May 27th James Cobb’s title now seems to be official as he is listed as an IM on the FIDE site.

May 25th Hay Festival (21-31 May). No former world champions attending this year. Hay-on-Wye Chess Club have a tent though, in the the town centre - taking on all comers - recommended. Maybe you could arrange some friendly club matches against them?

May 22 WCPL 2009 Final Table

Position Team Played Won Draw Lost Game Points For Game Points Against Game Points Difference Match Points 1 Nidum 5 5 0 0 22.5 7.5 15 10 2 Cardiff 5 3 0 2 16.5 13.5 3 6 3 Wrexham 5 3 0 2 13.5 16.5 -3 6 4 Cardigan 5 2 0 3 12 18 -6 4 5 Cwmbran 5 1 1 3 15 15 0 3 6 Abergavenny 5 0 1 4 10.5 19.5 -9 1

May 12th WCU KO Results so far. Malpas make it through to U1800 Final.
May 12th Please note that the WCU AGM will be held at 7:30 pm, on Thursday 11^th June 2009, at the Briton Ferry Constitution Club, Graig Road.

Apr 20th Welsh Championships. Games and cross tables. Report to follow.

Mar 15th Dyfed Congress results. IM Roland Berzinsh wins the open with 4½/5. Second was GM Stuart Haslinger and Andrew Gibbons.
Mar 15th The North Gloucester Weekend Tournament is being held on 4-5th April. Why not use it as a warm up for the Welsh. For further details contact Ian Jenkins 01594827620. I’ve heard that the venue is excellent and they put on a generous buffet lunch.
Mar 15th U1700 Jamboree Report
Mar 15th Just like the buses, you wait for ages and then several come along at once. Sven Zeidler has been awarded the FM title and James Cobb is about to get his IM title. It has been approved by FIDE and should become official in early April. Congratulations to them both (thanks to Robert Taylor for this.).

Feb 11th Another Welsh Title: At last, FIDE have confirmed the WFM title for Suzie Blackburn for her excellent result at the 2006 Turin Olympiad. Llongyfarchiadau!

Feb 1st Welsh Junior Championships and the Welsh Schools championships: Venues and Entry Forms

Jan 27th Congratulations to Ioan Rees who has just been awarded his FM title by FIDE.

Jan 12th East Glamorgan Closed. Report by John Thornton

Jan 11th. T. Llew. Jones. Obituary by Howard Williams.

Jan 10th ‘Colli 'un o eiconau'r genedl'. It is with great sadness that we report the passing of T. Llew Jones. Our thoughts are with Iolo and his family at this sad time. His death is reported on the BBC Welsh Language News. Click here.

Jan 2 New WCU January Rating Lists Available here

Dec 22nd Welsh Junior Rapid Play Report.

Dec 19th Last year the WCU devised a scheme for accrediting coaches, the main requirements being adequate experience and possession of a clear Criminal Records Bureau certificate. We are pleased to announce that David Sully’s application for accreditation has been approved and he thus becomes Wales’ first accredited coach. He can be contacted on 029 2089 0641 or by email at davidsully@msn.com.

Dec 10th Over 30 girls enter this year’s Welsh Championships! Junior Results and Reports

Dec 5th WCU KO Cup Fixtures and Contact Details

Dec 2nd: Just out: Chess in Wales by M.J.Griffiths. A fascinating read for anyone interested in the history of Chess in Wales. Going right back to Thomas Bowdler’s draw against Philidor in 1783 through to the unrest in the late 60’s which led to the breakaway of the WCU from the BCF. If for nothing else, you should buy this book for the photographs of the young Howard Williams, Colin GIlbert, Dave Sully and Hugh Price.

 

Dec 2nd. It was very sad to learn of the death of Bob Wade on 29th Nov. He devoted his life to chess. He will be greatly missed by the many who knew him.

Nov 30th. Olympiad: Final Thoughts and photos. Ladies update.
Nov 25th Olympiad Round 11 Report.
Nov 25th The Welsh U1700 Jamboree Jan 25th 2009. Details and Rules
Nov 25th Olympiad R10 Report and Ladies team update

Nov 23rd Round 9 Report - Stuart Hutchings’ return to chess!

Nov 22nd. I’ve managed to catch up with the Olympiad reports. I’ve also added the games from each round. Check out Stuart’s report for Round 7 where Wales nearly beat a team of 4 GM’s including Victor Korchnoi - ‘What an absolutley wonderful match’ - Hutchings.

