September 14, 2018
At the Parks Leisure Centre in North Shields. There are four tournaments, a FIDE rated open, and 3 ECF graded restricted tournaments. The Major is U166, the Minor U136 and the Foundation U106. I believe there are 5 rounds in the Open, Major and Minor and 10 rounds in the Foundation but this isn’t clear from the website.
Time controls are also sadly lacking from the website. Last year they were game in 1 hour 50 minutes plus 10 second increment for the Open, Major and Minor and game in 1 hour with no increments for the Foundation. Perhaps they’ll be the same this year. If so and there is no increment in the Foundation will quickplay rules apply? If you are playing in the Foundation probably best to ask the arbiter to clarify before the first round as quickplay rules can only apply if announced beforehand.
The important part of the quickplay rules to be aware of is in Guidelines III.4 of the FIDE Laws of Chess. It says:
If the player having the move has less than two minutes left on his clock, he may request that an increment extra five seconds be introduced for both players. This constitutes the offer of a draw. If the offer refused, and the arbiter agrees to the request, the clocks shall then be set with the extra time; the opponent shall be awarded two extra minutes and the game shall continue.
What this means is that once your time goes under 2 minutes if you are worried about losing on time you can ask for this and the 5 second increment can give you the chance to draw the game rather than lose on time. When you make the claim your opponent can take a draw if you have a won game at that stage.
