So, what’s happening elsewhere in Yorkshire? It is difficult to tell how many local Associations have embarked on organising on-line chess events, whether between teams or individuals. Only the Sheffield & DCA shows up on the ECF LMS as doing so, but events can be set up outside LMS, and somebody will have been missed in what follows.

Bradford & DCA is running an individual competition. (See https://www.bradfordchess.co.uk/ONLINE-LEAGUE.php.)

Calderdale Evening Chess League seems not to have moved to on-line play.

Doncaster individuals have got on board HMS Rotherham.

Harrogate seems not to have moved to on-line play.

Huddersfield & DCA seems not to have moved to on-line play.

Hull & DCA has a Lichess “team”, as do the Beverley, Hull and St Andrews clubs, presumably tied in with their 4NCL teams, though no H&DCA internal team events are evident.

Leeds Chess Association seems not to have moved to on-line play.

Sheffield & DCA is, as you should know, about to launch its second “season” of team competition. There seems a need for a term better than “season”. (For 1st Season results see http://mannchess.org.uk/SEvents/2020-21OLSeason1.htm.) On the individual front, numerous individual competitions have been set up by the younger element of S&DCA member club, Rotherham. These seem to constitute the most extensive such project in Yorkshire, with events being opened up to players across Yorkshire as a whole. (See https://rotherhamonlinechess.azurewebsites.net/tournaments.)

York & DCA is not obviously doing anything on line, though their website is no help as it seems to have disappeared, and a York Chess Club Facebook page seems not to have been updated since before the start of the pandemic.

The Yorkshire Junior Chess Association, has moved, seemingly seamlessly, to running its events on line, and the Covid epidemic happily seems to have had little impact there, indeed the juniors may feel it is an improvement?!? (See https://www.yorkshirejuniorchess.org/.) Also, they have an on-line training session lined up for 17/03/2021, with Nick Nixon of Leeds as coach.

The Yorkshire Chess Association itself is of course about to embark on its second season.

There are 16 Yorkshire-based 4NCL teams: Chessable White Rose 1, 2 & 3, Hull & Beverley Romans 1 & 2, Bradford DCA Knights A, B & C, Chessmates, Darnall & Handsworth, Sheffield Deaf, St Andrews White Cross 1 & 2, Eagle and Child, Hebden Bridge 1 & 2.

There are 7 Yorkshire-based Junior 4NCL teams: Hull & York Vikings, Assassins, & Knights; Leeds Juniors 1, 2 &3; and SASCA Sharks.

Individuals will, or course, be playing as individuals on various on-line chess platforms.

What is evident when looking at various competitions is that there seems a low level of take-up among stronger players.

Something else one notices, which may even be a “turn off” for many potential players, is the nature of the names adopted by many players as their identities on Lichess (for instance).

One surprising result in the Rotherham Premier, Season 4, round 4, was Peter Ackley ½‑½ Peter Catt, played on11/02/2021. This is surprising in that one would expect Peter A to clobber Peter C. When you look on Lichess to see how this result could have come about, you find that the game was between “CarnMorDeargArete” and “LaBoredDonA”. The name (“handle”?) of the webmaster’s Doncaster I. M. Brown captain and Barnby Dun captain, in lock-down, is an obvious pun on the surname of the 19th-century Réunion-born French chess-player, Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais:

Does this look like Peter Catt? He certainly looks bored.

Carn Mor Dearg Arête is a ridge (arête) connecting Carn Mor Dearg to Ben Nevis. Carn Mor Dearg is an anglicised re-spelling of the Gaelic name, which means “big red hill”.

To play through the game CarnMorDeargArete v LaBoredDonA, click here.

Diversion for Linguists

“Carn Mor Dearg” is the diacritic-free English spelling of the Gaelic Càrn Mòr Dearg (the accents in Gaelic denoting long vowels), which is pronounced roughly as one would pronounce in English “carn more jerrack”, wherein the second syllable of the third word is epenthetic, i. e. non-radical, commonly arising in Gaelic between l or r and a following consonants – hence Scottish “fillum” for “film”. In Gaelic, càrn means “hill” or “small mountain”, mòr (or mór in some dialects, the two vowels corresponding to the two French long o-phonemes) means “big”, and dearg means “red”. (The “a” of dearg merely denotes the rg cluster is velarised rather than palatised – or hard rather than soft, if you know Russian. The ea is neither a diphthong nor a digraph, the spoken vowel being the e, while the a is in the nature of a diacritic or the Russia hard sign.)