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The 4NCL semi-finals produced two different matches – one pedestrian and the other exciting. Division Two :- -Ashfield Anonymous A – 3½ Charlton Cobras A – ½ Charlton, runners-up in Group B, might have been expected to produce a strong team for the semi-final. But they didn’t. The bottom two boards were from their “C” team and there was an…

Ashfield Anonymous “A” 4 Trelawny’s Army 0 There were three very different challenges in the 7th and final round of 4NCL on-line. Trelawny’s Army is a Cornish based team named after a local Bishop who denounced James II and was sent to the Tower of London. There’s a lot more about him but unfortunately turning to chess the Cornishmen fielded…

Ashfield 1 compete in the Division 3 Bishops league of the 4NCL. A report of the first weekend follows. Games can be viewed on the 4NCL website. Mike writes Ashfield 1 had varying fortunes in the first two rounds of the 4NCL. Saturday was a disaster with 4 games lost before the time control was reached. Hubert made it to…

Weekend one of the 4NCL was held over two separate weekends. Ashfield 2 and 3 played first and the games can be view on the 4NCLwebsite. Due to some vagaries of the Swiss Pairing System we had two sets of matches against the same teams at the weekend; Guildford Young Guns 1 and Peterborough United. The opening round was seeded…

Ashfield Anonymous “A” 4 Wessex “C” 0 Three of the games had finished in this match before any results had been posted by teams “B” and “C”. The remaining game did continue till the end of the session but that too never looked in doubt. Our team had already qualified for the play-offs and will face the second placed team…

At the NCA AGM in July a straw poll was taken from attendees about their use of social media. The only medium with significant usage was shown to be Whatsapp. Arising from this it was agreed that a Whatsapp Group for Notts Chess would help to improve communications and fast dissemination of news and information. This has now been set…

Round 5 of the 4NCL online took place on 5th November. The games can be viewed here – 4NCL Replays. Ashfield Anonymous “A” With two rounds to spare, the “A” team have already ensured a place in the play-offs. Their fifth win in a row to maintain a 100% record was not without incident. Board One was lost in tactical…

Radcliffe and Bingham Chess Club is delighted to announce that we are the proud winners of the English Chess Federation’s ‘Small Club of the Year’ Award for 2024. This national award recognises the enthusiastic and enjoyable environment we have created and also the contribution our members make to chess throughout the county. We have also had great success in starting…

Round three of the 4NCL Online took place on the 8th October Ashfield Anonymous “A” 3 v Dundee “C” 1 A win is a win. Richard’s opponent blundered into a mate in two after our early advantage had dissipated. Although material up David faced a pawn steam roller whilst Justin’s opponent exceeded the time limit with still plenty of play…

4NCL Online week two took place on the 24th September. Ashfield Anonymous “A” v Shropshire & Friends For a second successive week we were gifted a default win, David C was the recipient this time. With a penalty –½ it should have been plain sailing. However two of the games finished with blunders; Steve lost a piece and Alex C…

Ashfield Anonymous field three teams in the 4NCL Online. The 10th season is being played over seven rounds leading up to semi finals and finals just before Christmas. Ashfield Anonymous “A” started with a win over Oxford 3 who defaulted a board which resulted in a penalty ½ point deduction. Although Steve lost we had a relatively easy win from…

Jonah Willow has secured his first Grandmaster norm at a tournament in Norway. The event was held in the town of Fagernes, which is situated 114 miles north-west of Oslo. Jonah was first equal (second on tie-break) with GM Rinat Jumbayev of Kazakhstan with whom he drew his game in round 7. Jonah was unbeaten on 7/9, with a tournament…

The Nottinghamshire Chess Association AGM will be held on Monday 8th July at The Wolds, Loughborough Road, West Bridgford starting at 7:30 pm Clubs are entitled to attend, with one voting member per club plus one for each team in the NCA league for 23-24 season (including minor league teams). Officer Reports: please send to Nick London by 1st July…

The grand finale event to celebrate our centenary was a Grandmaster round-robin tournament in early November.  A range of invited English and overseas young stars competed against each other and against the established GMs in the hope of gaining title norms as well as valuable experience in a hard-fought event.  The venue was the Nottingham Mechanics Institute which proved to…

NCA has celebrated its first 100 years with the first ‘Chessfest’, an open-air event held in Nottingham’s Trinity Square – and all involved agree it was a tremendous success.  An estimated 500 people visited the event during the 6 hours that we took over the Square, including lots of enthusiastic children, parents and many passers-by who stopped for a game…

Further to the previous post, the Agenda and Proposals for the meeting have been sent to clubs They are also available here (you will need to press the “Continue Reading” button first). The EC Minutes, where the Centenary events were discussed, including the Centenary Working Group report are also available here.

Radcliffe and Bingham Chess Club has recently suffered the loss of two long-standing members of the Nottinghamshire chess community, both well known to generations of chess players in the area as teammates and foes over the board. George Murfet had early roots in the area and was an ‘old boy’ of Nottingham High School – from where I gather he…

Sadly we have lost another former pillar of the Notts Chess community. Alan was a valued member of the Sutton/Ashfield and Rainworth clubs for many years and held NCA posts, for example publishing the monthly Notts Bulletin in pre-website days. We hear that he passed away on 14/02/2023, aged 87 years old, and the funeral will take place, 3.00 pm…

We are sad to announce the loss of two longstanding members of the Notts Chess community. We understand that George’s funeral will be held at 14:30 at Wilford Hill Cemetery on Monday March 6th. If you wish to attend, we suggest you check with the Cemetery, as we don’t have direct contact with his family. We will pass on details…

The new charity for chess in Nottinghamshire has been established for year.  It has contributed to the success of several initiatives in the county and the trustees are looking forward to extending chess development in the next 12 months. The website for the charity has now been launched.  You can visit it and take a look at some of our…

Our team went down to a narrow defeat by 1.5 – 2.5. Martin Pettinger maintained his unbeaten record with a draw on Board 1. Alex Bentley scored an excellent win with black on Board 2. However Eagle and Child powered home with wins on the lower boards in tense finishes that went down to the wire. The match result was…

Ashfield Anonymous C has progressed to the Final of Division 4 of the 4NCL Online with a 3-1 win over Hertford 2. We reached this stage by winning our League section, scoring 13/14 points. Our top board, Martin Pettinger, has won his 8 games in this season’s competition. The Semi-Final was a new and daunting experience for the team as…

We were sad to learn of the death of Tom after a long battle with cancer. He was active in the Notts area in the 1970s and 80s, being a regular for the Nottingham Players club before moving to West Bridgford CC in 1975. He also represented the County both over the board and in correspondence chess, continuing to do…

The AGM will be held by Zoom on Friday 23/7/21 at 7:30pm. If you wish to represent your club, or to view the various officers’ reports, please contact your club secretary.  

Nick London explains below the details of this new local charity.He notes, in particular, that further trustees are needed to take part in the work of the charity, and that the NCA can nominate three further people to fill this role. The AGM, scheduled for 23rd July, will be an opportunity to express interest in this.If anyone reading this is interested, and would like to…