Southend 2025

Welcome

Thank you for your entry to the Southend Easter Chess Festival!

You have reached the landing page of the Festival website. This page is exclusively for entrants to the Festival. It is not linked to the main site navigation, so please bookmark this page so that you can return here when you wish.

You can find here details of the Festival schedule and other information that you might like to know.

The full details of the Festival are given on this page: Festival details

Travel

Venue: Southend Adult Community College, Ambleside Drive, Southend SS1 2UN.

By road: Venue map below. There is a large free car park on site.

By rail: 137 metres from Southend East station, c2c line

Map link: Congress venue

Accommodation

Accommodation near Southend East station

Terms & Conditions

This year, we have gathered together the”rules and regs” into one place, the Terms & Conditions document. Most of this is scattered about the pdf Entry Form, but there is also the online version. The T&C is the official version and trumps anything that is given in the other two locations and is linked below.

Southend 2025 Terms & Conditions

Festival Schedule

Rapid

1 day, 6 rounds. G25+5
Thursday 17 April – Round 1 10.30 am, finish by 6.00 pm.

Congress

Friday 18th April	Round 1 at 11am, Round 2 at 4pm
Saturday 19th April	Round 3 at 11am, Round 4 at 4pm
Sunday 20th April	Round 5 at 11am, Round 6 at 4pm
Monday 21st April	Final Round 7 at 11am

Live Games

We will have 30 boards broadcasting live games to the internet, on chess.com. These will cover all the games in Room 3 and the Hall (i.e. the Rapid and the Congress FIDE Open). If there are less than 60 entries in the Congress FIDE Open, the top boards in the Congress U1900 will be covered. E.g. if the entries to the Congress FIDE Open are 50 (= 25 boards), the top five boards of the U1900 will also be covered.

Room and Board Assignments

…will appear here on the Arbiters’ Notices page (link below) when the organising team have established the seating plan.

Arbiters’ Notices

Time controls

Rapid G25+5
All moves in 25 minutes plus 5 seconds increment per move.

Congress All 7-Round sections G90+30
All moves in 90 minutes + 30 seconds increment per move.

NB In accordance with the FIDE Laws of Chess, when an increment is 30 seconds or more, all moves must be recorded, even if your time remaining goes below 5 minutes.

Ratings

For all sections players’ ratings in lists at 1 April 2025 will be used. If you have entered a rating-limited section and, after publication of the April lists, are no longer eligible for the section you have entered, you will have to change section. However, if you do not wish to play in the (any of) the section(s) for which you are then eligible and you wish to withdraw, we will be sorry to lose you but we will make a full refund of the entry fee(s) paid.

All sections will be submitted for ECF rating. The Rapid FIDE Open and the Rapid FIDE and ECF U1700, the Congress FIDE Open and the FIDE and ECF U1900 results will be submitted for FIDE rating.

Prize Giving

Prizes will be distributed by Bank transfer. There will be no Prize Giving ceremony. Players in the prize list will be asked to provide their bank details.

Giant Chess

Giant Chess is John Chapman, Ian Hunnable and Norman Went, a not-for-profit unincorporated association of individuals formed specifically for running the Southend Easter Chess Congress. All three have been involved with running the Congress since 2015 and John Chapman was involved as the Congress Scecretary with the previous organisers and founders, Southend Chess Club.

Giant Chess was formed in 2019 by Constitution.