About The Club
Cambridge City Chess Club welcomes players of all strengths. We have more than 40 members, with Elo/FIDE ratings up to the 2300 (Master) range. We play chess under tournament conditions (time-controls with digital chess clocks, and games are rated). We participate annually in the Bury Area league, with several teams. We also have a club championship and an annual Town vs Gown match.
We meet on Wednesdays at 7:30pm from September to June at: St. Augustine's Church Hall, 101 Richmond Road, Cambridge CB4 3PS. Parking is available on this road and nearby.
Cambridge City Chess Club plays formal matches against teams from other cities on a fixture calendar set in September, and hosts internal competitions among its members.
Membership
The Club is open to all, but membership in the English Chess Federation (ECF) is required so that games are rated. The Club charges membership fees (annually in September) to cover our venue hire and other costs, as follows:
- Standard Membership fee: £100
- Seniors (65 or older): £75
- Juniors (younger than 18): £50
- Persons other than Seniors who are unemployed: £50
Main Activities
We play in the Bury Area Chess League (BACL), in which we usually field five or six teams. Teams consist of four players, sometimes drawn from a squad of five, selected in August. This League is very well organized with four divisions of six or seven teams each, playing each other team twice (Home and Away) making 10 to 12 fixtures. The Away fixtures are in Ely, Linton and Bury St Edmunds, on Mondays, Tuesdays or Thursdays. We also participate in the Fenland Cup, an annual knock-out tournament among Cambridgeshire clubs.
An informal annual "Town vs Gown" rapidplay contest (30 minutes per player) is held usually in April, mainly against Cambridge University students.
An internal Club Championship is played throughout the season, formatted as double round-robins within Groups of six organised by ratings.
Visitors are welcome; a member of the club will greet you and give you more information about the club. An impromptu game on the night is unlikely though, due to the season's schedule.