Fixtures for the SCCA League Division 3 West have now been posted for 2022/23 at the following link:
Our team captains, David and Chris are currently arranging the teams and will be in touch soon. A smaller version of the fixtures will also be made available on the club notice board so you can stick it to your fridge at home and never miss a game!
Click here to download a copy of the fixtures for yourselves.
Click (awaiting link) to see Somerset League Division 3 results so far.
(Captain – David Graham)
| DATE | DAY | HOME | AWAY | RESULT | |
| 13 Oct 22 | Thurs | Weston-S-M | v | Taunton Bishops | 1½ – 2½ |
| 25 Oct 22 | Tues | Taunton Bishops | v | Sedgemoor | match postponed |
| 08 Nov 22 | Tues | Taunton Knights | v | Taunton Bishops | ½ – 3½ |
| 23 Nov 22 | Wed | Wellington | v | Taunton Bishops | 2 – 2 |
| 07 Dec 22 | Wed | Yeovil | v | Taunton Bishops | 1½ – 2½ |
| 09 Jan 23 | Mon | Sedgemoor | v | Taunton Bishops | 1½ – 2½ |
| 24 Jan 23 | Tues | Taunton Bishops | v | Weston-S-M | 2½ – 1½ |
| 07 Feb 23 | Tues | Taunton Bishops | v | Yeovil | |
| 21 Feb 23 | Tues | Taunton Bishops | v | Taunton Knights | |
| 07 Mar 23 | Wed | Taunton Bishops | v | Wellington |
(Captain – Chris Greenaway)
Division Three – Taunton Bishops – David Graham
Division Three – Taunton Knights – Chris Greenaway
The ECF is pleased to confirm that this years UK Blitz Championships will go ahead, with regional qualifier events on 3rd of 4th September or in some cases the weekend before or after. The finals will then be on 3rd December at a midlands location to be confirmed.
Regional qualifying events
There will be eight regional one-day qualifier events at locations across the country as follows —
England
London – Saturday 3rd September – St Luke’s Church, Kidderpore Ave, Golders Green NW3 7SU
Midlands – Saturday 3rd September – Holiday Inn, 212 Abbey End, Kenilworth CV8 1ED
North West – Sunday 4th September – Ukrainian Social Club, 99 Castle Street, Bolton BL2 1JP
South West – Saturday 10th September – Polish Community Centre Whitbourne Avenue, Swindon, Wiltshire SN3 2JX
North East – Sunday 11th September –The Parks Leisure Centre, Howdon Road, North Shields NE29 6TL
To learn more and enter please click here
The club maybe closed for the summer but the Juniors are still playing their chess.
Today was the Delancey UK Chess Challenge Megafinals which were held at Taunton School. The Delancey Uk Chess Challenge is the worlds largest junior chess competition which has been running since 1996 and over 1 million children have competed in the competition since it began.
What better day to have a tournament with the sun shining enabling parents to sit out on the grass as they waited for the result of each game.
Each junior played 6 games throughout the day and the top boy and girl from each section received trophies and medals for second and third place. All those receiving an award qualify for the gigafinal and all players scoring a minimum of 4/6 points qualify for the gigafinal. In addition; U-7s, U-9s and U-11s scoring a minimum of 3.5/6 qualify for the Gigafinal.
I am pleased to say that our juniors did us proud today with them all taking home an award and qualifying for the gigafinals for their age group. Congratulations to both Josh and Adri for winning their age group.
Well done!! 1st place – trophy / 2nd place – purple silver medal / 3rd place – chequered bronze medal. (It seems, by accident, the teams colours were green and blue today!).
Well another year has gone by and who’d had thought just over a year ago that we would be back to playing over the board chess. Thank you to all who have returned and to those who have joined us this past year, and we also miss those who haven’t yet been able to attend but aren’t far from our thoughts. The club has gone from strength to strength this year and it is exciting to see it grow.
Meanwhile, sadly we will be closing for the summer months and this week, 31 May 2022, will be our last club night. We will reopen on the 6th September 2022 and I’m sure David or Chris will be in touch as they start to form their teams for the Somerset League games that will be starting up again. Remember, if you want to be a part of a team you must have an ECF membership which will be due for renewal in September.
For those who can’t cope with a break and must play chess all summer, we have an open invitation to join the Wellington Club during the summer months. They meet on a Wednesday night at 19:30 at Chelston Chapel. The club is free and they ask you to contribute to the courtesy jar for refreshments. You can also follow them on their new facebook page https://www.facebook.com/wellingtonchessuk .
Directions to Chelston Chapel
Coming from the M5, Junction 26, take the road towards Wellington. At the next roundabout (the Skylark pub roundabout) take the last (4th) exit signposted towards Taunton. Go past the row of houses and about 300 yards on the right just after the motorhome place, is a blue sign that reads Chelston Chapel. Turn into that lane on the right and you will come to the chapel about 100 yards down the lane. Parking is available.
