4NCL Weekend 3 by John Weatherlake

4NCL – Weekend 3 – Div 3 South “Holiday Inn, Windsor/Maidenhead”.

Following a successful opening weekend in November it was unfortunate that the league controllers felt it safest to abandon the scheduled second weekend (in January) due to the Covid uncertainty leading up to Christmas.

Weekend 3 is now fast approaching and we currently have 4 or 5 out of the 6 places filled.

As it stands I am still optimistic that we can make a push for the top so I shall continue to assemble the biggest group of bandits that I can. However if we remain in mid-table obscurity, then the selection policy will most certainly favour the keenest, funniest, friendliest and most generous of our players!!!

I would therefore really appreciate it if anyone can let me know if they are interested in joining the team or even being a reserve. This would be really helpful in selecting this and subsequent teams.

For those not in the loop the itinerary tends to look something like this:

Saturday 12^th February

11:00 Share lift up to (Holiday Inn) Windsor

14:00 Round 5: FIDE Rated game at 40 moves in 1:40 and then another 40 mins for remainder of the game. (With 30 sec increments throughout).

20:00 Team meal / curry anyone?

Sunday 13^th February

09:00 Team (all you can eat) buffet breakfast

10:00 Walk off team breakfast

11:00 Round 6: Same time control as above but games tend to be over faster as we’ve all got homes to go to.

15:00 (approx) Set off home and chuckle at anyone we’ve left behind trying to save that decisive Rook and pawn ending.

I’ve been playing in these for a few years now and particularly prefer 4NCL weekends over congresses where sometimes I find 5 games over a weekend a bit much. Please shout if any of this sounds of interest. I often hear people thinking they may not be strong enough, but I would always at least prefer to have a reserve than no reserve at all.

The 4NCL actually deduct points for failure to bring a full team, which is a another good initiative to ensure we all get a game.

Hope to hear from lot’s of you soon!

John

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January 26, 2022