Category Archives: League chess

New senior pro team

I wanted to share with you an exciting new development in English league chess.

Our game has emerged from Covid stronger than ever, with renewed interest from a wider public following the great success of The Queen’s Gambit and the notoriety of the Niemann cheating scandal. In fact it has come to the attention of British entrepreneurs looking to extend their influence in fashionable sectors of our national life. None more so than Sir Jim Ratcliffe, a sports-loving businessman who is currently trying to buy Manchester United and who is a lifelong chess fan.

Sir Jim has decided to enter English league chess by bankrolling a team of professionals. He knows that top chess players, unlike top footballers or cyclists, can maintain their performance until relatively late in life. He himself is 70 years old. He has assembled a team of senior citizens (aged 60+) from the pool of English GMs. His squad of 10 comprises (in alphabetical order) GMs Arkell, Davies, Flear, Hebden, Keene, Mestel, Nunn, Plaskett, Speelman and Stean. This is a joint venture with a well-known online chess training company and the new outfit will be known as Team Chessable Silver Fox.

For next season, Sir Jim is seeking entry into Division 1 of the 4NCL and Division 1 of the London League. He believes that this assembly of talent could attain the level of dominance in English league chess that was enjoyed by Team Sky in British cycling in the decade from 2010.

You may be wondering what is my interest in this development. I do actually rate myself over the board. I once won an online blitz game against someone called DoccyDoc, although I have not been able to establish whether this was the Good Doctor himself. However, I have not yet attained the GM title and I am therefore not eligible to play for this team.

In fact Sir Jim has personally approached me to act as Team Manager. My organisational skills in the chess field have not gone unnoticed. I have been offered a retainer of £1,000 a match. There is no win bonus attached to this. Sir Jim expects Team Chessable Silver Fox to win all its matches and so there is no point creating any additional incentives for victory.

Naturally this commitment will affect my involvement in other areas of chess activity. I have to go where the money goes. So I have had to tell my colleagues at Streatham that I will not be available to play league chess for them more than twice a week from next season.

Sir Jim’s plans do not stop there. Over time he would like to fuse his twin passions of chess and cycling by developing the new sport of ChessCycling. In this, contestants will alternate standardplay games of chess at the senior-citizen-friendly time control of G90 + 30s with circuits of Box Hill on a team bike (Box Hill is the iconic Surrey climb that featured in the 2012 Olympic Road Race). A contest will consist of 9 standardplay games and 9 circuits of Box Hill. My role will not be to join them on the bike (which is a shame as I am a keen cyclist) but rather to drive the team car behind them on the course carrying spare bikes and essential nutritional drinks.

I am sure we all wish Sir Jim well in this new venture. Some people believe that the continued dominance of one team in any particular sport removes the excitement, since everyone else is competing for second, and this is as true in chess as in any other sporting discipline. However, the presence of so much talent in one team can help to drive up standards generally and so this should be good for English chess as a whole.

A tale of two teams

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If you play for an active chess club in the London area, fixture congestion is a fact of life. So last night, two of my teams were in action. Streatham EC in the revived London League Eastman Competition, 4 boards, away v The Hung Pawns (yes really) in Hammersmith at 6.45pm. Also Streatham 2 in London League Division 2, that’s 8 boards, away v Metropolitan 1 some miles further east at Aldgate, at 6.30pm.

I captain the Eastman team. It’s not difficult finding 4 players from our 12-man squad to play in this team, so I set that up and left them to it, with the very capable Graham K as acting captain. As it happened our opponents gave us advance notice of a default on board 4, so I was able to stand down one of our team.

For myself, I turned out for Streatham 2, who have had a challenging season in a division full of other clubs’ 1st teams. We’re in the relegation zone but have matches in hand on the teams above us. Our captain Martin S assembled a decent team and I was down to play on board 3.

I arrived in London early, around 5.45pm, to pick up a message on my phone from one of our Eastman players who had just had a domestic emergency and needed to withdraw. With only one hour before the match was due to start, I asked a couple of players who I thought might be available, but they couldn’t make it.

I hate defaulting boards more than most things in life. I think I hold the club record for the highest number of players approached to fill a team. That’s 34 players asked, for an 8-board team, and yes we did turn out a full team on that occasion. So I hatched a cunning plan to rescue the Eastman team. I texted the Hung Pawns captain to say we were trying to find someone. I was the first to arrive at the Metropolitan venue. In the absence of our captain, I exchanged team lists and tossed for colours (I lost. We were black on odd boards).

