Latest News

12th May 2012: The draw for the second round of the County Championships has been made and can be found here. The matches take place at the Wigston club with the Challengers, Major and Minor on 24th May and the Championships on the 31st of May.

10th May 2012: The Braunstone club is holding a Leicestershire Junior training day on Thursday 26th July from 10am to 6pm. There will be a two hour training session provided by David Levens who is the Manager of Coaching of the English Chess Federation and has coached many of England's juniors. There will then follow a four round team tournament with trophies and medals. Full details can be found here. Can all club players please publicise this event as juniors are the future of Leicestershire Chess.

10th May 2012: The MCCU will hold a weekend training course for arbiters at the Syston & District Social Club, High St, Syston on July 14th and 15th 2012. The event will be run by David Welch, Chief Arbiter of the ECF. The training will be structured over three modules, and after attending you can sit the arbiters exams. For more details please email cyriljohnson@yahoo.co.uk by July 12th

8th May 2012: Sean' Hewitt's excellent series of congresses continues as e2e4 are pleased to announce that we will be running a congress in the Midland when we travel for the first time to Buxton's Palace Hotel, situated within 5 acres of grounds in the beautiful spa town of Buxton on the edge of the Peak District National Park.

There will be three 5 round sections, with the Open and Major FIDE rated. The Open is a FIDE rated swiss, open to all players ; the Major is also FIDE rated and open to players rated below 1950 (or graded below 165 if unrated) with the Minor open to players with an ECF grade below 135. Full details can be found here.

8th May 2012: The first round of the County Championships has now been completed and the results can be found here. The next rounds take place on May 24th and May 31st.

8th May 2012: Clubs are reminded that the LRCA Annual General Meeting is being held on Wednesday 23rd May at 7.30pm at the Kirby Muxloe club. Matters discussed include league, county teams, finances, website and congresses. Everyone welcome!

18th April 2012: The Major League Cup and the Minor League Cup have both finished and were both won by the Braunstone club. Congratulations to their first and second teams. More details on the league cup website.

18th April 2012: With just a few odd matches left to play the league titles have now been decided. Congratulations to Heathcote Arms 1 who won division 2, to Latimer 1 winning division 3, Ashby 3 who won division 4 and Oadby who have won division 5. Full league tables can be found on the league website.

16th April 2012: The draw for the first round of the County Championships has been made and can be found here. The matches take place at the Wigston club with the Challengers, Major and Minor on 26th April and the Championships on the 3rd of May.

9th April 2012: The first division league title was on the line when Melton 1 hosted Wigston 1 in the last match of the season on Thursday. Melton needed to win to take the title, a draw or win for Wigston would see them retain their title. In a tense match, it finished all square so congratulations to Wigston on taking the division 1 crown.

27th March 2012: The 2012 County Championships begin next month and will again operate as a swiss tournament. There will be 4 sections:

The Championship. This will be 6 rounds, open to all and FIDE rated
The Challengers. This will be 5 rounds, open to players graded below 160
The Major. This will be 5 rounds and is open to players graded below 140
The Minor. This will be 5 rounds and is open to players graded below 120

Full details with dates, how to enter etc are on the county championship tab

26th March 2012: There is sad news from the Wigston club of the death of Brian Shuter last Friday. He had been ill from early last year. Brian had been a great servant of the club for many years – joining originally in the early 1960s - he had a prolonged break to play league snooker pretty seriously but rejoined quite a while ago. He will be very badly missed.

10th March 2012: An epic battle ensued when Leicestershire first team met Derbyshire at Spondon on Saturday. Leicestershire came out on top by 8½- 7½ to qualify for the nationals and become Midland Champions. For a comprehensive report and scoresheet click here.

10th February 2012: Some of our older players may be interested in ex Leicestershire and Melton player Trevor Palmer's website Chess for ordinary mortals where there are several games from the 1970's against players such as Andy Morley, Mark Hebden, John Robinson, Don Gould etc. A touch of nostalgia!

