47th Nottingham Congress

Following the successful conclusion of our Rapidplay last Sunday, we are now taking entries for our weekend congress. Full details can be found on our Competitions/Tournaments page.

Continue reading

33rd Nottingham Rapidplay

Capacity has now been reached. We are pleased to announce our that our annual Rapidplay will take place on Sunday, February 4th 2024 at our usual venue, Nottingham High School, starting at 10:00 am. This will be a 6 round Swiss system event, with five ECF rated sections. The basic entry fees are £20 for Adults and £15 for Juniors, whilst […]

Continue reading

Centenary Grandmaster Tournament: Report

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 […]

Continue reading

33rd Nottingham Rapidplay

We are pleased to announce our that our annual Rapidplay will take place on Sunday, February 4th 2024 at our usual venue, Nottingham High School, starting at 10:00 am. This will be a 6 round Swiss system event, with five ECF rated sections. The basic entry fees are £20 for Adults and £15 for Juniors, whilst the prizes in each section […]

Continue reading

NCA Centenary Grandmaster Tournament

Top-level chess comes to Nottingham in early November when invited Grandmasters take on some of England’s best young players, including the cream of Nottingham’s chess talent.  It takes place from Monday 30 October – Friday 3 November. This special tournament is being organised to celebrate NCA’s centenary since its foundation and is the strongest tournament to be held in the County since […]

Continue reading

Derbyshire Congress

The inaugural Derbyshire weekend congress takes place 23-24th September, with sections for all standards of player.  Notts player are encouraged to support this new event on our doorstep.  Click on [Continue Reading] for a link to the Congress web site.

Continue reading

Nottingham Chessfest 2023

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 […]

Continue reading

County Correspondence Team

The Counties and Districts Correspondence Chess Competition started on 14/4/23. Our team is in the Ward-Higgs, Division 1 section. Nottinghamshire team. 1 SIM Jonathan Tait 2419 2 CCM Gordon Anderson 2378 3 CCM Richard Webster 2361 4 CCM John Shaw 2322 5 CCE Phil Morgan 2232 6 Kevin Williamson 2120 7 Glenn Halfpenny 1800p 8 Andrew Robins 1800p We have […]

Continue reading

George Murfet and Len Morrell

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 […]

Continue reading

RIP Alan Morrey

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 […]

Continue reading

RIP George Murfet and Len Morrell

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 […]

Continue reading

46th Nottingham Congress

We are pleased to announce that the Congress will take place on the weekend of April 15th & 16th at our usual venue, Nottingham High School. It will be a five round, ECF-rated, standard play Swiss, with five sections. Full details of the event, the entry form and access to online entry are available on our Competitions page.

Continue reading

County Correspondence Team

Playing in the Second Division of the Counties Championship, our team had a successful 2022/23 season, finishing in second place and so gaining promotion to Division 1. A link to the results can be found here by clicking Continue Reading on the News page.

Continue reading

32nd Nottingham Rapidplay

We are pleased to announce our next tournament, the Rapidplay, to be held on Sunday 29th January 2023 at Nottingham High School, our usual venue. The main details, such as the rating limits for the five sections, can be seen on our competitions page, where a downloadable entry form with all the details can be seen. There is also a […]

Continue reading

Revised League Fixture List

A new version of the fixture list for 2022-23 has been posted via email to all club secretaries and team captains.  The new version includes additional teams in division 4 and division 5. It also includes fixtures for the new rapid play ‘Minor League’ which is intended to give juniors and those new to league chess an opportunity to play competitive […]

Continue reading

Nottinghamshire County Championships

Nottinghamshire players, past and present, are invited to enter the County Championships on Sunday 13 November at Bramcote Memorial Hall. The NCA Annual General Meeting agreed with the Tournaments Committee’s proposal to run a six-round Rapidplay in the hope that this new format may attract larger numbers of players and also help to celebrate the NCA’s centenary year in style. […]

Continue reading

Website for Notts Chess Foundation

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 […]

Continue reading

League Fixtures 2022-23

A draft fixture list has now been circulated to all club secretaries, for comment and corrections. Clubs should check this list and provide any feedback to the League Secretary by Sunday 4th September. First match week is currently expected to be 19 – 23 September.