I then explained the problem to their captain and my proposed solution. I would be happy to agree an early draw with their board 3 (in the trade we call this a Grandmaster Draw), leaving me free to dash across London and join the Eastman team before the default time of 7.45pm. Their captain quite rightly said I would have to discuss it with my potential opponent. So I did. But as it happens, this was his first game for Metropolitan, and he wanted to play a proper game. I understood that and I don’t blame him for insisting.

My next idea was to swap positions in our team so that I would move up to board 2 and my colleague Robin H down to board 3. There’s only a small difference in rating points, so that would have been acceptable. Facing an old stager on the Metropolitan board 2, I thought I had a good chance of agreeing an early draw. But here their captain stepped in and said he was unhappy with the idea of changing the board order once team lists had been exchanged. Nothing in the league rules prevents it, and I should know because I wrote them, but there was no point arguing about it so I let it drop. Unsporting or what?

At this point I resigned myself to the inevitable. I texted the Hung Pawns captain again to say that we would default board 3. I then turned my whole attention to the match in hand against Metropolitan, determined to make them pay for thwarting my attempt to be Captain Marvel. Here’s the game against my Swedish opponent.

White: Lars Astrom (FIDE 2098), Black: Rodney Barking (2070). London League 2023.
B22: Sicilian 2.c3
Online game: https://lichess.org/SWoQsZyK
1.e4 c5 2.c3 d5
These days I usually play the other move, 2…Nf6, but I know the 2…d5 line well (years of practice against my SW Surrey sparring partner) and my results have been good.
3.exd5 Qxd5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 Bg4 6.Be2 e6 7.Be3 cxd4 8.cxd4 Nc6 9.O-O Be7 10.h3 Bh5 11.Nc3 Qd6 12.a3 O-O
All theory so far – although my opponent had taken quite a long time over his moves. I like this position for Black. The isolated d-pawn is going nowhere, my pieces are actively-placed, and I have a clear plan of exchanging pieces to emphasise the structural weakness.

13.Qd2?!
The first sign that my opponent didn’t really know what he was doing. In this line the queen belongs on the white squares, rather than further restricting the passive bishop on e3. So 13.Qb3 with an eye on d5 and b7 was the way to go.
13…Rfd8 14.Rad1 Rac8 15.b4 Nd5
Stockfish slightly prefers 15…Qb8 followed by …Bd6 and …Ne7, gradually improving my pieces. It’s not as if White can do anything here.
16.Ne4 Qc7 17.Rc1 Qb6
To escape the pin and nullify the threat of b5. Possibly better was …Bg6 and …a6, since the queen is slightly better-placed on c7 than b6.
18.Nc5 a6 19.Rfd1 Bf6 20.g4 Bg6 21.h4
My opponent decided to get active with his kingside pawns. But this just creates weaknesses. He’d be better off concentrating on piece play and trying to arrange Ne5 under favourable circumstances. The problem is the weak d-pawn, as he always has to work out if I can take it.
21…h5 22.g5 Be7 23.Bc4
Again not good. I thought he probably wanted to sac on e6 in some lines. So I took time out to strengthen my kingside defences.
23…Bf5 24.Re1 g6 25.Bf4 Nxf4
I was happy to exchange off the bishop now that he couldn’t recapture with a pawn.
26.Qxf4 Bd6 27.Qe3 Qc7!
With the awkward threat of …Bf4 winning the exchange. At this point the engine evaluates the position as –1.20 in Black’s favour. But now my opponent blunders – again trying to be too active when his pieces aren’t ready for it.

28.Nxa6?? bxa6 29.Bxa6
Hoping to recoup the sacrificed material through the dual threat of Bxc8 and b5.
29…Bf4 30.Qc3 Bxc1 31.Rxc1 Nxd4!
My opponent clearly hadn’t seen this thematic tactical counterblow, which wins a piece and the game. Stockfish actually prefers 31…Qf4, also winning material and maintaining the tension in the position, but I think the move played is clearer and simpler.
32.Qxc7
He has no choice since 32.Nxd4 Qxc3 and 32.Qxd4 Qxc1+ both lose immediately.
32…Nxf3+ 33.Kg2 Rxc7 34.Rxc7 Be4
Now I’m a piece up in the ending. White has connected passed a- and b-pawns but they’re not dangerous.
35.Kg3 Ra8 36.Kf4?!
I was expecting 36.Rc8+ Rxc8 37.Bxc8, but I just transfer the king to the queenside and it’s an easy win.
36…Rxa6 37.Kxe4 Rxa3 38.b5 Nxh4 39.b6 Rb3 40.b7 Kg7 41.Kd4 Nf5+ 42.Kc4
One last mistake, but it’s all over anyway.
42…Rxb7 0–1
He resigned since 43.Rxb7 allows the fork with 43…Nd6+. I was pleased with the way I had played the game, even more so when the later engine analysis put my centipawn loss (as they call it) at just 0.07 with no blunders or mistakes and only four inaccuracies. That’s as close to perfection as I’ve ever come at the chess board.