Nov 17th Olympiad. Round 4 and 5 Results, Mid tournament Ladies Report. Susan Owens ‘very proud of the Ladies Team...
Nov 16th Ioan Rees (pictured right) and Phillipe Rogers take top prizes in the year’s WCU individual RP. Report by Jon Gilbert



Nov 16th Olympiad: Round 3 report. Suzie Blackburn beats IM.
Nov 15th Olympiad: Tough day at the office for the Welsh Teams. Report Round 2
Nov 14th WCU KO Cup Rules and Entry Details (please note the entry deadline of 22nd Nov).

Nov 14th Olympiad: Round 1 games added. Round 2 postponed by an hour due to ‘a series of errors from various departments’.

Nov 13th Sensation at the Olympiad! Wales joint leaders with Russia and England (milk it while you can, I say). Double success for Wales in round 1 as both teams win 4-0! Read Stuart Hutchings report here. In a bizzare twist, both the Welsh teams play Portugal in round 2 (sic).

Nov 8th Wilf Arnold, the WCU Executive director, poses a question... “If a ‘new’ chess player (or prospective chess player) were to come to your club, what sort of welcome would they get?” See what support the WCU can offer on Your Views

Nov 3rd U1500 Jamboree Report.
Nov 3rd ECC Report
Nov 3rd Unfortunately, Leighton Williams has had to pull out of the Olympiad Squad. His replacement is Alan Spice.

Oct 30th Welsh Chess Premier League
Oct 30th International Events Calendar
Oct 11th 9th 4NCL DIvision 1 and 2 Results. SWD1 off to a steady start with 2 4-4 draws against higher rated teams. Most noticable was the performance of boards 5,6 and 7 in R1 .But there’s disappointment for SWD2.

RD 1   SOUTH WALES DRAGONS 1 2232 v BARBICAN 4NCL 1 2388 1 w Cobb, James E 2451 ½ - ½ Parker, Jonathan 2538 2 b Cooper, John G 2362 0 - 1 Turner, Matthew J 2505 3 w Rees, Ioan 2297 ½ - ½ D'Costa, Lorin A R 2411 4 b Kett, Timothy 2272 0 - 1 Ferguson, Mark 2398 5 w Blackburn, Jonathan L B 2175 1 - 0 Cox, John J 2381 6 b Zeidler, Sven P 2224 1 - 0 Knott, Simon 2348 7 w Morris, Charles F 2195 1 - 0 Rogers, Jonathan W 2347 8 b Blackburn, Suzie (F) 1883 0 - 1 Lauterbach, Ingrid (F) 2178         4 - 4

Sept 9th 4th European Individual Open, Liverpool. There’s Welsh interest in this year’s event with a number of players from Wales entered: Tim Kett heads the list with fellow Olympian Jonathan Blackburn aiming to get

in some good preparation prior to Dresden. Other WCU players are D.James, P.Bennett, D.Bennion, and R van Kemenade. Round 1: Tim Kett is playing black against GM V.Lasnicka 2601. All the others also have GM opponents except for van Kemenade who has a ‘mere’ IM. England’s Michael Adams is top seed. Website

Sept 9th WCPL. The rules for this year’s WCPL are being reviewed. We hope to have this process finalised by the end of Sept, after which we will be inviting qualified teams to enter.

Sep 7th Paignton 2008 J.Thornton. Welsh representation at the 58th Paignton tournament was limited to David Sully and myself. The tournament is played in the splendid surroundings of Oldway Mansion built to the order of the originator of the Singer sewing machine empire, and provides strong but not usually excessively strong competition - mostly 2000-2250 FIDE rated players with barely a junior in sight! - so an ideal competition for any adult either looking for a good partial FIDE rating or a string of solid games against high county standard players. Third seed Tyson Mordue (2298) started by beating me and ended drawing with David. My tournament also ended with a bit of a downer losing to another 2200+ player John H Hodgson in the last game to finish - it seems 2 rooks + 2 rook pawns (one on the 7th) beat 2 rooks. In between I amassed 3/5 so 3/7 in total to gain a decent FIDE part rating. David tried his usual tactic of coming from behind after two early draws, but the competition was so level behind GM's Gawain Jones and Keith Arkell that 4/5 left him in sole third place after round 5 and a 6th round date with Gawain. Although David put up a very good fight, the inevitable happened, so that his last round draw with Tyson left him in joint 5th place. The GM's disappointingly chose not to fight when paired in round 4 and went on to to 1st equal on 6.5 with their nearest competitors on 5/7. There are tournaments for all abilities, and with only 1 round each day anyone wishing to make a holiday of the event can easily do so. More details can be found on the Devon website, which has recently won the ECF website of the year award. (Http://www.chessdevon.co.uk/).

