Our season of competitive matches against other clubs begins on September 9th. During this period the club is also available for casual games and games in our internal championships. To help understand when we are likely to be relatively busy or quiet please see the initial schedule below.
Tuesday
Casual games
Matches at home
19/08/2025
Yes
0
26/08/2025
Yes
0
02/09/2025
Yes
0
09/09/2025
Yes
1
16/09/2025
Yes
2
23/09/2025
Yes
1
30/09/2025
Yes
2
07/10/2025
Yes
2
14/10/2025
Yes
1
21/10/2025
Yes
1
28/10/2025
No club night
04/11/2025
Yes
2
11/11/2025
Yes
2
18/11/2025
Yes
1
25/11/2025
Yes
2
02/12/2025
Yes
1
09/12/2025
Yes
0
16/12/2025
Yes
1
23/12/2025
Christmas blitz
0
30/12/2025
Break
Club closed
06/01/2026
Yes
2
If you would like to enter our internal competition and play rated games against other members please contact Phil McKeown who has volunteered to run this year’s competitions. This competition will run from September to the end of May.
On 23rd December we will hold our usual time-handicapped Christmas blitz tournament. No need to register in advance, just turn up by 7.30pm.
We also hope to have another Christmas meal in December; Piotr will provide more details in the coming weeks.
To help members understand what events are going on we plan to post a few schedules during the year looking ahead a few months. If plans change then we’ll update the schedule on the website.
There won’t be any matches over the summer until the very end of August. The club will meet every Tuesday except August 12th. We have some special events listed below which you can chose to join if you come to the club. Each one should start around 7.30pm. There’s no need to register in advance.
Tuesday
Casual games
Matches at home
Events
10/06/2025
Yes
None
Talk by Phil – rearranged to the 15th July following pub closure
Chester had a pretty successful conclusion to the season. Unusually it was Chester 2 and Chester B captained by Steve Lloyd that managed to win the first division in each league.
In the open knockout competitions John Carleton’s Chester teams almost managed a clean sweep. In the Wirral league victory in the final against Atticus was achieved with a very tense 4-3 result. However, in the Chester & District league Colwyn Bay (with the benefit of a small handicap start) triumphed in the final critical match by a single second.
There were strong individual performances backing up these results. For example in the Chester league Chris Doran, Jack Walley and Ray Williams were very close to being players of the year. More results can be seen here Chester & District Chess League – Player Charts.
In the Wirral league the results are now presented using LMS but can be found by clicking around here Event: Division 1 | ECF League Management System. Once again Chris Doran scored highly in division 1.
On a broader stage new member Thalia Holmes won the BBC Chess Masters competition overcoming other players, fiendish problems and most scaringly taking on 9-year old Bodhana in the process. Episodes can be seen on iPlayer and there is a nice report here Thalia Clinches Trophy In BBC’s ‘Chess Masters’ Final Episode – Chess.com
Once upon a time when Chester Chess Club went on tour it was a very formal occasion. Members would take out their best suits and travel en masse. In truth though our club’s Grand Tour never got further than the Isle of Man in 1968.
Chester’s last tour in 1968
It was with this historical context that Jeff Smith and I set off to conquer Europe for Chester. We were headed for the Dreiländereck, a corner of the continent where Germany, France and Switzerland all meet. An ideal opportunity to stake out British supremacy over players from all those other countries.
Just the two of us, but these days it’s been established that small teams in disciplines like mountaineering can achieve great things with a more fast-paced, lightweight approach. (For full disclosure we did pay for extra baggage on the plane over to Basel so we weren’t quite as lightweight and agile as we might have been, particularly when we needed to push our cases up the local village hill on Sunday morning.)
Anyway, Chester had been invited to send a delegation to play in the annual tournament of Chester’s twin German town Lörrach. It was all done in the spirit of international goodwill but maybe, just maybe the Germans had seen our recent performances in the Wrexham Rapid and were sounding us out to join their high-ranking Bundesliga squad?!
We were met at Basel airport by our very attentive host Andreas, VP of the Lörrach club Brombach. He took us to our guesthouse in the charming village of Inzlingen where the tournament was to be played in the historic Wasserschloss (water castle). At 10pm the local guesthouse had seemingly long given up on the prospect of either of us arriving, But with some very rusty German on my part and some slicker phrases from Jeff we gained access to our rooms.
