European Team Championships

sodacat11

One player is needed for each team as David Houston has now withdrawn. It should be an excellent event and Croatia is a beautiful country. https://www.icu.ie/events/1168

Retd.LoyolaCpt

5th player confirmed for the 50+

Retd.LoyolaCpt

2 vacancies for the 65+.

ishidaogo

I think i will give this one a miss as there is no airport on the island and it looks like ferry connections are spasmodic.

sodacat11

ishidaogo wrote: »

I think i will give this one a miss as there is no airport on the island and it looks like ferry connections are spasmodic.

The organsiers arrange transfers from most airports such as Rijeka, Pula and Zadar so getting there is not that difficult. My preference is to fly to Zadar as that doesn't involve having to stay overnight anywhere on the way.

Tim Harding

ishidaogo wrote: »

I think i will give this one a miss as there is no airport on the island and it looks like ferry connections are spasmodic.

There is a small airport and a Czech airline flies to it from Pula and Venice but at a probably prohibitive cost for pensioners. If money is no object, the Venice route may be best.

When I thought it might still be possible for me to go, I did quite a lot of research on travel options. Flying back from Pula with Aer Lingus looked fine but the problem was getting there. The flight in on the day before the event starts arrives late evening at Pula, probably too late to catch the last ferry even if the flight is on time.

I didn't see any flights to Zadar, sodacat, but maybe you have found something?

All in all, the journey looks rather arduous for over-65s but we will try to field our strongest team(s) for the World Seniors at Prague in March.

sodacat11

Tim Harding wrote: »

All in all, the journey looks rather arduous for over-65s but we will try to field our strongest team(s) for the World Seniors at Prague in March.

Is the world senior not being held in Assisi, Italy?

Tim Harding

sodacat11 wrote: »

Is the world senior not being held in Assisi, Italy?

The 2020 individual will be in Assisi (November 2020) but the World Teams are in Prague, from 4-15 March. (That's a wide spread of dates for a 9-round event so I suppose they are not sure exactly when it will start and end.)

The 2019 Individual will be in Bucharest this November. I intend to go.

See my senior event calendar:
http://www.chessmail.com/seniors/Seniors-calendar.html

Tim Harding

Stewart Reuben just announced the English teams for Croatia; they are sending two 50+ and two 65+, none of them particularly strong.

https://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=10208

Fourth post in the thread.

sodacat11

I wrote to the Croatian organisers over a week ago asking about transfers from Zadar and didn't even get a reply. I still haven't decided how best to get there.
Looking at the last year this was held it wasn't as strong as I would have expected.A lot of very strong countries didn't send teams at all so it was won by Italy with three GMs and two I.Ms in their team. Hopefully Croatia will be a more popular venue than Poland was.
Incidentally, wouldn't it be nice if Ireland was to host one of the European or World events like this sometime? Something like the World Seniors would attract a lot of tourism and I am sure would be very welcome in any rural town in Ireland.

Retd.LoyolaCpt

sodacat11 wrote: »

Incidentally, wouldn't it be nice if Ireland was to host one of the European or World events like this sometime? Something like the World Seniors would attract a lot of tourism and I am sure would be very welcome in any rural town in Ireland.

We've spoken about it. One of the difficulties is finding any organiser/ICU rep who'd still be guaranteed to be involved in 2-3 years (as you've to apply years in advance obviously). Another is that Irish hotel rates are a lot higher than those of countries we'd be competing with in Central/Eastern Europe. Then there's a lack of arbiters, we have 9 active FA/IAs - they'd have to be shipped in or trained up (I'd like to do the latter anyway). There's other difficulties but these come to mind first.

Still, I agree it would be nice, theoretically.

Retd.LoyolaCpt

Both teams now full.

50+
Paul Wallace
Peter Cafolla
Anthony Fox
Brendan Lyons
David Salter

65+
Kevin James
Martin Lohan
Colm Egan
Syd Cassidy
Joe Durkan