Sep 4th Gwent Closed (26th-28th Sept) goes FIDE Rated. Gwent has decided to lead the way and make the annual Gwent Closed a FIDE rated event. Hopefully, this will lead to more Welsh events becoming FIDE rated. Entry forms here.

Sep 4 Welsh Olympiad Squad finalised. The table shows the teams in board order.

Welsh Olympiad Teams Men Non-Playing Captain. Stuart Hutchings 1 IM Leighton Williams 2389 2 FM Richard Jones 2344 3 Ioan Rees 2287 4 Tim Kett 2247 5 Jonathan Blackburn 2196   Women Non-Playing Captain. Susan Owens 1 Suzy Blackburn 1856 2 WFM Olivia Smith 1953 3 Julie Wilson 1935 4 Megan Owens 1775 5 Julie van Kemenade (1764)

Sept 1 Gwent Fixture List

Aug 28 Is it possible to apply an Elo Rating system to sports other than chess? Apparently so! There is actually a published Elo rating list for International football. It shows Wales in 49th position with a rating of 1608. Our best position was 5th with 1858. Currently Spain have moved to the top slot with a rating of 2059. England are 9th with a rating of 1889. The calculations go right back to 1876 when Wales lost 4-0 to Scotland and include the latest defeat by Georgia where we dropped 16 Elo points. The full list can be found here.
Update: Stewart Reusben said that he was commissioned to do an Elo rating system for snooker. He had Steve Davis comng out at 2700. He goes on to say that rating tennis would be more problematical because of the different playing surfaces. Zane Allford says that the World of Warcraft Arena uses the Elo system to allocate points http://www.wowwiki.com/Arena_point

Aug 26 South Wales Rapid Play and Welsh Junior Team Championships to be held on 20th September at Bishop Hedley High School, Merthyr Tydfil. Entry Forms here

Aug 22 British 2008. Tim Kett gets ‘Best Swindle Award’ for his win over David Eggleston. Read Tim’s report here. Tim has also provided quite in-depth analysis of this game.

Aug 18 Aberdare Chess Club: Venue Change. Aberdare Golf Club Wed 7:30

Aug 8 An interesting article on simuls has appeared on the Chessbase web site. Two games featured are by Nick Davies (Malpas) against Tony Miles and Zane Allford (Brynmawr) against Julian Hodgson. Games are annotated by Karsten Muller. Here.

Aug 1 Glorney/Faber Report

July 28th West Wales Open, Major and Minor Tournament. 10th-12th October. Entry Form

July 25th Anyone interested in playing in the World Senior Championships (men 60+ / women 50+ on 01.01.08) in Bad Zwischenahn, Germany from October 28^th till November 8^th ? There is one place with free board and lodging available for the WCU to nominate - please contact Tim Kett on 07720-412-800 to apply.

July 13th Junior 4NCL. The 4NCL has announced dates for this year’s junior 4NCL. Teams consists of 4 boards and takes place over 2 weekends (15-16/11/08 and 28/2-1/3/09), 2 games on the Saturday and 1 on the Sunday. Entry fee is £60 per team. The 4NCL will provide coaching sessions for all before each round (|GM or IM standard). We have negotiated the same room rate concessions as for the main league. Entries can be from clubs, schools, or just a group of friends. There is an age handicap system so that younger teams have good chances of beating older competitors. Check out the 4NCL web site for further information (due soon).

July 10th GM’s Miezes and Haslinger win South Wales International. Another IM norm for James ‘I’ve lost my norm certificates’ Cobb.
July 8th Wales Olympiad Team Selection
Men’s Team (in alphabetical order)
1. Jonathan Blackburn 2. Richard Jones 3. Tim Kett 4. Ioan Rees 5. Leighton Williams
Women’s Team (in alphabetical order)
1. Suzy Blackburn 2. Abigail Cast 3. Megan Owens 4. Olivia Smith 5. Julie Wilson
More info to follow soon.