So I made them pay for turning down the Grandmaster Draw offer. What was happening elsewhere? Our captain lost on time on board 7 in a complicated middlegame position. On other boards, it was draw after draw, reflecting the evenly-matched ratings. Most satisfying was Jagdip’s draw on board 5. He couldn’t find the venue and arrived almost 60 minutes late, leaving him just 15 minutes plus the increment for the entire game. He played quickly and eventually reached a rook, knight and pawn ending. He actually missed a couple of wins in time trouble, but had no difficulty notching up the half-point. So we drew the match 4–4, a good result against a team still hoping for promotion to Division 1.

In the Eastman match, the Hung Pawns fielded a very strong player on top board. We lost that one but won on board 2, also drawing the match with the final score 2–2.

What would have happened if I’d succeeded in getting an early draw in the Division 2 match, and travelled to Hammersmith where I would have faced a much lower-rated player on board 3? We would probably have won the Eastman match and narrowly lost the Division 2 match. But the Division 2 match actually mattered in terms of league position, whereas the Eastman match didn’t – we were always going to finish second in the Eastman, behind one very strong team and ahead of five others who don’t seem to be taking this competition seriously. It’s rather like the chess equivalent of the old League Cup in football. No one really cares. In the end it was right for me to stay in East London and do my best for the 2nds.

Surrey League time controls and starting times

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The Surrey League are carrying out a survey of affiliated clubs, seeking views from players and club representatives. The two issues are the method for deciding games (time controls) and the starting time of matches.

The first of these is quite distinctive. In the Surrey League, all three methods of finishing a game are available. The away player must offer two options out of adjudication, adjournment, and finish on the night. The home player must choose one of those two. The rationale is that players can avoid a method they particularly don’t want, and can’t be forced into one option. The same system used to operate in the Croydon & District League, but they moved to a mandatory finish on the night this season.

The Surrey League retains a preference for adjudication in that this is the default option if the system breaks down, and also the clocks are required to be set for the adjudication option at the start until the players decide.

With adjudication, the time control is 35 moves in 75 minutes, then 7 moves in 15 minutes repeating as needed to the end of the session. With adjournment, it’s 35 moves in 75 minutes, then 28 moves in 60 minutes, then 7 moves in 15 minutes repeating. With finish on the night, there’s a further division: either quickplay, which is 30 moves in 60 minutes then all remaining moves in a further 20 minutes, or Fischer, which is all moves in 75 minutes plus 10 seconds a move.

In practice, I have always played finish on the night, and in almost all cases, with the incremental time control, although one of my opponents insisted on the quickplay finish instead. This is the default option if the players do not agree.

I have not seen any stats on the frequency of the different options chosen, although in the matches when I have been present, most players have chosen a finish on the night with the incremental time control.

Matches in the Surrey League start at 7.40pm. The playing session is a minimum of 2 hours and 40 minutes.

This is what the Surrey League authorities are saying about their survey:

As the 22/23 season draws towards a conclusion, now is a good time to review the playing conditions for our inter-club standardplay matches. We would like to collect feedback from as many players as possible and then bring a proposal to the next AGM at the end of June to reflect any changes that this process identifies as being needed.

We are keen that the chess competitions we offer are attractive and recognise that we are to some extent competing with other local leagues for players’ time. There are 2 aspects of particular interest which may be linked, but you may have other suggestions:

Firstly the start time of matches, which is set at a default 7:40pm, and a playing session of 2 hours 40 minutes. Other leagues (Thames Valley, Surrey Border League, Mid-Sussex) tend to start earlier and play longer.

Secondly, finishing of games. We have had the “Away player offers 2 from 3 options & Home player chooses” for many years and this has been an effective way to avoid the least favourite of the 3 options. However, neighbouring leagues are increasingly play to a finish. These two factors should be considered together, because a longer playing session may make playing to a finish more achievable.

There have been some changes to the background working/commuting environment over recent years, digital clocks are now ubiquitous and captains’ match cards in the Surrey League show there is a clear trend away from adjournments and adjudications towards playing to a finish.

Before considering any changes we need to hear your views. The link below takes you to a very brief survey we are running. Please take a few minutes to complete this for us. Just as important as your preferences are the reasons behind them. The current basic version of SurveyMonkey does not allow us to capture text responses, such as “Why do you say this?”, so we would also like you to send your comments to a dedicated e-mail address. These comments can include the reasons behind your preferences, other important factors we should consider or even new ideas/suggestions for the league.

