Northern Knights

Some of you might have noticed that our first fixture of the County Championship 2023 season is now open for registration. The final placings for the 2022 version were settled just a day ago, so now's the time for a report on how we did in that competition, and how we're doing in the ongoing rating-limited competitions. County Championship 2022We just held on to our division 2 status (you can see the final table here). It came down to the final two boards in the final match between Kent and ...

Same as last year, two rating-limited competitions will run in addition to the main "open" league: a U1600 and a U1300 (NB this was U1200 last year). Do we want to enter both? The board minimum for the U1300 competition will be 3; for U1600 it will be 3 or 4 depending on what division we're placed in (depends on number of entrants). Both will be the usual format of two simultaneous three-day games per player. So I think before I register us I'd like to see expressions of interest from about...

The seasons of the various leagues are not synchronised, but placings for the 2021 County Championship open league have been settled and fixtures for 2020 published. So it's a good time to provide a summary. County Championship 2021 As you can see, we finished ninth out of ten clubs in Division 1 of the open league. We were one of four teams to finish on six points, but we were last of those four owing to our head-to-head record. This means that we have been relegated, and will play the 202...

Hello Northerners, here is an update on how things are going in the main county championship league and some info about the U1600 and U1200 leagues. The county championshipSix of our 9 fixtures are now completed or underway. We've won one and lost one; of the other four, three are looking pretty grim for us, and with one, it's too early to say. That might all sound like I'm going to turn out to be the Bruce to Taylor's Benitez, but we might yet stay in the division. Last year, two wins were...

Hello all,It's the same question again, but slightly different:Registration is now open for the UK County Championship U1200 league. Do we (or those of us rated under 1200) want to enter? The idea of the league is to ensure that those players get more games, since they are often pushed off the bottom of team matches by higher-rated players. We currently have 7 members rated under 1200, plus a few unrated. Obviously it is those members who are most likely to miss out in regular league games. ...

Hello all, Registration is now open for the UK County Championship U1600 league. Do we (or those of us rated under 1600) want to enter? The idea of the league is to ensure that those players get more games, since they are often pushed off the bottom of team matches by higher-rated players. It seems to me that, at present, most of our players who sign up for a match in the regular league get a game, since we tend to be one of the smaller teams. But this might change if we drop down a divisio...

Hi all, We are two players short of the 10-board minimum in the upcoming Munster match, which starts in two days:https://www.chess.com/club/matches/northern-knights/1194334Please do register if you haven't and can. We will forfeit the match if we don't meet the minimum. Please do also ensure (if you like) that you have notifications set up so that you get a message when a new match is open for registration (or when a news item is posted). We don't have many matches, so you won't be bombarded ...

Hey all,registration will soon be open for our first match of the new league season, against Herefordshire-Worcestershire-Shropshire (snappy name!). They are new in Div 1, so not sure what to expect from them. But they seem to have a large roster.We will have one match per month up till July (except March, where there'll be two).In general, we can expect some tough matches this season. We did well to stay in Div 1 last season, since we are one of the smaller teams, and our players were consis...