Continue reading

Best Games and Swindles

With the return of “over the board” chess also comes the chance to show off your best efforts. Any games played in NCA tournaments (Rapidplay or Congress) league or county teams in the past 12 months are eligible. There are prizes for best games (open and under 1800 sections) and also for your best swindles. Please send entries to me […]

Continue reading

Future Events

The latest edition of the Junior Newsletter is now available on the Juniors page. It includes details of several upcoming events suitable for Juniors. We are also looking for views on the format for our County Championship later this year. Please take a look on the competitions page

Continue reading

2022 EJCOA NATIONAL YOUTH CHAMPIONSHIPS

The East Midlands Regional Final will be held at Nottingham High School on Saturday, May 21st. There are numerous age-group sections from under 20 down to under 8. Each will be five rounds of Rapidplay (25 mins + 10 sec/move) starting at 10:00 and finishing 17:45. Entry Fee £15. The top boy and the top girl in each age category […]

Continue reading

Congratulations to Jonah Willow!

Jonah competed in Dublin, achieving his final IM Norm and qualifying for the International Master title. On his return to Nottinghamshire, he followed this up by winning the Open Section of the Nottingham Congress. Further details of the Congress can be seen on the Competitions page

Continue reading

45th Nottingham Congress

We are pleased to publish details of our Congress, to take place at Nottingham High School on 23rd & 24th April, and start taking entries. Full details are available here Competitions – Nottinghamshire Chess Association

Continue reading

Nail-biter in NG9

On 26th February, our Notts u1450 juniors hosted Leicestershire u1450 for a winner takes all clash at Bramcote. A good natured and well fought match, prefaced with Leicestershire’s captain and a couple of their players kindly helping us with setting up some of the tables and boards. As the match started, it quickly looked like a lot of the games […]

Continue reading

31st Nottingham Rapidplay

In view of the improving Covid situation, and the entries we have received so far, we are reasonably confident at present that the Rapidplay will go ahead as planned. Of course, Covid has a history of throwing out curve balls, so please keep an eye on the website in the run up to the event.

Continue reading

31st Nottingham Rapidplay

In view of the continuing uncertainty about Covid developments, we cannot yet be absolutely certain that the event will be able to go ahead. However we have decided to start taking entries, which will be limited to a maximum of 150 in total. A full update on the current situation can be seen on the Tournaments tab of our Competitions […]

Continue reading

Correspondence Chess

Back in July we reported that our team captain, Phil Morgan, had been awarded the Welsh Correspondence Chess Expert title. We’re happy to add our congratulations now that he has earned the ICCF Correspondence Chess Expert title.

Continue reading

Correspondence Chess

The 2021 season has now been completed. Nottinghamshire finished in third place in Division 2 of the Counties League competition behind, East Wales B and Yorkshire A. You can view the full Results here The 2022 season will begin in February. If you are interested in playing for Nottinghamshire in this competition, please contact Phil Morgan, County Correspondence Captain before […]

Continue reading

4NCL Online Season 4

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 […]

Continue reading

31st Nottingham Rapidplay

We are currently planning to hold this ECF-rated event on Sunday 20th February 2022 at the usual venue, Nottingham High School, starting at 10:00am. However, in view of the current uncertainty about Covid developments, we cannot yet confirm this or start to take entries. Hopefully circumstances will allow us to do this in early January. Meanwhile, the currently expected details […]

Continue reading

4NCL Online Season 4

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 […]

Continue reading

Tom Guy (d.19 July 2021)

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 […]

Continue reading

Season 2021-22

Following the request for volunteers to captain teams, our thanks to David Levens, Mick Frings and Mike Swanwick, who will captain Notts U2050, U1450 and U1450 Juniors teams. The following details were supplied by Peter Sherlock, MCCU County Championship Controller… U2050 section – only Nottinghamshire have entered and will go through to the National Stages as MCCU1. Entries for this […]

Continue reading

Volunteers Needed!

Following the recent online AGM there are three areas in particular where the association needs volunteers to step forward to help us get chess back on the board! Executive Committee – There are two vacancies for EC Members. If you have any ideas on how to develop chess in the county, this is the ideal place to put them forward. […]

Continue reading

Correspondence Chess

Congratulations to our team captain, Phil Morgan, who has achieved the title of Welsh CC Expert. He provided an update on this year’s team, which is currently participating in Division 2 of the County Correspondence competition. The event started late, in February 2021, so will officially end in January 2022. At the end of June, we stood in first place […]

Continue reading

New Chess Charity for Nottinghamshire

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 […]

Continue reading

Welcome to our new website!

As we will all, hopefully, be getting back to something like normal in the coming months, we are now launching the new NCA website. News of what is planned will appear here, as and when “chess life” opens up again.

Continue reading

Notts League Update

Due to Coronavirus restrictions the 2019-2020 season was suspended in March 2020 with most teams having two or three matches still to play. It was hoped that these could be completed later in the year when allowed, but (as restrictions went on) the LMC eventually decided to end the season with proportional points allocated for those remaining matches.

Continue reading

County Teams Update

During the Coronavirus restrictions there have been no “over the board” county matches and there was little support for playing online team events.

Continue reading