Guildford Chess Club

Welcome to our world!

We aim to provide a safe and secure inclusive environment for all chess players to play and learn about chess.

We are one of the strongest chess clubs in the UK, with over 50 regular adult players and 100 juniors in membership, spanning the complete ability range from beginner to expert.

We currently field 20 teams across four leagues – the Surrey League, the Surrey Border League, the 4 Nations Chess League and the 4NCL Online. Some of our members also play for Surrey County teams and have represented England at both Junior and Senior levels.

Our regular club night is at 7.30pm on Mondays night for adults (earlier for juniors) from September to July at the Guildford Institute on Ward Street – we're closed in August and on Bank Holidays.

We encourage all our members to participate in the life of the club in some way.

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How the site works

Access to everything on the site is via the Navigation menu at the top of the page. Move the cursor over each item to reveal a drop-down menu with links to all the pages.

  • About – our constitution, contacts, gallery, history, library, membership, privacy policy, roll of honour, and safeguarding policy.

  • Activities – our calendar, coaching, junior club, league chess, and tournaments.

  • Directory – chess advice, games by club members, and links to the outside chess world.

And below on our home page, see our blog with all the latest news about the club.

It's easy to contact us. There's a contact form below for adults, and a contact form on our Juniors page for juniors.

Click on the club logo on the top left to return to the home page.

Latest news

Guildford FIDE Congress

Guildford FIDE Congress 2024 – Home players do well

The congress took place over the weekend. It ran smoothly and the players seemed to enjoy it. A total of 164 players took part. 75 in the Open, 61 in the Major and 28 in the Minor.

Guildford players featured strongly in the prizes:
  • In the Open, Alex Golding and Gwilym Price were among a group of six players who tied for 1st place on 4/5.
  • In the Major, Liam Ireland came equal 1st on 4.5/5. Harry Taylor came equal 3rd on 4/5. Julien Shepley also came equal 3rd, but walked away with the prize for the best senior player congress-wide.
  • In the Minor, none of ours won a prize, but there's an honourable mention for Ivy Piatt who finished just outside the prizes on 3.5/5.
Next year's event takes place at the same venue from Friday 11 April to Sunday 13 April 2025.

Tags: Progress report

Guildford FIDE Congress

Guildford FIDE Congress 2024 – Progress report #3

The congress has now reached maximum capacity, with 160 entrants. This is very encouraging. There are still 9 days to go until the start, so we would clearly have received a lot more by then if we had enough room.

Almost all the pre-event organisation has been done. We are still short of volunteers from the club to help over the weekend. A separate email will go to club members about that.

Here are some stats about the event.
  • There are 74 players in the Open, 58 in the Major (<2000) and 28 in the Minor (<1600).
  • The average rating is 2039 in the Open, 1705 in the Major and 1420 in the Minor.
  • 25 members of Guildford have entered.
  • There are 55 juniors in the event (one-third of the total), including 35 in the Open. That's aged under 18 on 1 January 2024.
  • There are 22 seniors in the event. That's aged 60+ on 1 January 2024.
  • There are 9 female players in the event.
  • The youngest player is aged 8 and the oldest is aged 95.
  • The highest-rated player is last year's winner, IM Gediminas Sarakauskas, rated 2443.
  • There are 4 IMs, 3 FIDE Masters, 1 Woman FIDE Master, and 4 Candidate Masters.
  • 22 different FIDE Federations are represented.
So maybe we should call this the Guildford International Chess Congress…

Tags: Progress report

Guildford FIDE Congress

Guildford FIDE Congress 2024 – Progress report #2

Now just 6 weeks to the start. Here are the latest statistics.

So far we have 81 entries.
  • 44 in the Open (average rating 1993), including 3 IMs.
  • 22 in the Major / U2000 (average rating 1648).
  • 15 in the Minor / U1600 (average rating 1390).
The entries include 27 juniors; 14 members of Guildford; 4 female players; and 18 seniors (aged 50+). These categories aren't mutually exclusive.

As last year, this will be an international event: a total of 12 different FIDE Federations are already represented.

For more details, see the FIDE Congress page on this website or the Chess-Results server.

A number of members of Guildford have agreed to help as volunteers over the congress weekend. Many thanks to them – we could not make this event work without them.

Tags: Progress report

Guildford FIDE Congress

Guildford FIDE Congress 2024 – Progress report #1

The FIDE Congress is now only 10 weeks away. How are the preparations going?

So far we have 46 entries.
  • 23 in the Open (average rating 1978), including 3 IMs.
  • 12 in the Major / U2000 (average rating 1640).
  • 11 in the Minor / U1600 (average rating 1376).
That's a promising number so far in advance of the event. We may well reach 160 which is the maximum the venue can hold.

The entries include 15 juniors; 11 members of Guildford; and 2 female players. These aren't mutually exclusive – a number of Guildford juniors have already signed up.

We have a team of three FIDE arbiters – Emma-Jane Billington-Phillips and John Bowley, who were arbiters at the first FIDE Congress in 2023, and Paul McKeown, who joins us this year.

As last year, this will be an international event: a total of 8 different FIDE Federations are already represented.

For more details, see the FIDE Congress page on this website or the Chess-Results server.



Tags: Progress report

Guildford FIDE Congress

Guildford FIDE Congress 2024

The Guildford FIDE Congress 2024 will take place at the University of Surrey over the weekend of Friday 12 April to Sunday 14 April 2024. The format will be very similar to this year's event – a 5-round Swiss tournament in three sections, Open, Major and Minor. All results will be submitted for ECF rating and FIDE rating.

We will start taking entries for the Congress in January 2024.

Tags: October 2023

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Contact us

This form is for enquiries from adults. For juniors please use the contact form on our Juniors page.

© 2024 Guildford Chess Club