On the weekend of the 22nd and 23rd of October, 73 chess players from Oxfordshire and beyond meet at Cokethrope School for the Forth Witney Chess Congress. Cokethorpe is a Private School set in the west Oxfordshire countryside a few miles south of Witney.
The Congress had 4 separate tournaments, an Open, an Under 170, an Under 145 and an Under 120 with 9 players in the open, including Grandmaster John Nunn and just over 20 players in each of the other three.
Cumnor was well represented at the congress with Gareth, Mark, Daniel and myself (Liam) all playing in the Under 170’s and Andrew acting as a spare incase a player had a bye and helping his students between games.
Gareth was the most successful and managed to finish joint second with 3.5 out of 5, while Daniel finished with 2.5 and Mark and myself finished with 2 (all out of 5).
I had a good weekend even though my grade suffered a little, the complete cross table can be found here along with some pictures of the event.
Finally a thanks must be given to all the organisers including Mike Truran and arbiters for providing such a great weekend’s chess and see you all at Kidlington Chess Congress in February.