Jeff outside the hotel
On Friday morning, after a relaxing hotel breakfast we were picked up by Andreas for a morning and afternoon of sightseeing. Like in the UK the tournament had a standard format of a round on Friday evening followed by two games on Saturday and Sunday.
First stop was the internationally renowned Fondation Beyeler (Beyeler foundation). This art gallery had quite a few famous paintings by the likes of Picasso, Munch to name a couple. However, they hadn’t really anticipated the inquisitive nature of three chess players. As we leaned in to one particularly valuable one to check our working theory that it had been damaged and patched up, we managed to trigger some security alarms and were given a first warning.
Our second warning came just a few minutes later as we leaned in for a photo towards a sculpture by some bloke called Max Ernst who had done a nice chess-themed work.
King plays with queen but don’t cross the line!
Enough was enough so we headed into downtown Lörrach for some lunch. We were joined by Malcolm the section head for Chester partnering. He had moved to Lörrach in 1976, a very hot year there too. After sampling local delicacies and various beers Malcolm kindly gave us a tour of the centre including Chesterplatz and the old Rathaus (townhall) where in 1848 democracy was briefly declared and then taken back a day or so later.
Suitably energised we returned to Inzlingen to begin the chess campaign. The tournament began with free drinks and snacks during registration. There were rousing speeches from organisers Markus and Ali. These focused on themes like international harmony and, far more contentiously, imploring us to accept losses as a normal, acceptable part of the game. Well, Jeff and I hadn’t come to lose so I’m not sure what all that was about. As an aside, the computer pairing system wasn’t so pleasant, labeling Jeff as a Senior Wal. Honing in on age and size didn’t really seem to be in the same spirit.
No Swiss gambits for us. Wins all round, although Jeff needed to show some intricate technique in a knight ending. Not really something to get caught up in approaching midnight.
Round two saw Jeff on the Gipfelbrett (summit board). I’d like to say he gave a good account of himself, but that really wasn’t the case. Meanwhile I managed to bore an 11 year-old Wunderkind (wunderkind) into doing something silly and managed to win in time to climb the local mountain before round two.
Phil on a local hill
Round three saw me on the Gipfelbrett facing Jeff’s previous opponent. But it wasn’t for too long as what I thought was ambitious play turned out to be simply poor and I also went down to the ultimate 5/5 winner. Jeff meanwhile implemented a positional squeeze in fine style.
Two points each wasn’t so bad. We just needed to win some games and avoid draws in the final two rounds. To clear our heads Andreas had arranged for us to join in his local Fasnachtsfeuer (a souped up bonfire night). Fasnacht is a local seasonal festival. The fire part of it involves a fire safety briefing, climbing a hill with torches, a bonfire, firefighters throwing petrol on a bonfire, Bratwurst (proper sausage) and throwing burning discs towards the houses at the bottom of the hill. A couple of hundred years ago one of the local castles was accidently burned down, perhaps because someone had skipped the fire safety briefing or maybe because throwing accelerants on a bonfire entails some risks.
Fire burns brightly when you add petrolAndreas, Jeff and Phil
If you’ve ever read those chess magazines with one-page player interviews you’ve likely seen the question What are chess players good at apart from chess? In short the general consensus seems to be not very much. And if we’re honest with ourselves most of us chess players aren’t even that accomplished at chess. Jeff, however is the exception that proves the rule. He proved a dab hand at throwing the burning discs off the hill. Leveraging some hidden golf technique he put the local experts to shame. Video available on request.
So what was important in round four was to avoid draws. We both drew.
Over a delicious lunch before the final round we met Malcolm’s boss Sebastian who manages all the partnering activities with Lörrach’s twin towns. We also met club member Nico who has plenty of innovative plans such as a chess tennis competition and organises an Instagram account for the club. Instagram? Chess?? Chess players on Instagram???
