Worcestershire Chess News

 

3 Aug. Worcestershire go through to the finals for the Minor Counties Open. Worcestershire were pipped on tie-break by Shropshire who were held to a 6-6 draw by Hampshire, for the runners-up position in Open Division 2B of the ECF Counties Online competition. In spite of this, Worcestreshire go through to the knock-out stage of the Open team Minor Counties competition. Worcestershire play Berkshire on Saturday 8 August at 6:30pm. If you can play, please contact Stephen Woodhouse.

 

25 Jul. Worcestershire beat Hampshire 8½-3½. All four of Worcester City’s players in the team - Ray Collett, Robin Hayles, Tony Shaw, and Matthew Holmes scored wins - as did Kevin Hurney (Greenlands), Nigel Towers (Redditch), Russell Scott (Redditch) and Ian Ellis (Greenlands). Shropshire were held to a draw by Somerset and have the same number of match points as Worcestershire, so unless they lose against bottom-of-table Hampshire in their match next weekend Worcestershire won’t get to the finals.

 

25 Jul. WGM Katarzyna Toma picked for English Olympiad squad. Katarzyna (Evesham) is in the reserves for the Online Olympiad. Teams have six players of which at least three are female and two are juniors. England start their campaign on 1 August and you can watch play chess.com.

 

23 Jul. Alex Holowczak appointed Chief FIDÉ Arbiter for Online Olympiad. The FIDÉ over-the-board Olympiad scheduled for August was replaced by an Online Olympiad starting 25 July. Alex (Oldbury) heads a team of fourteen Arbiters for this tournament.

 

18 Jul. Worcestershire scored its first online win beating Somerset 8-4. Harry Evans (Redditch), Nigel Towers (Redditch), Stephen Woodhouse (Greenlands), Scott Russell (Redditch), Hossam Aboushady (Stourbridge), Robin Hayles (Worcester) and Matthew Holmes (Worcester) won their games. This win makes it possible for the team to progress to the KO stages of the competition. See full results.

 

4 Jul. Worcestershire lose to Cumbria. Although Worcestershire players have faced those from Cumbria in corresepondence chess, it’s possible that these two counties have never met in over-the-board play. Worcestershire again was unable to recruit many leading players and the team welcomed Kevin Hurney (Greenlands) to play on board 1. The match was played over 14 boards and Cumbria gained victory by a single point. Congratulations to Harry Evans (Redditch), Nigel Towers (Redditch), Hossam Aboushady (Stourbridge), Scot Russell (Redditch) and Arnold Kirkland (Droitwich) who won their games. There are now links to the game scores at chess.com for each game. See full results.

 

23 Jun. South Birmingham and Warwick University get first online league honours. Worcestershire teams occupied the bottom three places in Division 1 and Stourbridge 1 was the most successful Worcestershire team in Division 2, finishing mid-table. Division 1 was contested by eight teams. Winners South Birmingham 1 had 19 match points. Worcestershire teams occupied the 5th, 6th, and 7th places: Redditch (9 match points), Worcester 1 (7 match points) and and Greenlands (6 match points) respectively. Division 2 was contested by ten teams and won Warwick University with 22 match points. Stourbridge 1 was the most successful Worcestershire team and placed 4th with 22 match points. Stourbridge 2 were 6th on 21 match points and Worcester 2 were 9th on 13 match points. See full Worcestershire teams’ results for the Spring 2020 season.

 

20 Jun. Worcestershire lose to Shropshire online. In the first match proper in ECF Online Counties Championship Open Division 2B, the county lost 7½ - 4½. Matthew Holmes (Worcester) had the only winning game. Click for full score.

 

Worcestershire trounced online by Gloucestershire

7 Jun. This match was played as a preliminary match in thge ECF online county competition so that players could familiarise themselves with online play. Worcestershire was soundly beated 3½-8½. Julie Wilson (Stourbridge) was the only winner, Nigel Towers (Redditch) scoring a useful draw against a much higher graded opponent. For detailed results, see here.

 

Worcestershire register for online county chess

28 May. Stephen Woodhouse has created an "ECF Worcestershire club" on chess.com and the county will enter a team in the ECF online counties championship to be played on Saturdays in June and July. To play for Worcestershire, players will have to have a freeor paid registration with chess.com and send an email to Stephen Woodhouse so he can send you instructions on how to join the ECF Worcestershire club. Play starts at 6:30pm on Saturdays and uses a time control of 60 minutes plus 15 seconds increment from move 1.

 

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