The UK’s national league, the 4NCL, is turning into a two-horse race after last weekend’s third and fourth rounds at Peterborough. Wood Green, the 2024 and London League champions, and Manx Liberty, the 2023 winners whose core is a group of Romanian and Hungarian grandmasters, have both won all their four matches.
After four of the 11 rounds the leaders are Wood Green 8 match points (24 game points), Manx Liberty 8 (23.5), Cheddleton Savills Catering 6 (19), Barnet Knights 6 (18). The fixture list is geared to producing a climax, so that Wood Green v Manx will only occur in May’s final round, when both teams are likely to enhance their squads with strong GM wildcards.
Related: Chess: Dommaraju Gukesh recovers from brush with disaster at Wijk aan Zee
Cheddleton’s only loss has been to Manx, and they have a good chance for third, whereas the Sharks, who missed the title narrowly last season, fell back with defeats in rounds three and four.
Last weekend’s matches took place amid storms and travel dislocation, which particularly affected those coming from the north. Scotland’s team, Alba, were penalised for defaults, and are in danger of relegation. Alba’s weekend was still a success, as Freddy Gordon, 14, confidently drew with two 2400+ opponents on top board and improved his chances of achieving his third and final IM norm. The Edinburgh schoolboy is widely regarded as Scotland’s best ever prospect, alongside GM Jonathan Rowson.
GM Danny Gormally, travelling from the north-east to represent Blackthorne, was badly affected by rail disruption. He eventually arrived at the board well past the normal one-hour default time, but was offered the chance to play Manx’s top board, Constantin Lupulescu, with just three minutes plus the 30 seconds per move increment on his clock compared with the normal 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game.
With little to lose, Gormally accepted the massive handicap, and was duly defeated in 27 moves as Lupulescu’s queen and knight combined for a checkmating attack on White’s castled king.
Gormally then promptly related his adventurous episode in detail in an entertaining stream of consciousness " target="_blank" class="link"> on YouTube. The popular GM was rewarded next day when he forced a winning rook endgame against IM Tom Rendle in the fourth round and emerged with a rating points gain from the weekend.
In Justin Tan (Wood Green) v Samuel Chow (Chessable White Rose), the Australian GM demonstrated how the anti-French Defence formation from the 2025 world title match can lead to a decisive white attack. At the end Tan had a classic Alekhine’s Gun formation with tripled queen and rooks on the f file.
Simon Williams, the “ginger GM”, who scores well with his Dutch Defence 1 d4 f5 and an early Ne4 for Black, produced another speedy and impressive win with his pet line against Gwilym Price in Cheddleton v Sharks as his army overwhelmed the white king.
Two more major English events are scheduled for the next few weeks. The £4,000 Wightlink Isle of Wight Masters at Ryde from 18-23 February has strength in depth, with 17 players rated over 2400, while the £5,000 British Rapidplay at Peterborough on 1-2 March includes two of England’s top GMs: Gawain Jones and Nikita Vitiugov. You can enter here.
The entry of nearly 350 competitors for last Sunday’s ECF girls U19 and U11 semi-finals at St Catherine’s, Bramley, Surrey, was a British record for an all-female event. Fittingly the two top boards. scoring 5/5 for the winning teams, were the two best players. Both Eugenia Karas (St Paul’s Girls, U19) and Zoe Veselow (Bancroft’s Prep, U11) have won gold medals in World or European youth championships.
Gukesh Dommaraju, the 18-year-old world champion, has taken a clear half-point lead with three rounds to go at Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee. The Indian’s ninth-round game was a strategic crush in the style of Anatoly Karpov, but it could have been different if Black had captured 24…Bxe4! and later when 31…h5! followed by h4-h3 would have launched a dangerous counter.
Leaders after 10 rounds: Gukesh (India) 7.5, Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzbekistan) 7, Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu (India) 6.5, Vladimir Fedoseev (Slovenia) 6, Fabiano Caruana (US) and Wei Yi (China) 5.5.
Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee concludes this weekend, with rounds 11 and 12 at 1pm GMT on Friday and Saturday and the final round 13 at 11am on Sunday. Live commentary by England’s David Howell and Jovanka Houska is " target="_blank" class="link"> on YouTube.
3957: 1...Bxf3! 2 Kxf3 d2 3 Ke2 f3+! 4 Kxd1 f2 and a pawn queens.
