Munster Chess Union
This years Division 1 has Cork A, Adare, CCYMS, Ennis A, Sarsfield, Limerick, Ennis B and Tralee competing for the title and also to avoid relegation. While Cork won last year's league comfortably the bottom three teams ended on the same points!
Brian Scully is the chief arbiter this year and is responsible for submitting results to ICU and FIDE. He will also be responsible for resolving any disputes which arise, though it is hoped there won't be any of those. In general if a team captain is uncertain about the interpretation of a rule it is best to check with Brian in advance.
This year there are a number of rule changes due to changed FIDE requirements.In particular the results of each match have to be submitted to FIDE within 7 days. This means that team captains must enter their results within 48 hours. This gives time for the arbiter to submit results to the ICU Rating Officer in time to allow any issues to be resolved before submitting the results to FIDE.
A player who is not on the current ICU active rating list can be added to the team panel by providing the infomation necessary for FIDE registration. If the player has an existing FIDE number it must be provided along with the player�s FIDE federation. If the player is not FIDE registered he will be registered by the ICU Rating officer with Ireland as his federation. A player who has been inactive will need to supply their ICU code so that the correct account can be re-activated. All Munster League players must be paid-up ICU members.
Another important rule change passed by the AGM is that guest players may not play on the top two boards. Taken with the rule that a player cannot play above someone rated 200 points higher this is likely to have an impact on some teams. However it still povides a mechanism for smaller clubs to avoid conceding walkovers.
The full schedule can be downloaded in pdf format from the link on the right. This year because of Tralee being in Division 1 Frank is using some new venues to keep the travelling reasonable for all teams.
There will be two rounds played at each venue as shown in the schedule with teams swapping opponents for each round. The first round will be at 12:00 noon and the second round at 5:00 pm. This should allow a one hour break between rounds.
This year team captains will report results directly on this website using web forms. As mentioned above there will be a strictly enforced deadline of 48 hours for submitting results. Team captains who are allergic to technology (or indeed for any other reason) will be able to nominate a reporter who can submit the results for their team.