You asked to respond by 6 April.
The email address is sccasurvey@gmail.com

The survey link:
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/VPZHGKX

You can only take the survey once, and you have to indicate which is your club and whether you are responding as a player or club representative. The survey window is quite short: I only saw it on 20 March and the deadline is 6 April which is less than three weeks away. I suppose they must want to reach an internal decision in time for their AGM before the end of June.

I have completed the survey and also given a textual explanation of my views as below:

I would prefer the following set-up, which is consistent with a number of other leagues in the south east.

Playing session minimum 3 hours (maximum 3 hours 30 minutes)
Mandatory Fischer time control G75 + 15
No adjudication or adjournment provision.

This reflects my personal views that

the game should finish on the night
the need to use post-session computer analysis or third-party adjudication procedures should be minimised
the playing session should be long enough to allow the participants to play quality chess
extending the increment (say from 10 seconds to 15 seconds) is more valuable to players, particularly later in the game, than reducing the basic game time (say from 80 minutes to 75 minutes).

One of my colleagues, responding separately, made the following observations, with which I completely agree:

For clubs that play in several leagues which all use club home venues (such as SCCA) the use of digital clocks (DGT 2010s are ubiquitous) poses particular challenges in the current arrangements. One is accommodating those who arrive late after the clocks have been started (there is always someone!). To cater for all eventualities clocks must be available in four possible settings (quickplay [guillotine and incremental]; adjournment and adjudication), or else a bespoke time setting must be made on the spot for the game in question, according to the finish adopted. If the captain has their own game to play this can be especially distracting. Life would be so much simpler for hosts/managers if there was a single mandatory game finish. It would also obviate the wearisome business of explaining to players all the game finish options before the match can get underway.

Life would be even simpler for clubs playing in several local leagues (Streatham for example also plays in the Croydon and District Chess League), if there were harmonisation of game finishes across all leagues. Probably a pipe dream, but it would obviate the requirement to reset clocks for different control regimes between matches. CDCL, by the way, has moved to a default incremental of 75mins + 10spm. Even if the parameters varied between leagues, having a common incremental finish-on-the night regime would be a step in the right direction.

An additional practical problem is that not everyone is familiar with setting a digital clock and switching between options. I have had to help out with this on a number of occasions.

If all leagues moved to the same mandatory incremental time control, which I would regard as ideal, what should it be? It’s well-known that I regard G75 + 15 as superior to G80 + 10. But since the second of these is the most common incremental time control in use in English league chess, it would make more sense for everyone to move to that.

I hope the Surrey League will publish a summary of the responses to the survey and I look forward to seeing what’s proposed for the AGM.

The Professionals

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What does the title of this post mean to you?

A crime-action TV series broadcast in the UK from 1977 to 1983 and featuring Cowley, Doyle and Bodie from the unit CI5
the sort of people who do bad things without getting emotional, such as Bond villains like Dr Kaufman in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), “I’m just a professional doing a job”
trained, skilled and experienced members of a set of respected occupations including doctors and lawyers
members of a chess team who get paid to play chess.

Yes, today’s correct answer is the last of these. We turn the spotlight on professional chess players in English chess, or more precisely in the London League. But first, some context. Arguably the strongest national chess league in the world is the German Bundesliga, founded in 1980 and home to many of the world’s top players. The nearest domestic equivalent is the 4 Nations Chess League (4NCL), founded in 1993. This is the UK’s premier chess league competition. Many of its teams are sponsored, enabling them to bring in top players. This is expected, and no one gets worked up about it. Professionals have to make a living somehow and being paid to play for a team in a league is just one more source of income.

The London League was the strongest league in the UK before the advent of the 4NCL and remains its strongest amateur league. This happened naturally. England’s capital city is the most populated in the UK and has the largest concentration of chess players of all abilities. Most of these don’t – or can’t – make money from chess and play for enjoyment.

Then along came Wood Green. This is a chess team composed almost entirely of professionals and managed by the controversial Brian Smith, formerly Secretary of the League. Although some professionals turn out for other clubs, Wood Green are the only team that could be described as a professional team. They have won the League title for as long as anyone can remember.

A look at the latest Division 1 league table for 2022/23 makes the point. This is up to date as of today. 11 teams have between them played 39 matches out of a total of 55.

[ninja_tables id=”233″]

Wood Green are the only team to have won all their matches. They stand out as consistently higher-rated on average, at around 2400 each match. Most of the other teams are in the range 2000 to 2200. The lanterne rouge goes to Imperial College, rated just under 1800 and already certain to be relegated. The overall average is 2079.