30th January 2012: The new ECF January Grades for both Standard Play and Rapid Play have now been published. You can check out the new ECF grades for individual players and clubs on the website, it has been vastly improved (http://www.ecfgrading.org.uk), it now features all individual results. Please be aware though that these new grades will not be used in the LRCA League for the rest of the season, the old August 2011 grades will continue to be used. The new grades will used in the Summer Cup competitions.

29th January 2012: The Leicestershire county first team had a fine victory over Worcestershire by 9 - 7 on Saturday. More details and the scoresheet can be found here.

21st January 2012: The Leicestershire county Under 140 team had a superb victory over Warwickshire by 8½ - 7½ on Saturday. There is a comprehensive report and scoresheet here.

5th December 2011: The Leicestershire county first team beat Lincolnshire by 8½ - 7½ on Saturday. In a very tight match it all came down to the last two games where Leics came out on top. Full report and Scoresheet here.

28th November 2011: The Major section of the County Championships has finally been decided. There was a three way tie for first place between David Reynolds, Bob Collins and Colin Ross. David Reynolds won both his games in the play offs to take the Major title. The Challengers was won by Phil Harlow and the Minor by Roy Lathwood.

20th November 2011: The Leicestershire county Under 140 team lost the crunch match against Worcestershire by 10½ - 5½ on Saturday. We essentially lost the match on the bottom boards, with some draws being accepted in the light of the result on higher boards. Full report and Scoresheet here.

14th November 2011: Graham Sharpe is the new County Champion! After the six rounds of the County Championships Graham Sharpe and Alan Byron shared first place and recently played two rapidplay games to determine the outright winner. The first game was a tight contest where Alan as white had a slight advantage, but this wasn't enough, as the position resolved to a bishop and equal pawns ending with Graham defending resolutely until a draw was agreed. The second game was also tight, with neither player able to make any progress without taking significant risk. Alan eventually did this, sacrificing a bishop for 2 pawns to generate a kingside attack. In the end however, this proved to be insufficient and Graham took advantage of his extra material to win the game. Congratulations to Graham who takes his first title and commiserations to Alan who had won the title for the last two years.

9th November 2011: The Leicestershire county first team suffered a shock defeat away to Shropshire in the second county fixture of the season, losing 10 - 6. There were wins for Mark Hebden, John Pattinson and Graham Booley with draws for Martin Burrows, Ray Burgess, John Robinson, Brian Galligan, Patrick McDermott and Mike Cowley. The full scoresheet can be found here. The next match is at home to Lincolnshire on December 3rd.

30th October 2011: Three Leicestershire players took part in the e2e4 Gatwick tournament held 26th to 30th October. Mark Hebden won the Premier International section against a strong field including 4 grandmasters with 7 out of 9 winning £600, and Martin Burrows scored 4½ against stiff opposition in the same competition. Jim Bingham scored a very creditable 3 out of 5 in the English Seniors and won £100 for Best Performance for his grading. Full details can be found here.

30th October 2011: The County Under 140 team had a convincing win over Staffordshire to make it two wins out of two and set up a crunch match against Worcestershire, who have also won their first two matches, at Water Orton on November 19th. The full scoresheet can be found here.

29th October: The Wigston club is sad to report the sudden death of Denis Wilkins. Denis had played for the club for a number of years, joining Wigston with Iain Dodds and John Daniel when their club DSS couldn't field a team.

25th October: The Swallow Inn club, which moved premises to the Willowbrook Sports & Social club a week ago will now be known as the Willowbrook chess club.

24th October: The Loughborough 3rd team have withdrawn from division 3 due to lack of players, and their place has been taken by Leicester University who have been keen to enter a team into the league. It is over 5 years since the University had a team in the Leicestershire league and we are delighted to welcome them back. Details of the University club are here.

21st October: The Braunstone club is sad to report the death of John Impey who passed away peacefully at home on Monday October 17th 2011 aged 80 years. John played for the club for many years - remarkably he played 10 games last season despite his serious illness - and he won all 10!

17th October: The Swallow chess club has been forced to move premises as the pub has been closed to be rebuilt as a Co-op shop. The club will now be meeting at the Willowbrook Sports & Social Club, Thurncourt Road, Leicester LE5 2NG.