4NCL 2025/26 Season
The 4NCL finished last month, with the two Crowthorne Teams having varying fortunes.
Crowthorne A, which struggled to get its strongest team out consistently, was relegated from the strong Division 2 (four teams out of 12 are relegated – it is not so easy to stay in Div 2!). Still, the team remained competitive with 7 of the 11 matches being decided by the odd game (or drawn).
Crowthorne B, in Division 4, was setup to give club members the opportunity to play in the 4NCL. The team was usually outrated in their matches. We are grateful to the Captain, Tim Chapman, for this report:
We had 11 club members who played for the 4NCL B team in the 25/26 season. I would like to thank everyone who played and everyone made a positive contribution to the team.
I would like to highlight a few special contributions:
The team is always looking for new players, so we welcome Vickie Lin joining the squad this year.
Christine Coates played in 10 of the 11 rounds and her score of 4 tied for the most number of points scored for the team. William Purle was the other player who scored 4 points (from 9 games) and his attacking style led to some exciting games.
We were helped by 2 players from other clubs and in particular Jonathan Young’s score of 3.5 out of 7 games was very impressive against an opposition who rated an average of 70 points above his rating.
The highest percentage score of 75% was achieved by Harvey Duckers, Ken Coates and David Purle.
The player who scored the largest increase in rating points was Scott Leadbetter who scored 2 out of 3 against an opposition rated on average 38 points above his rating.
Finally, I would like to thank Matthew McKean who helped a lot providing transport, booking accommodation and recruiting extra players
All 4NCL tables, match results and games can be found on the 4NCL website
Crowthorne wins their Group in the Online 4NCL!
Congratulations to our Online 4NCL Team, who have won their group in the 11th season of the event (click the table below for a larger image):
We were in Division 3 of 5, which was split into two all play all groups. We won our group which earned us promotion to Division 2 next season. We then went into the semi finals to determine the 1st 4 places and lost this match. We ended up 3rd in our Division.
Our history in the 4 NCL Online tournaments since they started during Covid is:
Season 1 Didn’t enter this
Season 2 In division 5 of 6
Season 3 In division 4 of 7
Season 4 In division 3 of 5
Season 5 In division 2 of 5
Season 6 Didn’t enter this
Season 7 Didn’t enter this
Season 8 In division 5 of 5
Season 9 In division 5 of 5
Season 10 In division 4 of 5
Season 11 In division 3 of 5
So if we enter a team in Season 12 (tbc but likely to start in September), we’ll be back in division 2, as we were in season 5.
Congratulations and thanks are also due to George for running the team, and for providing the above report.
Junior 4NCL Online Season 11 summary
Once again George Green captained Crowthorne Chess Club’s team in the Junior Online 4NCL, for the recently completed 11th Season. He has sent us this summary:
We played our final match of the season yesterday evening and won it 8-0 !!
We finished 7th in Division 3 (last season we were 6th), with 5 wins, 0 draws, 2 losses).
Table: 4nclresults.co.uk/2024-25/media/kids/11th/prog-div3.html
Thanks go to David’s Dad for captaining the team for the sixth match while I was away on my hols.
I expect there to be a season 12 starting in September, but that has not yet been confirmed.
In Season 11, I had a team of seven, plus one reserve only to play if absolutely necessary. My team selection process was to share the games around as evenly as possible, rather than to always pick the strongest team. This worked well, with three players being “rested” on two occasions each, and four “resting” on one occasion each.
Well done to everyone who played in it, and to George for organising it!
Online 4NCL Round 1
Round 1 of the 9th Season of the 4NCL took place on Tuesday, and Crowthorne started with a win against the Colchester JFF B team.
We outrated our opponents, but a good start to the season nonetheless. All results, tables etc can be found at the 4ncl website.
OTB 4NCL weekend 2 2023/2024
Rounds 3-4 of the over-the-board 4NCL have completed, with Crowthorne Chess Club’s two teams competing over the last two weekends. The B team played over 6-7 January and the A team on Jan 13-14.
