English Chess Forum

Isle of Wight Chess Tournament 2026 – Registration Now Open!

Join us for a week of competitive chess by the sea on the beautiful Isle of Wight! 16–22 February 2026

Multiple sections for all levels, norm opportunities, side events, and £5,000+ in prizes.

Masters, Weekday & Weekend sections
Blitz tournament, social chess & evening events
Early bird discounts available!

All sections FIDE rated
Info & registration: https://www.iowchess.com

(Link hopefully fixed, thanks for spotting)

Dave Lightfoot wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 17, 2025 6:00 pm

Isle of Wight Chess Tournament 2026 – Registration Now Open!

Join us for a week of competitive chess by the sea on the beautiful Isle of Wight! 16–22 February 2026

Multiple sections for all levels, norm opportunities, side events, and £5,000+ in prizes.

Masters, Weekday & Weekend sections
Blitz tournament, social chess & evening events
Early bird discounts available!

All sections FIDE rated
Info & registration: www.iowchess.com

Not Found
The requested URL /www.iowchess.com was not found on this server.

Yes, Dave needs to change
[ url ]www.iowchess.com[ /ur l]
to
[ url ]https://www.iowchess.com[ /url ]
or, better still, get rid of the url tags completely!

Tim Spanton wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 17, 2025 7:58 pm

Dave Lightfoot wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 17, 2025 6:00 pm

Info & registration: www.iowchess.com

Not Found
The requested URL /www.iowchess.com was not found on this server.

It's the same mistake/issue as quite a few other people have also made - https://www.iowchess.com works, as does www.iowchess.com. You need to include https:// in the URL if using [url] tags.

What it does tell us is who checks their links work before posting and who doesn't.

Event underway, live boards on lichess. Today is also a double round day. https://lichess.org/broadcast/isle-of-w ... 2/m37l1hOY

A segment seems to be on South Today tonight (for those in the South).

GrahamStuart wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 20, 2026 6:37 pm

A segment seems to be on South Today tonight (for those in the South).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m ... s-20022026
(Isle of Wight Chess Tournament story starts from about 11:43)

I gather that there's been a power cut which explains the lack of moves if you are watching the games online.

The 2 leaders get black in the final round, which seems a bit unlucky for Matthew Wadsworth

Mick Norris wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 22, 2026 8:43 am

There's a BBC article on the Isle of Wight tournament

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czx4y194d6eo

Chess was once for nerds - now everybody wants in

That is the headline. The article features quotes from four people, Shreyas Royal, two juniors and the Tournament Director David Lightfoot.

Interesting to compare this media coverage to the news articles and columns published in the 1970s.

Mick Norris wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 21, 2026 9:43 pm

The 2 leaders get black in the final round, which seems a bit unlucky for Matthew Wadsworth

An entertaining (but probably most theoretical) draw on board 2 meaning that Matthew is the only player who can score 7.5 but several in contention to score 7 which may be a share of first.

LawrenceCooper wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 22, 2026 11:38 am

Mick Norris wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 21, 2026 9:43 pm

The 2 leaders get black in the final round, which seems a bit unlucky for Matthew Wadsworth

An entertaining (but probably most theoretical) draw on board 2 meaning that Matthew is the only player who can score 7.5 but several in contention to score 7 which may be a share of first.

Matthew has also drawn so we have a minimum of two on 7/9 with the possibility of winners on boards 3 & 4 joining them.

LawrenceCooper wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 22, 2026 11:58 am

Matthew has also drawn so we have a minimum of two on 7/9 with the possibility of winners on boards 3 & 4 joining them.

Another Matthew - Matthew Turner - won his last round game and so made it a three-way tie for first place on 7/9.

Christopher Kreuzer wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 22, 2026 10:30 am

That is the headline. The article features quotes from four people, Shreyas Royal, two juniors and the Tournament Director David Lightfoot.

One of the juniors was definitely Rami Talab who scored 6/9 in the Masters. He lost in the last round. A win would have got him 1= place and an IM norm, I guess - TPR was 2410 after the loss.

I think the other must have been Sofia Byelashova who scored 7/7 in the Under 1700. It's probably best not to try to identify the "grandpa" she played, but there does only seem to be one candidate.