Charity fund-raising online chess tournament on Saturdays 2pm.
While social distancing is making over the board chess difficult to arrange a national chess initiative is being set up by keen chess player Jon Hill and his brother and coordinated by Joanne Ferry which it is hoped will raise £10000 for the NHS.
They will be hosting weekly tournaments every Saturday at 2pm on chess.com and are encouraging those who take part to donate to their Just Giving page ahead of playing.
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/playchessforthenhs
They are encouraging everyone to donate as much or as little as they can, even £1 to join in, and won’t be checking each players donation as they understand money is an issue for many at this difficult time. They will trust that everyone who joins in will have given what they can, and will continue to encourage playing chess as a means to keep our players occupied and safe at home during lockdown.
Chess.com’s app is currently under construction and so they ask that players use a mobile browser or laptop to play so they don’t encounter any issues. The tournaments will be an Arena style with a time limit of 1 hour with 10 minutes blitz standard chess games. It should be great fun as everyone gets to play different players from around the world as many times as they want to, within the hour. Their points are calculated at the end and the winners are announced.
The top 3 winners will receive an online trophy next to their username on chess.com. Also, the top ten winners of every tournament will be published on their Facebook page.
Malcolm Clarke
I have subscribed to the NHS charity tournament and I had hoped to be included in the yesterday’s tournament (9th. May). Can you tell me what to do to be included in next Saturday’s (16th May)?
Hi Don, you were almost there: I see you have registered on chess.com and also joined the ‘Play Chess For the NHS’ ‘club’ on chess.com. An hour before the next tournament the organiser will send a link within chess.com to club members (or go via the Play, Live Chess tabs) and get to the Tournament – then click on the Join button to join the actual tournament. Incidentally, yesterday’s was a TWO-hour event, which flew by: I enjoyed it. Kev Lamb.