It’s interesting to note the narrow rating range of only 24 points across 7 matches for Wood Green – much lower than for any other team. This arises from a core squad (see table below for more details) where a small number of players turn out for most matches. To be exact, 7 players out of a squad of 14 have each played in at least 5 out of 7 matches. You would expect this from a paid team. If turning out for the team is a source of income, you would naturally prioritise that over other non-paid chessplaying opportunities.

[ninja_tables id=”236″]

The presence of one professional team in a league of amateur teams has both positive and negative points. On the positive side, the professional team is a benchmark for others to aim at. Matches against Wood Green provide an opportunity to play a GM or an IM, which is a valuable experience in itself. As long as you leave your ego out of the equation, losing (which usually happens) is manageable and you can learn a lot from the way the strongest players approach the game.

Against that, the league is not as competitive as it might be, because one team always wins and everyone else is playing for second place. This devalues the status of champions. Is a title worth having if you can buy it for money? And it’s easy to say how players / teams on the outside can resent the one team with the most resources. Compare the Premier League in English football. Many people resent Manchester City, unquestionably the strongest team of the past decade, because their financial resources have enabled them to buy many of the world’s best players. It’s not a level playing-field.

Finally, a note on payment. I don’t have any inside knowledge of the financial arrangements in operation at Wood Green. About 15 years ago, the going rate for a GM or IM in the London League was £100 a match plus expenses. That may have gone up since then with inflation. I’m assuming that what is now paid is still a flat rate rather than relating to performance. In some sports you get a bonus if you win rather than draw or lose. But in the London League, most Wood Green players win most of their games, so this is normal. I imagine the manager is prepared to take the occasional hit as long as the team gets the result – as it always does.

Incremental time controls

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Rodney Barking brings you further original research on the playing rules of league chess in England. This time the subject is incremental time controls. This arose from an internal consideration of a potential attempt (not by the league committee) to amend the rules of the London League. Currently the rules stipulate a time control of 75 minutes for the game plus a 15-second increment from the start.

The main issue is whether the basic game time should be shortened, and the increment lengthened to 30 seconds a move. The point of the 30-second increment is to provide more thinking time in the later stages and to ensure that all moves are recorded throughout the game. The drawback is that reducing the basic game time may impair the quality of the chess played in the earlier stages.

Bear in mind the maths underlying the different ratios. In considering the effect of increments on the length of the playing session, the chess authorities assume that a game will last typically 60 moves. So a 15-second increment adds 1 minute for every 4 moves, whereas a 30-second increment adds 1 minute for every 2 moves. If the game lasts exactly 60 moves and both players use all the available time (without actually losing on time), then both G75 + 15s and G60 + 30s will result in a total playing session of exactly 3 hours.

There are 86 standardplay leagues in England (excluding online and junior leagues). Information on the playing rules is available online for 63 of these leagues. Of these, 52 provide for an incremental time control (either mandatory or the default option or simply an option) and 11 do not.

Almost all leagues with an incremental time control are based on a single session of play (49 out of 52). In these cases, this is the frequency of the different incremental controls (in ascending order of length).
G60 + 30s – 5
G65 + 30s – 1
G70 + 10s – 1
G70 + 15s – 2
G75 + 10s – 8
G75 + 15s – 6
G80 + 10s – 20
G80 + 15s – 2
G85 + 10s – 2
G110 + 10s – 1
G135 + 15s – 1.

The last two of these stand out from the rest, but they are afternoon leagues where more time is available.

In three leagues, the rules provide for two sessions of play. The first session is a set number of moves in a set time (eg 30 moves in 70 minutes). The second session is a guillotine with all remaining moves in a set time (eg all moves in a further 10 minutes). In all cases the increment applies from the start of the game.
G30/70 + all/10 + 10s – 1 (Coventry & District)
G35/70 + all/10 + 10s – 1 (Bedfordshire)
G40/100 + all/50 + 30s – 1 (4NCL).

There are some particular points I want to make about these results.

Although the most common time control is G80 + 10s, in one case known to Barking the relevant league moved from this to G75 + 15s and not the other way round. This was the Central London League, which made the change about 10 years ago. The league’s decision-makers agreed that the extra thinking time provided by an increment of 15 seconds rather than 10 seconds was more important than the reduction of the basic game time from 80 minutes to 75 minutes.

They may have been influenced by the early starting time in the Central London League (6.30pm). Late finishing was less of an issue. In contrast, the Surrey Border League rejected the same proposal (to move from G80 + 10s to G75 + 15s) at its AGM in 2022. Games in this league start an hour later, at 7.30pm, and the potentially-extended finishing time would have run up against venue closing time constraints in some cases.

