For the third successive year there will be an all-play-all title norm tournament taking place in Stafford, the home town of the organiser Lawrence Cooper. Thanks must go to The Chess Trust, John Robinson Youth Chess Trust and The Friends of Chess who have provided financial assistance to allow the event to continue.
The English International Masters aiming for grandmaster norms will be Ameet Ghasi, Matthew Wadsworth, Jonah Willow and Jack Rudd. They are joined by Scotland’s Frederick Waldhausen Gordon (born in 2010 but already a FIDE Master), FM Ioan Rees from Wales and IM Andre Sousa from Portugal. The three grandmasters are Eldar Gasanov from Ukraine, alongside Scotland’s Matthew Turner & Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant.
The games start at 10.00am on Friday 14th July with afternoon rounds at 3.00pm. The tournament finishes on Tuesday 18th July with two games on each day except for Sunday 16th when there will be a blitz tournament in the afternoon which will hopefully combine some of the titled players from the norm tournament alongside local players.
Results will be updated on the Chess-results website and we hope to have live coverage of the games on Chess24 and other websites. International Arbiter Matthew Carr will again be the Chief Arbiter and in charge of the live board coverage.