Index

Welcome
to the website of the New England Chess Club
We aim to provide the opportunity for everyone to participate in the sport of chess in Peterborough, England and the surrounding area. Every Wednesday from 7:30pm, we meet at the Peterborough Sports Club to enjoy chess in a competitive but friendly atmosphere.
We cater for all standards of play and organise teams in the county leagues, hold internal events and championships and can offer tuition to improve your game.

We...
    * meet weekly throughout Autumn, Winter and Spring
    * cater for all standards of play
    * enter teams in county leagues
    * organise internal championships and events
    * offer tuition to improve your game

Facebook Page

Thanks to Jim Lewin we now have a Facebook page. Pop over and have a look. It also has other links associated with the club.
Chess was devised many centuries ago and has developed into a truly international sport.
Two players clash in a battle of ideas and imagination starting with an identical army of pieces on a board with 64 squares. Each piece has its own pattern of movement and the objective is to overwhelm the commander of your opponent's army (the king). You need to manoeuvre your forces to threaten the king (i.e. you can move one of your pieces to the square it occupies) and similarly control all the surrounding squares (checkmate).
To play chess successfully, you need to learn how the various pieces move and to understand the strategy and tactics which enable you to deploy them to deliver checkmate. Many books and websites can give basic instructions. For example the FIDE website has an official handbook. Click here to go to the site

Rules of chess website:
Chesshouse
There are a number of sites where freely available training material is available as well as game play.
Chess.com
Chessclub.com
Youtube.com

The club currently enters teams in Division 1 & 2 of the Cambridgeshire Chess Association and also the Team 7000 & this year for the first time, the Team 4000 competitions. We also play in the Fenland Cup.

http://www.cambschess.co.uk/.

This entails midweek matches against similar clubs around the county over four or five boards. The Team 7000 & 4000 competitions also give players who don't play too much team chess a chance to play in a competitve environment.

Internally, we organise a club championship, handicap and rapid play events during the winter season and a lighthearted evening of fun chess before the break for Christmas. We devote the summer months to tuition sessions aimed at improving specific areas of our play. It all adds up to a crowded calendar that keeps us active throughout the year!

The club issues a monthly newsletter to keep members abreast of match results and forthcoming events with other articles including a problem challenge and game highlights.

Internal Club Tournament Rules

To download the rules for the club tournamnets click on the appropriate link - Ladder

Des Lane
We have to pass on the sad news of the death of founder member Des Lane. He joined the Perkins fold, our predecessor club, on the demise of Bourne Chess Club and would have featured from New England's very beginnings but for a previous bout of illness. He nevertheless contributed two games to newsletter issue 005 in December 2007 and his last game was recorded in April 2020, played just before the Covid lockdowns. Our honours board records him winning Division 2 of the club championship and once sharing victory in the Rapidplay event. He can now continue his epic verbal sparring with Harry Currie in another dimension! The family have decided there will not be a funeral or wake.
Rest in peace, Des.

Mahmoud Tarabad
It is always extremely sad to record the death of a club member, especially so in the case of our longstanding companion Mahmoud Tarabad. He was one of eight people at the inaugural Annual General Meeting in 2007 where he was elected as B team captain. In post for 5 years, he was able to pass on a team that won the division the following season. Mahmoud was always a fervent proponent of giving opportunities for match games to lower graded players and he would have been proud this year to see his idea of a novice league come to fruition in the guise of the Team 4000 competition. It is a pity that he never managed to participate in it. Our internal competition to favour weaker players is the Handicap Tournament and Mahmoud is the current holder having won the event in 2017, the last time it received sufficient support to be viable. Above all, Mahmoud will be remembered for his sense of fun. He would make outlandish and provocative statements and after waiting for the shock to sink in, his eyebrows would go up and a sardonic chuckle would betray that he had outwitted you. R.I.P.
Paul Hanks

Another milestone, Paul's 200^thNewsletter!! These are a great resource on the site and apart from the index page the most visited page. Here's to another 100!!
Available for download the minutes of recent AGMs
Minutes of Club AGM 2023 Minutes of Club AGM 2022 and

Minutes of Cambridgeshire Chess Association AGM 2022 and

Minutes of Cambridgeshire Chess Association AGM 2023

The Fixtures for the coming season can now be downloaded from;

CCCA Fixtures 2023-2024 Club Championship

Complete list of Fixtures for all teams in the coming season on the LMS System here.

Cambridgeshire League Rules 2022 - League Rules
Team 7000 Rules 2022 - Team 7000 Rules
Fenland Knockout Rules 2022 - Fenland Rules

Chris Ross - Blind Faith

Our honorary club member Chris Ross has finally finished his first book and sends us details of where you can get a copy from. He says...

I am emailing to hopefully bring some small amount of joy and
excitement into our world. After some considerable time, I have finally
managed to pull together a manuscript, that may bring some
enlightenment into some of you. Most of you will be aware that I have
occasionally sent out annotations to my games. It has been a
fascinating journey over the past quarter of a century and how far
I have travelled and developed. Such a demonstrative passage.

I have decided to share that experience and wondrous journey with the
world now and have created an inspiring volume. I sincerely hope that
you will find it both instructive and developmental.

The book has now been opened up for pre-order purchasing. We are
having a period of pre-order purchasing, so that we can gauge to how
many printed versions will be required. Naturally, the printed version
is more expensive than the E-book version. Those wishing for a signed
copy of the book simply need to indicate to me that they wish for
this. This may incur a few extra days delay in receiving the volume,
but those wishing for the signed copy, notify me accordingly.
The date of release is 09 May. Those ordering the E-book version will
be sent this on that precise date.

The links that you require to pre-order this book are given below.

Paperback edition:
https://steelcitypress.co.uk/product/blind-faith/

E-book edition:
https://steelcitypress.co.uk/product/blind-faith-ebook/