The first major OTB tournament begins this week in Biel.
It will be closely watched because of Covid rules.
In the top section, players will be separated by plexiglass.
In the lower sections, the players will sit at separate tables with the board and clock in between. The time increment has been increased from 30 to 45 seconds, to account for stretching to make long moves and hit the clock.
Gives a new meaning to Swiss System.
At my club last Thursday our first meeting since mid-March used 8-foot tables with the board/clock in the middle and the players at the long ends. The tables were separated. The board, pieces and clock were sanitized after the game. Masks were required. A number of players used gloves. We normally draw 12-24 players and we had 12 (at least 5 over 60). We usually have a half-dozen minors brought by their parents but there were none last Thursday. We had to shift our hours an hour earlier to allow the community center to do the additional post-meeting cleaning that is now required.
With the additional time needed to move we are deferring the normally scheduled quick tournaments until 2021.
The National Open, rescheduled for September 16-20, says “One game per six-foot table.”
Also, “8 feet between rows, allowing 6 feet back-to-back between players.”
The Irish Championship has a new option – playing at one board per game or two.
I like this option, but am a bit surprised that the plexiglass screen doe not extend all the way down to the table top.
Notice the setup for pressing the clock.
Ingenious. Unfortunately, wouldn’t work for some clocks. It being Europe, I assume the organizer provided the clocks and the extended buttons.
It appears that the Europeans are not big fans of the Chronos clocks. I do like the chess sets and thinner wooden boards. Classy.
It is indeed ingenious. Still, as one of a certain age at greater risk than some from the down side of a Covid infection, I think I’d pass on even this arrangement.
I think those may be the new, less expensive dgt eBoards made of plastic.
If the players chose the “one board” option, there would have to be an opening at the bottom to allow both players access to the board and pieces. Maybe they wanted to stick with one design for the barriers, and chose the one that would accommodate both options.
I think Lafferty is likely correct. The clock appears to be plugged into something. It is possible that only the board on the left is the eBoard, but that seems unlikely.
Alex Relyea
I agree that’s the likely explanation. IMO, it would be safer to have the barrier come down to the table when using two boards.
The more that I think about it, it likely doesn’t make much difference. The panel isn’t very wide and the masks will contain large droplets when a player coughs. As long as everyone is masked at all times in the building, that should be good. Small aerosolized droplets that could infect by eye contact would be minimized if everyone in the building was masked at all times.
They only need one board to broadcast the game. If you look at the full photo on their web site, it’s clear that only the board on the right is plugged in. However, both boards appear to be the new, plastic dgt Smartboards. This probably puts added pressure on the player with the eBoard to make the correct move as called out by the opponent.
Pass a certain point, it isn’t worth playing. YMMV.
Agreed. I won’t be playing over the board until there is either a vaccine, or an extremely effective treatment for Covid.
Certainly true-OTB chess will be very rare until there is a vaccine
With that clever two board and remote clock setup, what time control do they use to compensate for the extra time you would need to make your opponent’s moves on your own board? It would have to be an extra long delay, I should think. And how do they handle it if you do it incorrectly? I hate to imagine what a time scramble would be like.
Chances are that, unless our local chess club starts meeting in person again late this year, 2020 will be a year without any “normal” tournaments for me. I’ve thought of trying an online tournament (and I do belong to ICC, Lichess, and Chess.com among others), and may do so eventually, but it won’t be the same, and I really hope that 2021 may let us get back to some semblance of normal.
I thought of playing in the New York State Championship this Labor Day weekend on ICC, just to experience what these tournaments will be like, but I’d have to take a half point bye in the last round, and it’s not a good weekend for me in general. And the restrictions I’d have to make on my own movements in my own home just rub me the wrong way, although I fully understand the reasons for them.
I’ll wait until I can sit at a table again with a single chessboard and no masks or plexiglass screens . The conspicuous use of hand sanitizer may become a permanent feature, and elbow bumps instead of handshakes, but that I can live with. But who knows how long that may be? Until then, it’s “correspondence” chess over the web for practice in serious analysis, and casual blitz for the rest.
From the Irish web site:
The usual Irish Championship time control will simplify to one time control per game where the time which is normally added after 40 moves is added from the start. This would be 135 mins + 35 second increment (instead of 105+30+30). This should reduce interactions with the arbiter and between opponents.
I’m going to play the NYS championship online at ICC. I’m not going to use Zoom and will thus not be eligible for any prizes, not that I would expect to win any. I’m curious to see how the event plays out. Going forward, I find the entry fees are way too steep for me. This event is costing me $77 because I live in VT which borders on NY and qualifies for an entry fee discount of $40. That’s pretty high. I’ve played quite a few of Bills over the board events, Continental Open and some others at The Host in Sturbridge, MA. I’ve always had a great time and have felt the entry fee and the hotel rate was worth it because of the friends that I’d run into and the socializing to be had. I do miss that…
Two-board setups have been used for decades for games involving blind players. Indeed, it takes longer to make a move. But what do you mean by “compensate”? You just have less time, that’s all.
Time scrambles are not pretty, and they aren’t pretty with one-board setups either. Generally speaking, time controls are nothing more than a necessary evil.