Time is running so fast and February 2023 is almost over. League chess season is at its peak now and many hammers are defending our club colours week-in week-out and achieving very good results. Meanwhile, the club continues to offer its members year-long opportunities to play ECF-graded internal tournaments.
As a reminder, this year we have three different handicap year-long cups:
- The Sledgehammer Cup for Standard Play
- The Rockhammer Cup for Rapid Play
- The Hammersmith Handicap Blitz Cup
The current interim mid-season standings are as follows:
- Sledgehammer Cup: Charlie Rigby first, Peter Rose second
- The Rockhammer Cup: Ljubomir Koncar first, Andreas Antoniades second
- The Hammersmith Handicap Blitz Cup: Bajrush Kelmendi first, Harry Bryant Second
Those tournaments are open to all playing levels, and are based on a handicap framework so every player has very good chances to score. They are meant to be as flexible as possible and members are encouraged to contact other club members and organise their own OTB games for standard chess and rapidplay. This will encourage members to meet each other and play serious rated games at the time and place of their convenience, particularly during Monday club nights. With more than 200 players in the club, you could play a very large number of rated games during the year both in standard and rapidplay. We have a specially dedicated Whatsapp group for those tournaments where we publish the results and standings regularly and you are encouraged to come forward on this channel to contact other players and organise your games.
Additionally, the club secretariat will continue organising Sledgehammer, Rockhammer and Blitz special club nights, and in those special events participants will be paired for several games during the night.
Those tournaments are open to all Hammersmith Chess Club members. All you need to do is to contact your fellow club members, agree on an appointment for an OTB game, and then submit the game result via this link to the game submission form.
Please note that
- This year those tournaments will be OTB only.
- All OTB games are ECF-graded (except for Blitz), online games will not count towards the tournament.
- Players must be ECF-registered to play OTB games.
- Game results will only be accepted via the provided game submission form, results by email will not be accepted.
For complete information and rules, please have a look at the Hammer Tournaments Documentation
Good luck with the rest of the 2022/23 Hammer Tournaments Season!
The Internal Tournaments Team
How about two or three times a year a “Captains’ Hammer Night” when all the captains would be available to play sledgehammer or rockhammer games? It would be a good way for captains to meet new players and vice versa. And would be fun!