The session length at the two London League central venues is limited to 3 hours and 30 minutes. This applies whatever time control is used. So although it is the case that a longer increment will prolong the game where more than 60 moves are played, that is not an argument against the longer increment, at the central venues at least. Barking knows of only one case where the game was not finished on the night.

Finally, going all the way to G60 + 30s, in other words reducing the basic game time to 60 minutes, would have a direct implication for the default time allowed. As Barking has argued elsewhere, a league the size of London with regular transport problems requires a generous default time of 45 or 60 minutes and this is not easily accommodated within a basic 60-minute game time.

Determining colours, and the default time

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As a former civil servant, I like to know what I’m talking about before I express an opinion on something. They call it Evidence-Based Decision-Making, or in other words, Knowledge is Power.

The London League is in the process of revising its rules. Back in October, an issue arose about whether teams should be selected on playing strength or in rating order. This blog carried out some research on the practice in other chess leagues the length and breadth of the land. The results appeared in the post The board order in league chess. Today we address two further issues: (1) how do you decide which team has white or black on each board; and (2) if you’re not there at the start, how much time do you have before you lose on default?

Determining colours

Traditionally the two teams would toss for colours and the winner would choose either white or black on top board (with the colours alternating down the board order). This was open to abuse in that if your player had prepared a particular line as white or black, winning the toss meant you could ensure the player got the preferred colour. So a refinement was to remove the choice and if you won the toss you automatically got a specified colour (in practice white) on top board.

Tossing for colours has its own issues: for example at what time before the scheduled start do you decide colours, and what happens if one team is not represented at the appointed time, for example running late in travelling to the venue? You could decide that the team which was there on time automatically had white on top board – at the risk of annoying the other team which might be late through no fault of its own.

So a further refinement – and this may reflect a modern trend towards simplification in procedure – was to eliminate the toss altogether and automatically allocate colours by a pre-determined principle, for example the home team or away team would always have white on odd boards.

Which brings us to the research. There are 86 chess leagues in England (excluding junior-only and online leagues). In 63 of these, the league rules are available online. (Previously it was 62, but one has emerged since then.) This is the frequency of the different options for determining colours.

home team has black on odd boards – 35
home team has white on odd boards – 5
toss for colours, winner chooses – 10
toss for colours, winner has white on odd boards – 9
not stated – 4.

In the London League, the fourth of these applies. Teams toss for colours and the winner automatically has white on odd boards.

The research shows that the clear preference in practice is for the home team to have black on odd boards. This must reflect the disadvantage to the away team in having to travel to the venue. This works fine if teams play their home matches at their home venue and their away matches at the opposition venue. But in some cases, including the London League, several clubs play all their matches at their home venue rather than a central league venue. Under this rule, their top board would have black in every game. That’s not a desirable outcome. The available information does not disclose – at least, not without a lot more digging – how many leagues feature clubs that always play at home and how many clubs are affected in each case. So we don’t know whether the London League is unique. If it’s not unique, the leagues which allocate colours automatically have not addressed the issue.

For the London League, a simple but unique solution has been proposed. This is that the home team has white on odd boards if the date of the match falls on days 1 to 15 of the month, and black on odd boards if it falls on days 16 to 31. Assuming a natural layout of the fixtures, roughly half of the fixtures would fall in each of the first and second halves of the month, so the colour distribution would be roughly even. At the time of posting, the proposal remains under consideration internally.

The default time

Here too, practice varies. The official FIDE Laws of Chess take a hardline approach:

6.6 a. Any player who arrives at the chessboard after the start of the session shall lose the game. Thus the default time is 0 minutes. The rules of a competition may specify otherwise.

This rule was introduced a number of years ago. It seems appropriate in official FIDE events, which are strictly controlled. In less formal conditions – applying in the typical weekend tournament in England, and in league chess played on a weekday evening – it would be completely impractical. Hence the discretion for local rules to specify otherwise. And they have done. There are no known cases in English league chess where the default time is 0 minutes.

In the 63 leagues where information is available, the default time is as shown below.

30 minutes – 30
45 minutes – 8
60 minutes – 18
time control (75+ minutes) – 2
not stated – 5.

In the two leagues with a “time control” default system, the player may turn up at any time while the clock is still running, losing only when the time control is reached. In one case this is 75 minutes. In the other, a range of time controls are available and 75 minutes is the minimum.

The available information does not disclose the reasons for deciding on a particular default time in each league. Rules are rules and they rarely include explanatory material.

