Tuesday 26 March at The Old George Inn, 7:15-10pm. Players of any strength welcome, entry costs £5, with all fees returned as prizes. To enter, contact the organiser, Tim Wall, at: timpeterwall@gmail.com

This week’s puzzles

Puzzle A: Vincent Keymer (Black) to play

Puzzle B: Mickey Adams (Black) to play

Puzzle C: Cameron Goh (Black) to play

Puzzle D: Ian Nepomniachtchi (White) to play

Answers:

A: 1…e4! 0-1. If 2 exd4 (2 Bf1 Nf3­+ 3 Ke2 Ng1+) 2…exd3+ 3 Kd2 Rxd4 4 Qb3 Rc4 wins.
B: 1…Bh3+! 2 Qxh3 Qf2 checkmate.
C: 1…Rxd4+! wins. If 2 Kxd4 b2 3 Re1 Nb5+ and 4…Na3.
D: 1 Qxh6+! 1-0. If 1…Bxh6 2 Rxh6+ Kg7 3 Rh7 checkmate.