EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST
DEADLINE: 31 DECEMBER 2016
This announcement invites WCU members, registered as Welsh with FIDE, to let us know by 31 December whether they may be interested in taking part in one or other of these events (and in which sections) by e-mailing Peter Bevan (internationaldirector@welshchessunion.uk) and Howard Williams (chairmanofselectors@welshchessunion.uk).
Details of events
Two events are scheduled for 2017:
- European Seniors Team Championships: Novi Sad, Serbia 17 March – 25 March
- World Seniors Team Championships: Hersonissos, Crete (near Heraklion) 23 April – 3 May
More detailed information about the World Event (‘WSTC’) is currently available on FIDE’s website; see https://www.fide.com/images/stories/FIDE_Calendar_2017/World_Team_Chess_Championship_50_65_2017_Regulations.pdf
Briefly, as in 2016, the WSTC will be a nine-round Swiss with standard FIDE time limits and one round a day. Teams of four play in any one round but that team may be chosen from a squad of five. Teams may represent either a national federation or ‘any regional structure of a federation’ and there is no limit to the number of teams a federation may enter. But all the players in a squad must be registered with FIDE as representing the Federation making the entry. As in 2016 there will be separate open events for teams of players all over 50 and all over 65 at the end of the calendar year. Details of accommodation costs, none of which are met by the organisers, are given in the website announcement.
Nothing further is known at present about the European Seniors but it is very likely that the format will be identical to that of the World Event (with 9 rounds from 17 March to 25 March and arrival and departure on 16 March and 26 March). As regards costs, at the recent European Club Cup event in Novi Sad the charge for full board in a single room at the venue hotel was E95 a night. Accommodation arranged by the organisers in other hotels in the city cost slightly less.
Welsh Participation in 2017
Players responding to this note should state for which event they would like to be considered and, if they are over 65 (or will be by 31/12/17), whether they would be interested in taking part in an over-50 team (instead of in the over-65 section).
As in the past the WCU wish to give as many players as reasonably feasible a chance to participate in these events. Requests to enter Welsh club or regional sides, as well as teams representing the WCU itself, are welcomed. Players in club or regional sides must be WCU members but otherwise need not meet the WCU’s own eligibility rules on international representation.
The WCU is unable to contribute to players’ costs of participating in these events beyond paying one entry fee (of E100 to FIDE in the case of the World Events).
Welsh Participation in the Past
One, or often two, Welsh teams have participated in the European Seniors Team Championship every year between 2011 and 2016. In the earlier years there was a single well-attended Swiss-system event for over-60s and our teams comprising players with an average rating of roughly 2000, finished about halfway in these enjoyable events in the years 2011-15. In 2016, when separate over-50 and over-65 sections were organised the entry fell away markedly. There were only ten entries in the over-65 section and eight in the over-50 section and both events were organised as all-play-alls, with seven rounds only in the latter.
We have never participated in the World Seniors Team Championships (which were first held in 2014) but it is worth noting that the 2016 Championships, held within two months of the ESTC, attracted a very much larger (although still predominantly European) number of entrants.
Unfortunately it is far from clear how entries will divide between the ESTC and the WSTC in 2017 but the organisation of the WSTC seems further advanced and that event looks the more certain to attract an adequate entry.
