49th Nottingham Congress Report – Nottinghamshire Chess Association

The 49th Nottingham Congress took place on the weekend of 18th 19th April 2026. There was a capacity attendance (200), much more than last years disappointing numbers. Due to the bumper attendance we were able to award prizes for fourth place and slow starters.

A summary of results are below. Details of the tournament can be found on Chess Results.

We are very grateful to the Nottinghamshire Chess Foundation which provided the £525 prize fund for the Improvers’ section. As usual, we provided a tea and coffee facility with proceeds heading to the Red Cross Ukraine Crisis Appeal. £200.00 including Gift Aid was raised. Thanks are due particularly to the Gunarathne, Grainger and Amirthanathan families. The congress committee would also like to extend special thanks to Glyn Hill and Marcel Taylor who helped to tidy up after the event.

Thanks as always to: the Control Team of FIDE arbiters Phill Beckett and Hambel Willow, Stephen Humphreys, Simon Scott and John Swain; NCA Treasurer Stuart Humphreys for organising prize payments and refunds; the Nottinghamshire Primary Schools Chess Association for the loan of boards, sets and some clocks.

49th Nottingham Congress Prize winners

Open

=1st	Jan Murawski Tom Junde He	4.5 Points	£200 each
3rd	Junhao Xian	4 Points	£75
=4th	Finlay Bowcott-Terry Harry Gardiner Benjamin Humphreys Alannah Ashton	3.5 Points	£10 each
Rating	Kam Wa Siu	3.5 Points	£50
Slow Starter	Matthew Inglis	3 Points	£40

Major

1st	Andrew Stoker	4.5 Points	£250
2nd	Oskar Jarzynski	4 Points	£150
=3rd + Rating	Daniel Broughton Zak Tomlinson Samidh Saxena Jules Brown Tim Poole Neil Marais Richard Bowman Michael Hughes Neil Homer Yvon van Neervan	3.5 Points	£16.50 each
Slow Starter	Leonid Siedielnikov	3 Points	£40

Intermediate

1st	Hejin Francis	5 Points	£250
2nd	Stephanie Brown	4 .5 Points	£150
=3rd	Zara Mehta Oliver Cureton	4 Points	£57.50 each
Rating	Philip Sheldon Mathew Blackman Ufuk Kachak	3.5 Points	£16.67 each
Slow Starter	Abuda Khaminkaew Andrew Thompson	3 Points	£20 each

Minor

1st	Blake Brelsford	4.5 Points	£250
2nd	Emlyn Hauber	4 Points	£150
=3rd	Adam Amirthanathan Terry Bennett Shaheer Khorrum Robert Pierzycki Xie Yi	3.5 Points	£23 each
Rating	Ziyad Ali	3.5 Points	£50
Slow Starter	Craig Cowley Ken Ronald Glyn Hill	2 Points	£13.33 each

Improvers

1st	Aaryan Ragam	4.5 Points	£250
=2nd	Harry Stanley Deniz Berker	4 Points	£112.50 each
4th	Elizabeth de Bono	3.5 Points	£40
Rating	Rowan Grainger Priyansh Deshmane Ram Ragam	3 Points	£16.67 each
Slow Starter	Abuda Khaminkaew Suwon Lee	3 Points	£40