Worcestershire Chess Association |
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| Worcs CA | Online County matches | WMA Online League | Correspondence Chess | ECF online events | |
Online chess for Worcestershire players | |||||
There are four county teams playing in season 12 starting in September 2025. Teams A and B play in Division 2 and C and D teams play in Division 4. All games are on Tuesday evenings on lichess using a 45 min + 15 sec time control. The teams are managed by Ray Collett and Alex Nicholls (both Worcester). Click here for this season’s results.
Malvern and Malvern Arena (7:30pm Thursday evenings. Rapid, 10min + 5 sec control)
Marches Area Monday Games Arena (7:30pm Monday evenings. Rapid, 10 min + 5 sec time control)
Stourbridge (chess.com) Stourbridge (lichess.org)
Worcester City (chess.com) and Worcester Online (lichess.org)
ECF Worcestershire (for ECF online county matches)
The ECF English Chess Online web site gives details of ECF tournaments rapidplay and blitz tournaments and events on lichess.org and chess.com platforms. The ECF has teams in online international events such as the chess.com Live Chess World League and European and Mediterranean Leagues with matches on Saturday or Sunday. On the lichess platform, the ECf play in the Bundesliga, Liga Ibera and Champions League. GM Matthew Sadler and WIM Natasha Regan commentate selected games on their YouTube Game Changer Channel and the Twitch ECF Commentary with guest streamers. Alex Holowczak (Oldbury) organises the online English Junior team events at lichess.org including international team matches.
All players on line should read these two ECF policies, which are used by Worcestershire Chess Association, and ensure they are followed. Team captains in WMA and ECF events should draw team players’ attention to these policies. ECF Fair Play and Anti-cheating Rules for online chess. The Four nations Chess League - 4NCL - has specific fair play rules.
Stephen Woodhouse 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 must have to have a free or paid registration with chess.com, and be an ECF bronze, silver or platinum member (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. See detailed results of online county matches.
Apl 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic originated in China probably in the last part of 2019. The spread of this respiratory infection was declared a global health emergency late in January 2020 and the first UK cases were detected late in January. In February more and more case were reported in England and hospital intensive care capacity was full leading to calls for the Government to take action in early March. Several clubs had already closed their doors by the second week in March and WCA suspended all play in the Worcestershire League on 14 March. A week later the UK Government imposed a 'lockdown' prohibiting all but essentail travel. Nigel Towers (Redditch) took up the challenge to get members playing online and his work was endorsed by WCA in early April. Although Nigel was not able to replicate the missing over-the-board league, he widened the net by asking clubs in neighbouring leagues to participate. The first 'practice' matches using a board board team playing two rapidplay games with the same opponent were played in mid-April and the first league matches on 30 April. There were sufficient team entries that the league was run in with two divisions.
Greenlands, Redditch, Stourbridge, and Worcester City played in the first online Spring 2020 league. Worcester city players were joined by members from Droitwich and the league itself included an off-shore guest, the Isle of Wight Chess Club organised by former Worcestershire team captain John Wrench. See first season results in West Midlands Online Rapidplay league.
Apl 2020 to May 2021. The league was formed in response to the Covid-19 epidemic when players were not able to play in person. The major promotors of the online league were Nigel Towers (Redditch), Stephen Woodhouse (Greenlands) and Rob Sutton (Worcester). Matches were played on the chess.com platform between 4-board teams using a rapidplay time control of 5 minutes plus 10 seconds increment from move 1.
Worcestershire team's results in WMA Spring 2021 season
Worcestershire team's results in WMA Autumn 2020 season
Worcestershire team's results in WMA Summer 2020 season
Worcestershire teams’ results in WMA Spring 2020 Season
The league was organised by three Worcestershire players and their website is hosted by the association: see menu top right. Several Worcestershire clubs played in the first Spring 2020 season and more joined for the second season, Summer 2020. The following Worcestershire clubs have teams in the WMA online league. Division 1 includes Longbridge 1, Redditch, Worcester 1; and in Division 2, there are Longbridge 2, Kidderminster, Stourbridge, and Worcester 2. See WMA web pages for full results.
Oct 2020 to Nov 2020. Worcestershire entered teams in both the open and the u1825 competitions. Worcestershire faced Greater Manchester and Shropshire in the open tournament and Greater Manchester for the u1825 Midlands title. The MCCU decided to use the lichess platform after a trial friendly match was played against Manchester. Worcestershire beat Shropshire to finish runners-up in the open competition, but lost all three matches against Manchester. See MCCU online matches 2020 for full results.
Jun-Aug 2020. Worcestershire entered the Open competition and were placed in group 2B where the team came third and progressed to the final of the Minor Counties Online Championship. Worcestershire play Somerset for the championship on 22 August. See online 2020 county team results.
12 Sep 2020. Worcestershire lost narrowly to Greater Manchester in a friendly match to trial the lichess.org platform for county play.
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