Hampshire joined with Dorset to play in the 4th Western Counties Online Championships. We also invited Wiltshire, but no-one came forward and therefore it was mainly Hampshire, with three Dorset players who took on Somerset in the preliminary round of the KO tournament.
The combined Hampshire (11 players) / Dorset (3) / Wiltshire (2) lost 4 – 12 to Devon in the WECU Online Final. We were always a big underdog facing a very strong team, and with two local tournaments at the weekend this made it an even harder challenge.
Dorset can be particularly happy as they scored 2 points from their 3 games with Allan and Tim both winning. Chris McSheehy hade a very nice checkmate and both Rajasekhar and Mike Krawczuk held stronger players to draws.
Many thanks to all the players, as there is a lot of chess being played presently and I appreciate the effort from everyone to play. We obviously did very well to win our semi-final against Gloucestershire and maybe next season we can challenge!
With the pandemic position in 2021 no West of England County chess competition was held but for the first time an online variety was held. In the past there have been friendly telephone matches between counties and in the 1970’s with the petrol rationing there were discussions in the WECU for County matches to also to be held by telephone.
With the pandemic rife there was no West of England County chess competition this season. During this period more and online chess was being played and it was decided that a 2nd season of the online variety would be held.