BCCF E-MAIL BULLETIN #406 Your editor welcomes any and all submissions – news of upcoming events, tournament reports, and anything else that might be of interest to BC players. Thanks to all who contributed to this issue. To subscribe, send me an e-mail (
[email protected]); if you no longer wish to receive this Bulletin, just let me know. Stephen Wright HERE AND THERE Canadian University Chess Championships (January 16-17) As with so many other events of late, this annual collegiate team championship adopted a very different approach for this year's competition. Rather than traditional team versus team pairings, the tournament utilized the arena format on lichess.org in a more casual event at a faster time control. Players participated as individuals with no limit to the number of players on a team, but only the top five individual scores counted toward the team total. In an arena tournament there are no set rounds, competitors attempt to play as many games as they can within a set time limit (in this case, four hours). 2 points are awarded for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss, but these amounts can be doubled if a player establishes and maintains a winning streak. An additional point is also available if the player chooses to play in berserk mode, i.e., giving up half the initial time on their clock (time control was 10 + 5). The competition was held in two stages, three preliminary groups on January 16 which involved three hundred and seventy-six players in twenty-three teams.