If you were developing a set of rules based on reason and logic, you might decide on a principled approach so that (for example) the default time was half the time available for the game. So if you had 90 minutes to make all your moves, you would have 45 minutes after the start to arrive at the board. Arriving just before the cut-off would still leave enough time for a sensible game.

An alternative approach would be to recognise that leagues operate in different circumstances and that no one solution would suit every league. If the league operated in a very small catchment area, and the travelling time to the venue was not significant, it might be appropriate to specify the short default time of 30 minutes. In other leagues, for example in large metropolitan areas, players might need longer to reach the venue. This may be what happens in practice – more detailed research would be needed to establish a correlation.

In the London League, which covers a large area, the current default time is 60 minutes. This is long enough for any reasonable journey. The downsides are, first, that if you’re present and your opponent is not, and you don’t know whether your opponent is running late or has simply forgotten there’s a match on that night, it’s a long time to wait for a no-show. And second, that if your opponent turns up just inside 60 minutes, with an incremental time control allowing a game time of 75 minutes, it’s practically impossible for the latecomer to play a serious game.

At its AGM in 2022, the London League considered a motion from one club to reduce the default time from 60 minutes to 30 minutes. This was no doubt motivated by the downsides of the longer default time. It was, however, clear from the debate that 30 minutes was in practice too short a default time for a league whose catchment area was the whole of London. Players could well miss the cut-off for no fault of their own, for example problems on public transport (and, more recently, one might add industrial action resulting a reduced service or none at all). The motion was defeated by 18 votes to 4.

During the debate, a compromise was suggested of a default time of 45 minutes. This reflected the experience of the person proposing the compromise (no prizes for guessing who that was) that players often turned up within 45 minutes of the start, but he did not recall anyone turning up between 45 and 60 minutes late. So nothing would be lost, and players wouldn’t have to wait a whole hour for a no-show. The amendment was defeated by 12 votes to 9. This was not because the majority of the clubs represented thought it was a bad idea in itself. Rather, it was tabled at no notice, and they had not been able to consult their membership. So in 2023, the proposal (and again this is still under consideration, well in advance of the summer AGM) is to reduce the default time from 60 minutes to 45 minutes.

Anyway, the lesson for any person of a sound mind is, Vote For Barking – You Know It Makes Sense.

Classics from the Archives – 1990

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I know what you’re thinking. Classics from the Archives means “another chance to see some recently-repeated filler material again.” Rumour has it that the BBC originally resisted showing repeats because viewers might complain they were being short-changed for their licence fee. Life is very different now. Last year, the BBC ran more repeats than original shows. This is the inevitable effect of funding cuts: there isn’t so much money to make new programmes.

Well, have I got news for you. The Rodney Barking blog does not repeat itself. Not intentionally, anyway. What follows is previously unpublished.

In this series we bring you a classic game from Barking’s earlier years – and these go back a long way. Today we revisit 1990. The scene: a playing venue somewhere in London in March 1990. The occasion: Streatham & Brixton 1 v Kings Head 1 in the London League. In those days, Kings Head were the strongest club in London. (This was before a team of professionals took over the league and started winning it every year.) The boys from S&B were no pushovers but my recollection is that they were out-rated on every board and lost the match 8–4.

On one of the lower boards, Barking was White against Kings Head legend Rick McMichael.
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Be7 4.Nf3 Nf6 5.Bd3 c5 6.e5
I was already feeling uncomfortable in this unusual French position. Apparently theory recommends exchanging on d5 and c5 to open the centre with a free-for-all.
6…Nfd7 7.dxc5 Nc6 8.Qe2 Nxc5 9.Bf4 g5!
Rick clearly knew the French better than me. I wasn’t expecting this typical thrust. Black now takes over the initiative.
10.Bg3 g4 11.Nd2 Nd4 12.Qe3 Nxd3+ 13.Qxd3 Nf5 14.Bf4 Bd7 15.h3 Nh4 16.Kf1?
This was an error of judgement. I should simply castle queenside. Black can’t really take the g-pawn because he is overextended on the kingside.
16…Ng6 17.Bg3 gxh3 18.Rxh3 Bg5 19.f4?
Another error, in a complex position. I am now probably losing. Instead 19.Rh5 would have kept things murky.
19…Bxf4 20.Bxf4 Nxf4

