Welcome!
AlphaChess season 26/27 — AlphaChess Marauders (1st) and AlphaChess Plunderers (2nd), both entered into Division 4.
AlphaChess Squad
for 26/27 season!
done by FIDE standard.
Crosstable
externally sourced Google Sheet, hopefully it works!
Season info
Comms, selection, and how the season runs — pulled from the season kickoff email.
Communications
All comms this season will go out from alphachess.co.uk@gmail.com. We'll also use WhatsApp for some comms, especially during the 4NCL weekends themselves — join the group chat here.
Selection and board order
For each weekend, teams will be varied while keeping them strong. The 4NCL are flexible on ordering by FIDE or ECF, and players can be moved around as long as they're within 100 points of each other — this will be decided case-by-case. Board order doesn't have to stay fixed across a weekend's games, so it can change before each round's deadline if there are agreements to swap. Suggestions on team selection are welcome.
Playing schedule and rate of play
Saturday game at 2pm, Sunday game at 11am. Rate of play: 90+30, with an extra 30 minutes added after move 40.
Teams in the squad
Marauders are the 1st team and Plunderers the 2nd, in the same Division 4 squad — players can move between the two from round to round. Marauders must have a higher average rating than Plunderers in each round (Rule 8.3), and if two players are more than 100 rating points apart, the higher-rated player must play for the higher team, i.e. Marauders (Rule 8.4).
| Dates | Venue | Location | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10–11 October | Bedford | ||
| 23–24 January | Peterborough | ||
| 27–28 February | Coventry | ||
| 20–21 March | Peterborough | ||
| 1–3 May | Coventry |
First weekend — 10–11 October, Bedford: our only Bedford weekend, a twenty minute walk
from the train station (direct trains from St Pancras, West Hampstead, St Albans etc, roughly 40 minutes
to an hour from London). Reply by 5 September if you're provisionally able to play or definitely can't —
team composition for the weekend goes out on 7 September. Please hold off booking anywhere until then.
Official 4NCL rates at the Mercure Bedford Centre Hotel: £95 B&B single / £105
(£52.50pp) B&B double / £113 DB&B single / £141 (£70.50pp) DB&B double. Book by phone
(01234 799 963 or 01234 799 988 ext. 1004) or email Elisabet.GJINAJ@accor.com, and ask for Elisabet Gjinaj
(Groups & Reservations Agent). A Premier Inn (Bedford Riverside) is also under five minutes from the venue.
Useful links
A grab-bag of things worth bookmarking. Add to this list any time.
- 4ncl.co.uk Official 4NCL site — fixtures, rules, standings
- AlphaChess Prep Tool Prep tool I made a while back generating links to analysis sites
- WhatsApp group For comms during 4NCL weekends