Sheffield & District Chess Association

Established 1883

 

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13/02/2024

Sheffield International

 

No, not an airport, but an event partly aimed at facilitating the acquisition of IM norms which is being developed by Jonathan Arnott at the Sheffield Chess Centre, 329A Coleford Road, S9 5NF from 10th to 14th April 2024.

 

Besides the invitational “Masters” section which is to be a 9-round all-play-all (i.e. 10 players, some already GMs or IMS and the others hoping to take sufficient scalps to earn an IM norm) there is to be a 9-round FIDE-rated Open section.

 

The event has a website which at the time of writing is in its early stages of development: https://sheffieldchessinternational.uk/.

 

 

Such a norm-qualifier event is not without precedent in Sheffield & District territory.  In an earlier century Brian Stephenson organised one at the Carlton Hotel in Rotherham.  One player then was the late IM Andrew J Whiteley who displayed an interest in the local fauna and flora, asking the writer whether the Purple Heron was native to the UK and asking me to identify a botanical specimen he had collected.  He’d possibly been tramping round the boggier parts of South Yorkshire and had perhaps spotted the common Grey Heron.  I could advise that the Purple Heron was not resident in the UK and that his botanical specimen was of Cotton Grass (which is actually a sedge).