British Cancelled Yet Again ... But Hope On The Horizon

RONNIE Burton has alerted me to this new post at the ECF site:

After some consideration the BCC Organisers and the ECF have decided that the 2021 British Chess Championships will not go ahead as a single event in Torquay in July/August due to the risks involved with holding a large event at this time. We have agreed with Torquay Council that the venue booking will be carried forward a further year to summer 2022, for next year’s British Chess Championships.

We can confirm that we will be organising a second British Online Chess Championships for the end of July/beginning of August 2021, with the same set of qualifiers, championships and rating-limited events as there were in the first, and very successful, BOCC held in December 2020/January 2021.

In addition, we are planning to organise a 2021 over-the-board British Championships in a slightly different format to take place in the first two weeks of October 2021, and based on –

• Championship places including qualifications for the cancelled 2020 British Chess Championships, together with new qualification places from the 2021 BOCC in August (as above)
• A number of smaller, geographically separated venues to host the different championships, which should reduce the numbers at any single location and avoid the need for players to travel long distances.

This means that we can resume with an over-the-board British Chess Championships in a different format after last year’s interruption. We will keep you posted with a detailed schedule, dates and entry forms for the online and over-the-board British events over the coming months, and look forward to the various British events later in the year.