Dear Friends,
I would like to begin this article by thanking the ‘Bycco Team’ who organised the Flemish Chess Championships which took place from April 7-13 in the very spacious, comfortable, beautifully-renovated Floreal Hotel at Blankenberge, Belgium. Almost 140 players came along (many together with their families) to enjoy a wonderful week’s mixture of holidaying, relaxation, and keenly-fought, combative chess games too! The whole organisation was so good, efficient and friendly that it succeeded in catering for everyone including blind players, players in a wheel chair, and an enormous age range of something like 7.5 to 75 !! 👍❤️
You can get a lovely feel and flavour of it all via the video at the following link: https://www.facebook.com/ByccoBel/videos/393312143567239 😁
Whether people opted to take part in the 9-round Experts group, the 9-round Open section, or the 7-round Senior tournament like I did, everyone had the pleasure of playing their games on top-quality chess sets linked up to digital clocks such that the moves were broadcasted ‘live’ on the internet. I didn’t play in the evening ‘blitz chess’ competition on 11 April, but many people who do like speed chess went for that extra treat. 😊
At yesterday’s closing prize-giving ceremony, FIDE Master Arno Sterck, President of the Flemish Chess Federation, thanked the brilliant Bycco Team and everyone involved in making the entire event such a great success. 👌
International Master and organiser Tom Piceu won the Open section, young super-talent FIDE Master Jacob Dreelinck won in the Experts group, and I won the Senior tournament. We received stunning trophies created by Archery Dynamics Trofeeën (Ostend) 😍, and indeed many participants are receiving money prizes after performing really well.
Such events also depend on the support of generous sponsors such as Chess Consult (Tremelo), Talistro, and especially the Cronos Group (Kontich) which is the ‘Gold Sponsor’ of chess initiatives by the Bycco Team. 🙌💕
Here are several nice photos taken in and around the Floreal Hotel…
Chess Puzzle to Solve 😁
Mathematical Chess Tournament Brainteaser
Imagine that N players take part in a nine-round chess tournament and S different players take part in a seven-round chess tournament. For clarity and simplicity, assume the following details:- N and S are both even numbers. That helps in each round to pair players. N people will play 9 games each, not missing any rounds; S people will play 7 games each, not missing any rounds. We can deduce that the grand total number of chess games that will be played is 9N/2 + 7S/2. (Note: It’s NOT 9N + 7S, because we remember of course that 2 players are involved in each particular game.) 1 point will be awarded for each game: either 1 point to the winner if a game ends decisively, or 0.5 points to both players in a game if it ends in a draw. (There will be no default penalties or anything like that!!)
Here is your fun challenge brainteaser: Suppose that a total of precisely 1000 points has been scored by the end of the two tournaments! What is the exact total number of players N + S assuming that the difference N – S is as close as possible to zero? Sincere warm congratulations in advance for discovering two possible solutions (remembering that N – S could be either positive or negative). 👌🙌💕
I will always be delighted if you’d like to send me your own analytical solution by email. You could either type it yourself, or send me a nice, clear photo of your work. 👍
Please also have fun with the following word puzzle…
Rearrange the letters of I RUN SEND FILES to make U + ————
where ———— represents a proper 12-letter English word that you are warmly encouraged to find ❤️.
As an easy bonus word puzzle, rearrange the letters of RAN ROCKETS or of STAR RECKON to make the name of a president who’s turning 25 tomorrow (April 15)…and you can check your answer below…😊
To be honest, I’ve in general been so busy for quite a long time that I must soon catch up a bit with publishing solutions to various puzzles in certain previous articles, but in the meantime I’m going to now have a wee martini in advance honour of the 60th birthday coming soon of Martine, the mother of a dear Maths colleague of mine at Musica Mundi School in Waterloo, Belgium. I’m still fully intending to publish a fresh celebration article before Martine’s birthday later this month. Happy birthday wishes right now, though, to Flemish Chess Federation President ARNO STERCK, turning 5 x 5 tomorrow! 🙌😁
Paul Motwani 