July 5th Basman Northern Giga Finals: Ben Thomas wins age group with 6/6.

July 4th I’ve added an events page for each zone so that you can advertise your local events, whether they be closed or open to all, a club event or zonal event. Just supply the following information and I’ll add them to your page: Event Name/description, Date and Start time, Venue, Contact details and whether it’s an open or closed event, entry fee and prizes if any. Email here

July 3rd July FIDE List. Welsh Players
July 2nd Cardigan win WCU KO Cup. Report
June 29th WCPL Appeal. The appeals committee have unanimously upheld Cwmbran’s appeal. Thus Cwmbran finish top with Nidum second and Cardiff third.

W D L MPs GPs Cwmbran 4 2 0 10 22 Nidum        4 1 1 9 23½ Cardiff      4 1 1 9 23½ Wrexham      2 2 2 6 18 Cardigan     1 2 3 4 16 Abergavenny  0 2 4 2 12½ Barry        1 0 5 2 9½

The final table

June 27th WCU KO Cup Finals 29th June. Start time is 12:30. Please can Captains arrive at 12:00 to hand in team lists
June 25th GM Nigel Short thinks that Wales should be ‘...kicked out of FIDE forthwith’. Do you agree? Have your say
June 14th Ukraine Juniors v Welsh Juniors.Narrow defeat for Wales. Report
June 13th Your Views. Do you have anything to say about the running of chess in Wales? Do you have views on selection policy, eligibility criteria for WCU teams, WCPL issues or anything else to do with Welsh chess. Send an email in and we’ll post it on the web site. Send your comments to yourviews@welshchessunion.co.uk

June 12th WCU KO Finals Day Sunday 29th June. Briton Ferry Constitutional Club. The West Wales Chess League invite you to share the occasion with the competitors. The Open Cup final between Cardiff and Cardigan, will be displayed simultaneously in the lounge area for comment and analysis by IM Leighton Williams with demonstration boards. Further details

June 12th Olympiad 2008. New FIDE rules for the Olympiad come into play this year, some with severe penalties if broken. Ignatious Leong, Chief Arbiter of the Chess Olympiad and General Secretary of FIDE, surprised journalists at a press conference Tuesday, 03 June 2008. ”We will have considerable renewals regarding the regulations in the 2008 Olympiad in Dresden,” the man from Singapore declares.
Here’s a sample. No draws will be allowed before the 30th move, and more controversially all players have to be at their table exactly at the beginning of play to shake hands, just like in any other sports, or else they will lose the match (sic). Imagine applying this in the WCPL! The number of rounds to be played is reduced from 14 to 11. Match points are privileged over game points. Women’s teams are extended to 4 players and the number of reserve players reduced to one.

June 11th British Championship Places: This year I'm delighted to say we were oversubscribed with applications for the Welsh nominees for the British Championships (the first time this has happened this century!). The outgoing International Director selected Tim Kett, David James and Lee Davis for the three available places.
         European Union Individual Championships. These will also be held in Liverpool (as part of the European Capital of Culture festivities) as a 10-round Swiss from 9-18 September. They are open to any member of the WCU to play in but we have two nominations for free entry at our disposal. Please contact Tim Kett either by email or phone (029) 2061 3870.

June 6th WCU AGM: The WCU Welcomes a new President

WCU Management Board and Officials
President C.F.Morris
Vice-President T. Llew jones
Executive Director W.Arnold
Deputy Executive Director B.Harle
Finance Director A.H.Williams
Home Chess Director S.Kett
International Chess Director T.Kett
Junior Chess Director I.Eustis
Development Director L.Davis
Publicity Director M.Adams
Womens’ Chess Director J.Evans
Chairman of Selectors L.Williams
Grading Officer R.Taylor
FIDE Delegate D.James
Chief Arbiter P.Purland
Rapid Play Rating Officer K.Staveley

Other AGM News:

Both motions (see below) were defeated. T.Gutteridge is Year Book Editor. Zones encouraged to elect vice-presidents to sit on appeals committee. Olympiad selection meeting scheduled for last week in June. WKO Finals 29th June. North Wales grades to appear in WCU Rating List. Financial surplus announced. (Detailed minutes to follow).

18th May Bridgend Junior RP Report by John Thornton