Counties Chess
Union
Midland Counties Chess Union |
Most recent news at top. Current news is on the home page.
Last updated 16 January 2026
News in the 2025-6 seasons
First u1650 matches played. Staffs and Warks win
25 Oct 2025. Warks-Derbys. Derbyshire scored a narrow victory over Warwickshire at Coleshill, Warks. See details.
11 Oct 2025. Staffs-Lincs. Staffordshire beat Lincolnshire 9-7 in a 16 board match. See details. The match began with Staffs taking a quick 3-0 lead and looking in a strong position on many boards. Gradually Lincs began to claw back into contention, but Staffs were aboe to make two draws to secure the win.
Worcs Champion wins Guernsey International Congress
25 Oct 2025. WGM Kata Toma followed up her win at Worcester with first place at Guernsey. She won on tie break from FM Hamish Olsen (SCO) with 5½ points from seven games. See details.
Birmingham FIDÉ Rapid and Blitz
4 Oct 2025. Dragos-George Munteanu (Derbys) Bruce Baer (Birmingham), and Luke Honey (Devon) shared first prize with 4 points from their five rapidplay games. Ethan Lynch (Warks) dominated the Blitz with wins in all seven games. The event attracted eighteen players, was played a Bishop Iseley School, Acocks Green, Birmingham and organised by Domenico Napolitano.
Birmingham UK Open Blitz Qualifier27 Sep 2025. The qualifiers were Siva Mahadevan (Warks) on 12½ points and top woman Carmel Barwick (Cheshire) on 8½ from 15 rounds. The 64-player event organised the ECF at Quinborne Cummunity Centre, Quinton with arbiters IA Alex Holowczak (Oldbury) and IO Dipal Patel (S Birmingham). |
Winner of the Women’s qualification pictured last year by John Saunders |
27 Sep 2025. u1650 Warks-Worcs.Worcs defaulted a board in a 12-board match and in the end Warks won with that advantage. See details.
27 Sep 2025. Derbys-Staffs. Peter Evans and David Pickering report. Over 16 boards, the final result was an 8-8 draw at Rolls Royce Derby. As Derbyshire’s Under 1450 players have not yet formed a team, the captains agreed to reserve the lower four boards for under 1450 players. The lead changed hands several times. Eventually two boards were left. Staffs won the sixth board to reach 8 points and on the last board with the clocks ticking away, and the Derbyshire player achieved a past pawn and victory with only 2 minutes to spare. A hard but cleanly fought drawn match. One player remarked that he enjoyed his hard fought game - the last to finish - and David Pickering commented that county chess allows time to play a game to its logical conclusion. See details.
Matches for the MCCU team championships
12 Sep 2025, Stephen Smithson reports. The fixtures lists are available on the ECF League management System. The first match for the MCCU county team championship is in mid-November; the first of ten u1650 matches is on 27 September, and the u1850 match between Lincolnshire and Staffordshire is on 21 February 2026.
Nottingham UK Open Blitz Qualifier
7 Sep 2025. WFM Elis Denele Dicen (Warks) qualified as top female player with 9½ points in this fifteen-round event. IM Aaravamudhan Balaji (London) won the tournament with 14 points and also qualifies. Forty players competed in this event organised by Alex Holowczak (Worcs) for the the ECF with arbiters FA Hambel Willow (Notts), FA John Bowley (Essex) and NA Marcel Taylor (Notts)