Online teams score three match wins

18 Mar 2025, Round 5. Team A suffered another defeat but prospects for mainataining a place in Division 2 are no worse because another tailender defaulted their games. Team B beat Giuldford 2 in Division 3 with the help of a win by Mark Bethel (Longbridge) in his debut game for the Wolfpack squad. The B team just in the top half of the group A table. In Division 5, the C team secured a win against Barnet Knights C through defaults and team D won against Chess Challengers C. The C team is in in eighth place and the D team is in sixteenth position out of twenty six teams. See details and links to games

Online teams maintain positions in 4NCL League

4 Mar 2025. Team D received a bye in Division 5. Team A drew and kept alive their chances of surviving in Division 2 ending the round third from bottom place in Group A. Team B lost and are now fifth of the eight teams in group A of Division 3. Team C drew and are eleventh out of 25 teams, yet still have chances for promotion. Peter Kitson, Glen Cox (both Worcestershire Online), Paul Serafini and Sai Rentachintala (both Worcester) won their games. See details and links to games.

Funeral of former Worcestershire champion and association vice-president

2 Mar 2025. Eric Horwill reports the sad passing of Peter Keate, a former vice-captain of Worcestershire I team in 1965 and a Vice-President of Worcestershire Chess Association for nearly half a century. He died on 15 January. Peter shared the Worcestershire individual championship in the 1965/6 season with Theo Grove. In the early 1960s, Peter played top board for Dudley in the Worcestershire League and he played in numerous county matches for Worcestershire. He was also a founding member of the Dudley & District Chess League. Peter was a lecturer in English at Halesowen College and made a study of Worcestershire archives. Former Worcestershire county team captain Maurice Bissell told me he often gave Peter a lift to matches and Peter was always pleased if the route followed the course of a Roman road. A fellow player at Dudley, Eric Horwill, found Peter to be a very private person: "He was a good friend and quite generous in company!"

Kidderminster and Longbridge players at Wightlink Congress

21 Feb 2025. John Wrench (Kidderminster) finished with 3 points from his six games in the u2000 week-long tournament. Darren Witmore (Longbridge) played ion the weekend Open tournament and score 1½ points.

Online teams fare poorly in round 3

18 Feb 2025. Only two Worcestershire players, Jim O’Dell (Worcs Online) and Samuel Thomas (Wporcester) won their games in round 3 of the 4NCL online leagues . The A and B tean=ms will need better results in future rounds to avoid relegation. See detailed results.

Worcestershire u1650 team win Midlands competition

15 Feb 2025. Worcestershire met Lincolnshire at Droitwich. The teams were matched in terms of players’ ratings. Lincolnshire took an early lead and Worcestershire levelled the score only when there was a single game remaining play. Worcestershire prevailed in the final game to win witrh 6½ points in the twelve board match. Alex Nicholls (Worcester), Nigel Foster (Shirley & Wythall), Giles Stanton (Redditch), Arnold kirkland Simon Berry (both Worcester), and John Loynes (Stourbridge) won their games. This result makes Worcestershire Midlands u1650 champions and a place in the national finals starting with the quarter final match on 10 May. See detailed results.

Worcestershire play two county matches: won one, lost one 8 Feb 2025. Worcestershire playing at Droitwich beat Warwickshire in the Midlands u1650 team championship. Adam Ware (Stourbridge), Luke Barton (Kidderminster), Brandon Wilkes (Kidderminster), Daniel Jones (Stourbridge), and Giles Stanton (Redditch) won their games. See detailed results. 8 Feb 2025. Worcestershire travelled to a neutral venue at East Goscote, Leics to play Lincolnshire in the last match of the season for the Midland team Championship. Marcus Walsh (Longbridge) and Joe (Worcester) won their games. In the position shown on the right, Joe Rastall's opponent has just played ..Rd1-e1. Can you see Joe’s beautiful winning reply? Although the team lost, they should still receive an MCCU nomination to play in the national finals being several points clear of Staffordshire who lost to Worcestershire in October. See detailed results.

Rastall-Thompson, 2025, Bd 12 Worcs-Lincs. Can you see white’s winning reply?

County online teams meet resistance in 4NCL

4 Feb 2025. After two rounds of the new Four nations Chess League season starting in January, the promoted Wolfpack A lies at the bottom of Division 2 Group A, but having the same number of game points as two other teams and will have to find winning form to remain in the Division. The B team is in third position in Division 3 group A with three match points and can have realistic chances for promotion. Team C is in sixth position of Division 5 with 3 match points and team D is twentieth out of a field of 25 teams. New players to the squad this season have scored well. See latest results and links to games.

New Year joy for Worcester and Halesowen

9 Jan 2025. In the first Championship League matches of the New Year, Worcester beat Malvern and Halesowen got their first match win by beating Kidderminster. See match cards.

Worcestershire players go to Telford

5 Jan 2025. Nigel Towers, Giles Stanton, David Smith and Ben Attwell from Redditch and Aiden Griffiths and Tony Shaw from Worcester clubs played in the Shropshire Chess Congress, but the snow precluded travel on Sunday for Nigel, Ben and Tony. Aiden scored 3½ points in the Minor, Giles 2 in the Intermediate and David 1 point in the Major.

Lightning Champion at Kidderminster

1 Jan 2025. Sixteen players turned out for Kidderminster's annual lightning championship. Joseph Friar added to his titles winning with a 100% record. The event was organised by Tim Yates. Picture shows Tim briefing players at the start of a round.

 

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