Steve Ledger offers the following which sounds very interesting:
I shall be be at the European Club Cup with my 4NCL team 11th to 19th October – see eurochess2018 for details.
Under ‘Participants’ you’ll see there are some “quite good” teams playing and the 1st round, especially, has the potential to be amusing as we are currently 35th of 62 teams.
If this stayed the same we would be playing Svidler and assorted 2700s, 1 board further down and it would be Magnus and his boys ( though he might not deign to play against us of course ).
Managed to beat an Irish team yesterday though not as convincingly as it might have been. Luxembourg’s finest today who are a mixture of Serbs and Steve Dishman who I was playing in my uni days. Rest day for me. You’re not allowed to wear a watch let alone have a phone on you ! And everyone gets frisked with a metal detector when entering the playing hall …. yes, even Magnus shame chess has come to that.
The restrictions and the security are a small price to pay for everyone’s peace of mind, with cheating ideas becoming so sophisticated.
Disappointing defeat yesterday against the Luxembourg club – a slight ratings upset.
Good luck today against Grantham Sharks. Looks finely balanced.
Pretty good game by Steve I thought and didn’t reflect the 500+ rating difference. Hopefully you’ll get a game in the second round, looks a tiny bit more winnable.
This starts today at 3pm UK time. Steve’s team, Blackthorne Russia have been drawn against Mednyi Vsadnik St.Petersburg, as expected, given the average ratings. Their opponents are all GMs with Steve playing the lowest ranked on board 6 of 2592 which equates roughly to 252 BCF grade. Svidler has elected not to play this round.
Peter Gayson, originally from Luton is playing for White Rose.
Good luck Steve to you and your team
Maybe send us some games?