Insta smiles all round L to R: Andreas, Jeff, Phil, Markus, Sebastian and Nico
Onto the final round. It was vital we both won to get a chance of a main prize. That plan ended when we were paired against each other. Still it was vital we didn’t draw. That plan ended when we drew. A fighting draw to be sure with a gambit from Jeff, some nice neutralising opening play from me, a queen trapping (mine sadly) and a perpetual check. Stockfish 17 saw it less favourably with Jeff losing 0.4 pawns a move, a touch better than my 0.5 pawns a move. What do those computers understand though?
Fight to the death (or a perpetual)
So we missed the main prizes. Still 5th and 6th place wasn’t too shabby a result for the Chester contingent.
Easyjet weren’t flying back to Manchester until Tuesday which gave us all of Monday to savour the world famous Basel Fasnacht recognised by UNESCO. It begins at 4am with all the lights being extinguished across the city followed by a carnival parade with lanterns, haunting music and some devilish costumes. We needed to get up for a 2.30am departure from Andreas house, picking up club president Markus en route. Markus had a surprise for Jeff who notwithstanding his youthful looks had won the best prize for a senior player. Having skipped the official prizegiving Markus awarded it in an underground carpark at 3am.
The Senior Whale wins bigJust before the 4am lights outOne of the cliquesA typically edgy bannerThis guidance would be handy in a few parts of ChesterFishing for sweets
Andreas had very generously put us up in his house after the tournament and his wife prepared a very tasty goulash lunch. Later on we exchanged stories whilst polishing off some of Andreas’ schnaps cellar, the 1984 vintage being particularly nice.
A chess-themed Linzer Torte made by Lisa, Andreas’s daughter
Thanks to Andreas and family and Markus for hosting such an enjoyable trip. The tournament is held annually with details on their club website and the link below has a perhaps more objective report. It’s probably also on Instagram.
Last Sunday the annual Wrexham rapid competition was held. This is a well-run tournament in a pleasant environment with entries capped at around 30. This year there were three Chester entrants and amazingly they all managed to win prizes.
Ethan Challoner (above) returning after a break from chess took the junior prize jointly with Denys from Colwyn Bay.
Jeff Smith (above) playing his first tournament for some time was hampered by being held to draws by the other Chester players Ethan and Phil Crocker. However, he managed to finish joint 3rd.
Phil drew with Mark Bastow (both pictured below) in the final round to secure joint first with Mark.
Once again, a well run tournament by Wrexham, highly recommended for players in future years.
Chester had a particularly successful season in the Chester & District league. Our first and second teams captained by John Carleton and Steve Lloyd finished first and second in division one,. In division two Piotr Siwy captained us to first place.
In division one John Carleton and Phil Crocker were joint top-scorers whilst Piotr dominated proceedings in division two.
In the Wirral league John Carleton captained our knock-out team to victory with the trophy presented to Phil at the Wirral AGM by the outgoing president.
Dave Hulme was the individual top scorer in division two pictured below receiving his award.
Finally in our internal club tournaments Paul Bluck won the Townsend trophy and was presented this by John Carleton at our AGM.
Steve Lloyd was joint winner of the Wrexham Rapid together with Bob Clark, himself a former Chester member. They both scored 4.5/5, drawing against each other.
Your reporter had won the previous year with 5/5 with Colm joint second on 4/5. This year I continued the winning streak to reach 4/4, on the way recovering from a sticky opening against Chester speed demon Graham Dobson. In the final round Steve played an enterprising Greek gift sacrifice against me. Defence prevailed for just a few moves before Steve finished things off with a mating attack.
Once again an enjoyable tournament run by Wrexham which I’d encourage members to enter in future.
Ethan Challoner won the Wirral league junior of the year prize for the second year running. This year Ethan was promoted to play for Chester A but that didn’t stop him amassing the points! In August he’ll be representing Wales in the Glorney Cup junior international against Scotland.
Paul Bluck was also presented with a trophy for scoring the highest of any league player in division 3 of the Wirral league. He conceded just one draw over the entire season.
Finally Phil Crocker won bronze playing for England’s 2nd 50+ team in the European Senior Team Championships in Poland held in July behind England 1 and Slovakia. He’s pictured also winning the board 4 best score bronze behind England 1’s GM Glenn Flear and a Slovakian IM.
