A message from the 4NCL:
We’re pleased to confirm that after the success of our first online season we’ll be holding season 2 (and, we hope, season 3) of the 4NCL Online and 4NCL Junior Online leagues. The schedule is expected to be as follows:
Entry forms for season 2 will shortly be available on the 4NCL website, together with the rules and fair play guidelines.
Many thanks to everyone who responded to the 4NCL Online and Junior 4NCL surveys (which you can find on the 4NCL website); we’ve taken account of the feedback in a number of areas:
The group stage will consist of seven rounds APA (divisions 1-4). Division 5 will be a seven-round Swiss.
Play-offs in Divisions 1-4 will consist of semi-finals and finals (so no quarter-finals).
The penalty for defaults and team list errors is reduced from a game point to half a game point in recognition of the fact that there are only four players per team.
We thought long and hard about the frequency of matches. A majority of people participating in the survey favoured weekly matches, but on reflection we have gone with fortnightly matches for the following reasons:
(a) The appeals process for season 2 under the fair play guidelines is in our view more robust than the earlier guidelines, and we need to allow sufficient time for any appeals both to Lichess and to the appeals committee;
(b) Organising weekly matches for two leagues in season 1 placed a significant admin burden on the 4NCL team which we need to be cognisant of;
(c) We’re very conscious of the risk of fixture congestion as online chess continues to grow in popularity, and would like to play our part in not adding to the problem;
(d) Fortnightly matches give clubs that play on Tuesdays (4NCL Online) or Thursdays (4NCL Junior Online) the chance, should they wish to avail themselves of it, of having a conversation with their OTB league fixture secretaries about avoiding clashes between the 4NCL Online dates and evening league dates as and when OTB resumes.
- A player will only be eligible to play for a team in the play-off matches if at least half of the total number of games he/she played in the group stage were played for the team in question.
We’re going for a modest entry fee of £10. We hope that nobody would begrudge the 4NCL team at least some small financial recognition of their efforts, and we would also like to upgrade the number and quality of the trophies we can provide.
Finally, we’re going to run a couple of further events:
A seven-round online autumn congress with one round played each fortnight from 1 September to 24 November inclusive;
A second 4NCL online congress played over the weekend of 21-23 August.