— The below is a copy of a post made to the NLCA Facebook group. Updates will be posted both to the group and the website while we revamp the NLCA. — -AL

Hi all,

First, I wanted to thank everyone who filled out the survey in my previous post. It gave us a lot of information on interest for events this coming year, and there is definitely a lot of interest from all skill levels and backgrounds!

I wanted to provide some updates for those wondering about events. I am hoping to run TWO events in the month of April:

• Unrated Rapid – A 4-5 round Swiss event that will not require a CFC membership. For time control it will likely be something similar to 15 minutes + 10 second increment that you’d see on the Champions Chess Tour that has been pretty popular. The whole event would take about 4-5 hours to complete. The goal here is to introduce over-the-board tournament play to those who are unsure about participating in CFC events going forward. We may run one of these from time to time but the focus will be on Rated events.

• Rated Classical – a 4-5 round Swiss event that will require a CFC membership, for NL this is $44 a year. These events are rated by the Chess Federation of Canada, which is the national governing body for chess in the country. Classical events are basically a weekend committment – typically the format is one round on Friday night, two rounds on Saturday, and one or two rounds on Sunday (5th round only if registration numbers require it). Time controls for NL events used to be anywhere from 75 to 90 minutes with 30 second increment, so expect games to last 3-4 hours each. 1/2 pt requested byes can be provided for all except the last round if advance notice is given.

The target dates are April 9th or 10th for the Unrated Rapid, and the weekend of April 29th-May 1st for the Rated Classical. I am waiting to hear back on bookings at the University to confirm exact dates and times, so keep an eye out. A few additional notes:

• Currently, the university requires masking for university events, which will extend to these tournaments as well. If there are any updates to university policy I will post them once confirmed.
• Depending on the rooms we are able to get, we may need to impose a cap on entrants. As a result, advanced registration will be required. This will make things easier on the tournament director (myself) in terms of pairings, byes, etc.

This is mostly preliminary information to keep people in the loop. Any updates, confirmed dates/times, and registration will be posted here as well as the site at https://nlchess.ca. While the site is a out of date we are looking at potentially modernizing it, but I want to ensure these updates are also there for reference (or if you want to share it with someone who is not a member of this group).

If there are any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me in the comments here or at anthonyleonard_21@gmail.com.

Regards,
Anthony Leonard