Latest MCCU News

First u1650 matches played. Staffs and Warks win

25 Oct 2025. Warks-Derbys. Derbyshire scored a narrow victory over Warwickshire at Coleshill, Warks. See details.

11 Oct 2025. Staffs-Lincs. Staffordshire beat Lincolnshire 9-7 in a 16 board match. See details. The match began with Staffs taking a quick 3-0 lead and looking in a strong position on many boards. Gradually Lincs began to claw back into contention, but Staffs were aboe to make two draws to secure the win.

27 Sep 2025. Warks-Worcs.Worcs defaulted a board in a 12-board match and in the end Warks won with that advantage. See details.

27 Sep 2025. Derbys-Staffs. Peter Evans and David Pickering report. Over 16 boards, the final result was an 8-8 draw at Rolls Royce Derby. As Derbyshire’s Under 1450 players have not yet formed a team, the captains agreed to reserve the lower four boards for under 1450 players. The lead changed hands several times. Eventually two boards were left. Staffs won the sixth board to reach 8 points and on the last board with the clocks ticking away, and the Derbyshire player achieved a past pawn and victory with only 2 minutes to spare. A hard but cleanly fought drawn match. One player remarked that he enjoyed his hard fought game - the last to finish - and David Pickering commented that county chess allows time to play a game to its logical conclusion. See details.

Birmingham FIDÉ Rapid and Blitz

4 Oct 2025. Dragos-George Munteanu (Derbys) Bruce baer (Birmingham), and Luke Honey (Devon) shared first prize with 4 points from their five rapidplay games. Ethan Lynch (Warks) dominated the Blitz with wins in all seven games. The event attracted eighteen players, was played a Bishop Iseley School, Acocks Green, Birmingham and organised by Domenico Napolitano.

Matches for the MCCU team championships

12 Sep 2025, Stephen Smithson reports. The fixtures lists are available on the ECF League management System. The first match for the MCCU county team championship is in mid-November; the first of ten u1650 matches is on 27 September, and the u1850 match between Lincolnshire and Staffordshire is on 21 February 2026.

Nottingham UK Open Blitz Qualifier

7 Sep 2025. WFM Elis Denele Dicen (Warks) qualified as top female player with 9½ points in this fifteen-round event. IM Aaravamudhan Balaji (London) won the tournament with 14 points and also qualifies. Forty players competed in this event organised by Alex Holowczak (Worcs) for the the ECF with arbiters FA Hambel Willow (Notts), FA John Bowley (Essex) and NA Marcel Taylor (Notts).

Worcestershire Closed Congress

24 Aug 2025. WGM Kata Toma made history at Worcestershire’s closed congress. She and defending county champion Joe Friar met in the final round and drew. Although both players finished on 4½ points, Kata had the a slightly superior tie-break to take the title. Kata is the first woman player to win the Worcestershire Championship and is possibly the first woman county champion in the MCCU counties. See list of other prize winners and final cross-table and links to pictures and list of other winners. Read about Worcestershire’s individual champion on BBC news.

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Next in the Midlands

Sun 9 Nov. Birmingham Rapidplay at Quinborne Community Centre, Ridgacre Road, Quinton, Birmingham B32 2TW. Seven rounds 10:30am to 6:30pm; Open, Major (u2000), Inter (u1750), Minor (u1500) sections. Limited to 150 competitors.

Next Junior tournament

Sat 29 Nov. Midlands Juniors vs Wales Juniors match in Shropshire

Online competitions

Link for all ECF online events.

Link for all 4NCL online events.

Next national events

Sun to Fri 26-31 Oct. Coventry International at Holiday Inn, Hinckley Road, Coventry. For players rated above 1800. GM norms available. Nine round Swiss with 2 half-point byes available if required. Coaching for junior players and an evening Blitz tournament.

The "chess counties" forming the MCCU

Ten "Chess Counties" form the Midland Counties Chess Union and cover the areas shown in the map on the right. A small Board of volunteer directors currently led by Chief Executive Ray Dolan (Staffs) is elected annually by delegates from member chess counties. The Board organises regional competitions based on policies agreed annually by delegates from member chess counties.

By playing in the competitions hosted on this website you agree that your name, chess rating and your membership status with the English Chess Federation (ECF) may be published on this website for the purposes of recording the results of the competitions. You also agree that such information will be passed to the ECF, the governing body, for rating purposes, and published on their website.

The MCCU

The current webmaster is Ray Collett (Worcs). The website's policy is to report results of the MCCU competitions, principally the MCCU county team tournaments and congresses. Brief results of other chess congresses held in the MCCU area and and links to organisers' websites are on the "News" pages. A calendar of upcoming chess congresses is on the "Congresses" pages. Some important national and international chess events will also be reported if there is a "Midlands" interest. In the menu bar above: "About" gives more information about the MCCU and has links to rules and administrative papers; "Guide" explains the site's organisation and provides links to most of the site's key pages.

Please send news of Midlands chess events, corrections, notifications of broken links, and suggestions to improve the website to Ray Collett.