First and foremost chess should be fun! This is the ethos of Ojays, the Oxfordshire Junior Squad Chess Club. We meet weekly on Thursdays between 6.15pm and 8pm, either in person or online, to develop young chess players in preparation for county tournaments and individual competitions.

J4NCL weekend 2 (18-19 January)

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The second weekend of the popular J4NCL tournaments is happening soon on 18-19 January 2020 in Holiday Inn South Normanton, M1 junction 28, Carter Lane East, South Normanton, Alfreton, DE55 2EH.

The tournaments are team events with five rounds of standard play over Saturday and Sunday. Players do not have to play in all rounds, as long as the team fields 4 players in each round. The other members of the team will always get a game in reserves, but might skip a round if this suits their other activities over the weekend (e.g. football games, birthday parties, etc.).

This time the tournament venue is 2.5-3 hours away from Oxford and driving to and fro seems not an option. You may wish to consider to stay at the tournament hotel or another place around overnight.

Please let Ola Murawska (amurawska@yahoo.co.uk) know if you would like to play. The entry fee will be not more than £10 (it might be less depending on the number of players) and can be paid to Ola on the day or via bank transfer. Please add info for which rounds you would like to take a bye. We will keep you informed on the likelihood of getting you on a team, as this depends on the number of available players and their ECF grade (each team has to reach a certain average of ECF grading). Please advise if you have preference to play in the stronger FIDE-rated Division 1 (higher team average required, so this option is for stronger players).

We cannot guarantee that you get on a team, but will do our best to accommodate as many players as possible. Will try to give preference to ‘first come first served’ rule, but this cannot be strictly followed here as we have the team grade average requirement and teams have to be arranged around this.

Those who are new to this series of tournaments can find some more information here:
J4NCL dates 2019-20
  • Weekend 2: 18-19 January 2020: Holiday Inn South Normanton
  • Weekend 3: 15-16 February 2020: Mercure Daventry Court Hotel and Spa