Welcome to Michaelmas term 2009 at the Oxford University Chessclub. If you are a member of the university and are interested in playing chess, you will be very welcome to join us. For a full list of all our events this term, please see our termcard. If you have any questions about the club or our activities, please feel free to contact us.
This year's University Rapidplay was held on Saturday 7 November 2009 at Lincoln College, Oxford. A full report is available here.
We held our first ever Freshers' Blitz tournament on Tuesday 20th October. The tournament was contested by 21 players over 5 double rounds, and was enjoyed by all. Many congratulations to Gustavo German, who won with a magnificent score of 10/10. Full results are available here.
The University Chess Club would like to thank everybody who participated in the 7th University Congress held on 16-17 May. We would like to congratulate the winners, especially Graham Morris who won the Peter Harrison Cup for best University player, and Yi Ming Lai who won the minor section with an impressive 4.5 out of 5. Further details will be available shortly.
The 127th Varsity Chess Match against Cambridge took place on Saturday 14 March 2009 at the RAC Club, Pall Mall, London. The Oxford team, captained by Michael Healey, scored a 5-3 victory against a considerably higher rated Cambridge side. For a full report, see http://www.bcmchess.co.uk/news/varsity2009.html. A PGN file of all 8 games can be downloaded here.
Established over a century ago, the Oxford University Chess Club currently boasts dozens of members ranging from purely social players meeting over a pint to International Grandmasters representing us at the annual Varsity match.
We meet every Tuesday evening to play socially. The University currently has three teams entered in the local league, catering for IM strength competition in the top division (which the University 1sts won in 2005), down to social competition in division four of the league.
Annually the University organises a rapidplay (in November) and a two day congress (in Trinity term). In 2005 the University congress attracted GMs Kiriakov and Wells, IM Bellin and FMs Greet and Madsen.
The Oxford University Chess Club is the oldest University Chess Club in Britain. We have a membership who actively participate in our club's events and teams. Our aim is to promote chess in the university, and to play competitively in the local leagues as well as against other universities.
We currently enter three teams of varying strength in the Oxfordshire League and have had some good results in recent years - in the 2004/5 season our First team took the top spot in the Oxfordshire First Division! We also play an annual Varsity match against our old foes Cambridge. In recent years, we have organized an annual congress, attracting many players from Oxfordshire and beyond (this year we welcomed entrants from as far away as South Africa). Following the success of this, we have instituted an annual Rapidplay tournament in Michaelmas term.
If you have any questions regarding our club and its activities, then please feel free to email us at chess@herald.ox.ac.uk.