Both teams won their Saturday matches, but then followed with losses on Sunday. This was particularly unfortunate for the A Team who came close to winning a couple of their games, but without quite managing to press their advantage for a win. Crowthorne A lost the match 2.5 – 3.5. To be fair, their opponents (Sussex Martlets) also came close to winning one or two of their other games, and after four rounds they lead the division with 4 wins out of 4.
Richard had a tremendously complicated game, with an “unclear” assessment being reasonable for most of the game. Then his opponent decided that his king was safer out of the centre, and he castled (on move 29!) into a strong attack. Neither player could see a forcing line for Richard (playing White), and the game soon ended in a repetition. At that point, Richard was playing on increment and got down to 1-2 seconds on a couple of occasions.
In the cold light of day, and with access to a strong engine, we can see that White did have a win available, although this was also missed by players and kibitzers alike in the post-mortem. The lines are quite pretty, though, so you may like to play through them.
4NCL Online season 8 summary
Season 8 of the Online 4NCL Tournament has finished and we finished 7th out of 32 teams in Division 5. We were helped by 4 defaults by our opponents, but, we did share the games a round the squad rather than always pick the strongest team.
More details can be found at the 4NCL Web Site
OTB 4NCL Weekend 1
Both Crowthorne teams had solid starts in this season’s over-the-board 4NCL. Crowthorne A played its first weekend (Rounds 1&2) over Nov 11-12, and the B team played this weekend (18-19).
Crowthorne A drew their first match 3-3 against Poole Patzers and followed up with a good 4.5-1.5 win against Surbiton in round 2. This puts us near the top of Division 3 Knights, but obviously it’s early days yet.
Crowthorne B played the strong Guildford Young Guns team in round 1, and only lost 2-4 despite being outgraded on every board (by an average of 267 points). For a while, we were even leading the match, after a nice win by Scott (see below). This was followed up by a good 4-2 win against Iceni 2, despite again being outgraded (by an average of 120 points). A very good start for the B team against strong opposition, which leaves us mid-table in Division 4.
In Scott’s first round game, he had white in the position below. Black has just played Be7-d8, defending against White’s threat of Nb6. However, he overlooked a tactical shot which Scott played. Can you find it? Click the “?” to reveal the solution.
4NCL 2023/2024
The over-the-board 4NCL season is nearly upon us, with Crowthorne A playing its first two rounds this coming weekend (Nov 11-12) and the B team the weekend after that.
However, the on-line 4NCL team has already been active, having played five rounds in Season 8 of the competition.
Team Captain, George, has been rotating the players so that all the squad gets games. In the online event, teams have four players.
Results have been mixed, and Crowthorne are currently sitting mid-table in the league.
Results of the previous rounds:
4NCL Roundup
Crowthorne Chess Club had two teams in the 4 Nations Chess League (4NCL) in the 2022/23 season. The A team played in Division 3 East and the B Team played in Division 4. In the 4NCL, 11 matches are played over five weekends in the year with Divisions 3 being an all-play-all and Division 4 being a Swiss.
As one of the higher rated teams in Division 3E, the A team was hoping to fight for promotion, but in the end we finished in 5th place with 4 match wins, 4 draws and 2 losses. Our points total was not helped by winning a match against a team which subsequently withdrew from the division – all their results were scrubbed. However, this did not affect our chances for promotion.
Our B team finished in the bottom half of Division 4, with results in line with the team’s rating. The Division gives the opportunity for player rotation, and 10 club members played for the B team over the course of the season. It is not currently clear if this will continue to be available, as the 4NCL hasn’t finalised its plans for next season.
As usual, full details can be found on the 4NCL website
4NCL Final Round – Critical Game
Crowthorne A’s final round match in the 4NCL Division 3 South against Cambridge University 2 was a potentially critical game for the entire season, given that a number of teams were bunched closely together so that a win would mean second place, and a loss would mean somewhere in mid-table.
Paul’s game, despite a rather quiet beginning, gradually became more and more complex and was the last game to finish, with the match score being on 2.5-2.5
Many thanks to Paul for providing comments to the game.
Click on any move for a popup board to appear.
Notwithstanding Paul’s final comment, his teammates thought that this was a well-played game (by both players) as some inaccuracies can be expected in such complicated positions.