Coming from Taunton, take the Wellington A38 road, continue past Rumwell Farm shop, Sheppy’s, Blackdown garden centre and just before the motorhome place on the left take the lane off to the left and you will find the chapel about 100 yards down the lane. Unfortunately you will have your back to the Chelston Chapel sign but you will see it as you turn. If you miss it and you get to the roundabout, just go around and come back and you will see it on our return. 
We trust that you will have a wonderful summer and we look forward to seeing you again either at the Wellington club or on our return in September.
Tonight we celebrated achievements and finished our rapid tournament from last week.
First of all, we took time to honour Mike Ward who has given many many years of service to Taunton Chess Club. Mike will be stepping down as the club chairman and tournament organiser, but his contribution is more than that. He is known as the guru of chess rules, if you don’t know; you ask Mike as he knows the rule book so well. Fortunately Mike is not leaving us, he will still be around for a long time pushing his queen and pawns around the chess board. We want to say a big thank you to you for all that you have done and we hope that we continue to build on the foundations you have laid.
We continued the Rapid Tournament from last week. Poor Chris had a big task on his hands this week as the computer software was down and so it was a paper and pen exercise to arrange matches between rounds. At the end of round 6 we thought that we could almost predict the winner but we were proved wrong in round 7 when Arnold and Simon drew their games forcing a 4 way draw with 4 players (Arnold, Frey, Niall & Simon) on 5.5 points. We then drew lots to see who would play each other for a 5 minutes rapid semi final. Frey and Arnold battled it out on one board and Niall and Simon on the other. This was followed by a grand final between Arnold and Niall. See below to see who was victorious.
WInner – Niall
2nd Place – Arnold
Semi-Finalists, Minor Winner & Runner-up
Junior Players
A big thank you to Chris for organising the event and I’m sure we will keep it in the diary for next year.
Major & Minor Club Tournament
We also took the opportunity to present our annual Minor and Major trophies. Throughout the year, members are placed in a club tournament according to their grade and they play each other all year round. At the end, the successful winner gets their name added to the trophy and then they have to find a shelf at home to admire it for a year. A big congratulations to this year winners:
Major Tournament – Arnold Acibar
Minor Tournament – Nathanael Tretheway
Here are some pictures from the tournament. Taunton Chess club will be open for 3 more weeks before closing for the season until September. If you are interested in chess and would like to try the club out, please come along and like our facebook page to keep up with news of when we will reopen.
Tuesday 3rd May was the first session of the inaugural Taunton Chess Club Rapid Tournament. The tournament is being played over two weeks, with the final night on the 10th May.
It was really encouraging to see so many players even if not all were fully enjoying the time limit of 15 minutes for each player. There was plenty of room for blunders and missed opportunities with some players excelling.
Make sure you come to the club on Tuesday 10th May for the deciding 4 rounds.
There will be prizes!
A big thank you to Chris Greenaway for organising the tournament.
When: 12th June 2022
Where: Taunton Pre School
Age: Aged 18 and younger (born after 31.08.2003)
The tournament is part of the Delancey UK chess challenge for juniors and covers all the UK. Mega finals are held in different areas of the country (Somerset being our local tournament), then those who are successful will proceed to the gigafinals, then the terafinals.
More information about the Delancey program can be found here: https://www.delanceyukschoolschesschallenge.com/enter-the-challenge/
Taunton Chess Club Juniors are eligible to enter the competition at the megafinal stage and we would like to encourage all of you to enter, if you are able, as it will be great experience for you all and even better if you continue on in the competition. The cost is £20 and to submit your entry please head over to the entry form at the following link:
https://www.delanceyukschoolschesschallenge.com/product/2022-somerset-megafinal/
If you do sign up to take part can you please drop an email to Sharon & Chris on the club email: tauntonchessclub@gmail.com to let us know you are going so we can gather together during the event and Chris will be on hand to walk through games, give advice and Sharon can bring cake and look after bags etc!
Hope you can make it.
We have played two friendly matches recently, one against Sedgemoor and one against Wellington.
When we visited Sedgemoor last, we suffered an ignominious defeat 5 1/2 to 1/2.
When they came to us on the 5th April we beat them 5-0. Perhaps it was our posh wooden match sets that unnerved them, or maybe we just played better.
Especially well done to Louis Wainwright representing Taunton for the first time. A solid victory over Sedgemoor’s Ryan.
The result at Wellington was not as good. We lost 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 ; that is 1 loss and 3 draws.
Perhaps in current times though, results are less important than the opportunity to play over the board chess against unknown opponents.
Anyway thanks to all who took part. Niall, Ioannis, Chris, Stan, Richard, Arnold, Phil, Frey and Louis.