By now I was feeling quite ill. But it was too early to go home. In desperation I tried…
21.Rxh7
Now if he takes my queen, I take his rook with check and then his queen, and I come out a piece up. So he can’t ignore the threat. He should simply castle short, when I lose the exchange, or (more aggressively) take the rook, play …Qg5 with threats, and castle long, when it’s more or less game over. He thought for a long time over his next move, and then… he simply ignored the threat.
21…Qg5??
He threatens …Qxg2+ followed by …Nxd3+ and assesses (correctly) that this is worth more than the double rook sacrifice. However…
22.Rxh8+ Ke7 23.Nxd5+!
A bolt from the blue! A line clearance sacrifice! He was probably expecting 23.Rxa8 Qxg2+ 24.Ke1 Nxd3+ 25.cxd3 Qg3+ 26.Ke2 d4 27.Nce4 Qe3+ 28.Kd1 Qg1+ picking up the rook, or 28.Kf1 Bb5 and the bishop enters the game to decisive effect.
23…exd5
23…Nxd5 allows 24.Qa3+ and mate next move.
24.Qa3+ Ke6 25.Qd6+
Suddenly it’s all over. After 25…Kf5 26.Qxd7+ Kg6 27.Rh2 Qg3 28.Nf3 I am simply a rook up. Rick shook his head in disbelief and resigned. I still remember his parting words: “My captain’s going to kill me for this!” Posterity records that his life was spared on that occasion although I wouldn’t be surprised if he was sent to the Naughty Step for a while.

On playing for more than one club

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Team sport is an activity contested by different teams with their own sets of players in the course of a season which lasts less than one calendar year. This general definition applies regardless of which particular sport is involved – football, cricket, rugby… and chess.

In what circumstances, if any, can players turn out for different clubs in the same season? Each sport has its own rules. Football is one of the most prominent. There is a defined transfer window at the start of each season and in the middle of the season. During the window, players may transfer from one club to another. So it is possible for a footballer to play for two different clubs in the same season, but not at the same time. That’s how the league works anyway.

In the cup competition the rules are stricter. If you play a cup match for club A, and transfer to club B later in the season, you cannot play for club B in later rounds of the cup competition in the same season. You are said to be “cup-tied.” The point is to prevent eliminated clubs from selling their top players to another club with a view to that club increasing its chances of winning the cup. It’s an old rule and pre-dates the introduction of the transfer window, so maybe it’s anachronistic.

I carried out a survey of chess leagues in south east England (plus the 4NCL) to see whether there were any obvious patterns or predominant practice. There are 17 leagues. All the leagues where information is available restrict players moving around, though the extent of the restriction varies.

In six leagues, a player may not play for more than one club in the same season. These are the 4NCL, the Essex League, the Kent League, the London Public Service League, the Middlesex League, and the Portsmouth & District League. This is stated in the rules of most of these leagues. The London Public Service League is silent on the point, but its administrator has said that players are limited to one club and this may be made clear on the face of the rules from next season.

In another five leagues, a player may represent more than one club in the same season, in certain defined circumstances.

The Central London League limits you to one club in divisions 1 and 2, but you may play for a different club in division 3 (presumably this means divisions 3 and 4 combined, now that the league is running a division 4).

The London League limits you to one club in the divisional league (divisions 1 to 4), but you may play for one different club in the Major and Minor divisions combined, and yet another club in the Eastman Competition (formerly the Eastman Cup). These are effectively three different competitions in one league with some shared and some distinct rules.

The Mid-Sussex League allows you to change clubs once a season, so you can play for a second club, but only if you have played fewer than five games for the first club.

The Surrey League allows you to play for different clubs in different competitions, and the different divisions of the league count as separate competitions for this purpose, but only if you register for all the relevant clubs before the season starts. I tried to play for two different clubs in the Surrey League last season but was thwarted by the registration rule.

The Thames Valley League allows you to play for two different clubs in one season, but not at the same time, and only in exceptional circumstances, which the rules do not define.

Finally, in a further six leagues, either the rules are silent on the issue or the rules are not available online. These are the Berkshire League, the City League (formerly the Combined London Banks and Insurance League), the Croydon & District League, the Hillingdon & District League, the Southampton League, and the Surrey Border League.

I suppose the point is to reinforce club loyalty – although that’s arguably less important these days, with the advent of clubs in the 4NCL and the London League whose composition reflects friendship or common interest rather than geographical ties. Also maybe the rules are there to prevent player anarchy. Imagine if Erling Haaland played for City v United one week, then decided to play for United v City the following week. This is the stuff of nightmares. You couldn’t run a league on that basis.

Even so, there are circumstances where a player has a genuine reason for turning out for two different clubs in the same season. For example the player may turn out a few times for club A, then resign from the club because of irreconcilable differences, and join club B instead. In effect the player is making a new start in the league. It seems unduly restrictive to prevent the player turning out for the new club until the following season.