2023 Congress Report – Crewe Chess Club is closed over Christmas. We are open as normal 7th January 2025.

This weekend (30th June to 2nd July 2023) has seen our 6th weekend congress, and our 2nd at the prestigious Mornflake Stadium. With 163 competitors, the large playing room provided a spacious area to allow everyone to play in comfort. The feedback from everyone has been extremely positive, We have including some of the comments below.

This weekend’s 6th Crewe Chess Congress was a resounding success, brilliantly organised and run by Dave Price, Nigel Gardiner, Colin Abell and Chief Arbiter, Matt Carr. I’ve played in a lot of chess congresses and this is up there with the best of them, and the Crewe Alexandra FC stadium is a wonderful venue. If you’re looking to play in a chess congress, then look no further than this one. The 7th Congress, I’m told, will be over the same weekend in 2024, so put it in your diary.

I really enjoyed the congress last weekend: well organised, lots of space with good facilities (analysis room, refreshments etc) and good arbiters. Thank you for organising it!

I very much enjoyed it, thank you

Really enjoyed the congress, thanks for organising!

Definitely I enjoyed it and already looking forward for next year! I will also tell all my friend in Glasgow

It was fantastically organised. Was very impressed. There is nothing that you could have done to improve it to be honest. All organisers were so friendly and helpful in all aspects

Thank you to you all who worked so tirelessly over the weekend to make it happen for us all to enjoy a feast of chess, in a truly superb venue only five minutes from the train station! I did hear the announcement regarding making the numbers you expected. It won’t be long before the news gets around to the others. I know this for fact that people from South of England and major Scottish cities travelled to Preston CC (unfortunately now extinct) because of the hassle free journey.

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The Isle of Man here, back on the Island now, just wanted to thank you for an excellent Congress, my favourite one to date, wished I started the first two days better but third day’s performance made up for the heart ache. I will definitely look to make Crewe a regular and try to lobby the club to send more members over.

Just wanted to say thanks for running the event, as per usual from you all everything seemed perfect from my end. Great venue and great work put in by you and the team fostering that relationship!

Wanted to drop a quick note to thank you, the organising team, arbiters and the team of ladies in the lounge for making the event such great.

We had a great time and my son thoroughly enjoyed playing in the Congress. The venue is great and much better than many others.

Thanks again for the event and looking forward to the next event. Even though it’s a bit of a hike for us but we will try and be there.

I just wanted to thank you for all the hard work and skill that went into organising such a brilliant and successful congress. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I am sure that the vast majority of others also thoroughly enjoyed it.

Many thanks go to all the players that attended our congress over this weekend with players travelling from such places as the Isle of Man, Swansea, London and Exmouth to name a few, to supplement the local Crewe Contingent of 21 and many North-Western, Midlands and Yorkshire based competitors.

Due to the impressive rise in numbers from our previous congresses, we were delighted to add some additional prizes to increase the prize fund from £1800 to nearly £2000.

Thanks go to the Arbiter team of Matthew Carr, Colin Abell and Crewe Chess Club’s Chairman Dave Price, who provided such a warm and welcoming atmosphere. Our special thanks got to the army of volunteers that has kept us refreshed over the weekend under the guidance of Nigel and Lindsay Gardner.

We would also like thank any players that supported the congress with a kind donation