FOLLOWING last week’s annual meeting (thanks to all those who attended), I can now announce the schedule for the first half of 2005.January 18, 25: Six-round rapid tournament (as announced earlier)

January 30-February 9: GM tournament at Harmony Club

February 1, 8: No regular club meetings

February 10: Cocktail party followed by blitz tournament

February 11-13: International Open at Fairmont Southampton Princess Hotel

February 15-March 22: Six-round Championship Qualifier Tournament

March 29: Bermuda Blitz Championships

April 5-June 7: Ten-round Bermuda Closed Championship

April 5-May 3: Five-round Swiss tournament

May 10-June 7: Five-round Swiss tournament

June 14, 21: Six-round handicap rapid tournament

June 28: To be decided

Some of these events may require a little explanation, although readers of last week’s column will have guessed that this year’s Bermuda Championship format has been designed to take maximum advantage of the fact that we now boast three internationally rated players.

The rules for building a rated event around three such players are quite restrictive, and the most realistic chance of producing a fourth seems to result from a six-player event in which all competitors play each other twice.

It is, of course, unprecedented for our Championship not to accept unrestricted entry, and you may be assured that a traditional 2005 Bermuda Open Championship will take place in the second half of the year. However, it is vital that the ten-round event be recognised as a “national championship”, otherwise it wouldn’t count.

Three of the players in the closed event will obviously be taken by our rated players (whether they wish to play or not!) but there will presumably be great demand for the other three.

That is why the earlier Swiss tournament has been designated a “qualifier” — the top three unrated players will earn the right to play in the championship. While that is going on, the parallel events for those not taking part in the long competition will offer the winners a place in the rated events that we hope to organise later in the year.

It should be noted that it is by no means a certainty that anyone will score well enough to achieve an international rating — a performance result of over 1800 is required, which will not be easy. However, the event has been structured to ensure that three players will at least have an ideal opportunity to shoot for it.

Plans for the Harmony Club grandmaster tournament are now finalised. The first round will commence at 2 p.m. on Sunday, January 30, and will be preceded by a brief opening ceremony to which all local players are, of course, most welcome.

There will then be rounds played at the same time on every day until Wednesday, February 9, with the exception of the rest day on the middle Friday. Games can take a maximum of seven hours, but the first time control will be at 6 p.m., and the period just before that is often the most exciting time to come along and watch.

This Tuesday we played the first half of a rapid-play tournament, in which each player had 20 minutes to lay all of his moves, and this will be concluded next week. Anyone who missed the earlier rounds but would like to play a few games of competitive chess can certainly be inserted into the draw provided they are at the Chamber of Commerce by 7.45 p.m. next Tuesday.

After that regular club meetings take a rest for two weeks, but as mentioned earlier visitors to the Harmony Club will find chess being played, and to a somewhat higher standard than we are generally accustomed. I hope we will have spectators every day, but in particular on the Tuesdays, which many of you set aside for chess anyway.

I seem to have caused some confusion in last week’s puzzle by accidentally giving Black a third rook. The correct position is shown in the diagram. David Shanks, our tireless tournament organiser, solved the double problem by first removing the phantom rook on a8 and then finding, as did nine-year-old Elisabeth Paehtz, the spectacular move . . . Rg8-g3, forcing immediate resignation.