Two English teams qualify for the 2025 World Chess League play-offs!

[Peter Hornsby]

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Congratulations to Petts Wood & Orpington and Durham University Alumni teams for finishing in the top 10 out of nearly 100 teams in the 2025 season of the World Chess League.

Their first matches in the knock-out stage are as follows, and you can watch it live on Chess.com through clicking on the links below:

Sunday 8th June 6pm:

Petts Wood & Orpington vs South African Chess Hub

https://www.chess.com/play/match/2904965

Sunday 22nd June 8pm:

Durham University Alumni vs Team Iran Pro

https://www.chess.com/play/match/2905079

We wish them the very best of luck!

[Peter Hornsby]

Petts Wood & Orpington Squad:

Aaravamudhan Balaji
John Merriman
Aditya Verma
Shlok Verma
Jean-Baptiste Jugand
Laurence Ball
Andrew Hon
Musiri Balaji
Conrad Allison


Durham Alumni squad:

NM Sam Walker
George Gaz
Peter Hornsby
Phil Purcell
Will Taylor
Szymon Palucha
Phil Manning

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Could someone explain if this is new, and how prestigious/established it is? Good luck to the English players!

[Peter Hornsby]

Could someone explain if this is new, and how prestigious/established it is? Good luck to the English players!

You can see full details of the tournament here:

https://www.worldchessleague.live/

Here are the rest of the teams with their eligible players:

South African Chess Hub https://www.chess.com/club/south-african-chess-hub-wcl

FM Matfey Rogov
FM Caleb Levitan
CM Reegan Palmer
Jiraan Braaf
Chase Salimu
Bongolethu Ncethelo
Ethan Samuels
Tezihano Mnyasta
Charlton Mnyasta
Waylon Brander
James Dinham
CM Reegan Palmer

Chess Club Dragon https://www.chess.com/club/chess-club-dragon-wccl

GM Ivić Velimir or GM Šubelj Jan

IM Nenezić Marko
IM Arsović Goran
IM Milanović Slaviša
FM Vujić Mihailo
Aleksandar Toth
Savićević Vlatko
Stamatović Aleksandar
Radosević Nenad
Blagojević Srdjan

Chess Club Politika https://www.chess.com/club/chess-club-politika-wcll

GM Atalik Suat
GM Gagunashvili Merab
GM Stojanović Mihajlo
GM Striković Aleksa
GM Miljković Miroslav
IM Pezelj Novak
IM Maksimović Bojan
IM Stanković Milos
IM Krstulović Alex
FM Ristić Luka
CM Simonović Miroslav

Dundee City Chess Club A https://www.chess.com/clubs/members/dundee-city-a

FM Rishi Vijayakumar
IM Richard Polaczek
Andrew Wright
Ian McDonald
Andre Babin
Declan Shafi
Stephen Hogg
David Findlay

Chongqing Mistyland Yangtze River https://www.chess.com/club/chongqing-mi ... gtze-river

Gu Xianghan
Dou Yanxiao
Fan Yupan
Xu Muyang

Wieża Wadowice https://www.chess.com/club/wieza-wadowice

CM Piotr Sygulski
Krzysztof Grabara
Adrian Urbański
Kamil Smusz
Piotr Janas
Kateryna Vus
Jan Malata
Dmitriy Vus
Jakub Paluch
Kacper Kania
Tadeusz Strus
Mateusz Strus

Team Iran Pro https://www.chess.com/club/team-iran-pro

GM Amir Reza Pourramezanali
FM Amir Hossein Kashefi
IM Mersad Khodashenas
CM AmirAli Ghafourian
CM Koorosh Bigiarifard

One of: GM Khalil Mousavi, GM Mahdi Gholami Orimi, IM Reza Mahdavi, IM Arman Hakem, CM Mohammadparsa Afshari, Sadegh Mahmoody

Here are the club pages for:

Petts Wood & Orpington A https://www.chess.com/clubs/members/pet ... chess-club

Durham University Alumni https://www.chess.com/club/durham-alumni

Will also have Valentina Futoryanova

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Thank you Peter.

This will bring a smile from Keith:

Famous world stars that have played in the tournament include: GM Andrew Tang, wonderkid GM Daniel Dardha, former UK Champion GM Keith Arkell and GM Simen Agdestein (who was World Number 1 GM Magnus Carlsen's former chess coach), GM Frode Urkedal, GM Vladimir Baklan, & WIM Jesse February.

[Peter Hornsby]

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Feature in the South African Times.

Delighted that African Chess Hub will be streaming the Petts Wood & Orpington A vs South African Chess Hub match with commentary from 6pm UK time, you can watch it here:

https://www.twitch.tv/aclchess

https://www.youtube.com/@aclchess

You can view the boards live here:

https://www.chess.com/play/match/2904965

[Matt Mackenzie]

Ah the usual "how many moves ahead?" question that those who don't understand anything about chess are so fond of asking.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Article about Caleb Levitan here:

https://www.goodthingsguy.com/people/14 ... -of-chess/

I like how the newspaper article above talked about Charlton Mnyasta:

https://www.goodthingsguy.com/sport/cha ... th-africa/

Two very different backgrounds but same team.

[Peter Hornsby]

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Match scorecard and games:

https://www.chess.com/club/matches/live ... ub/2904965

You can watch the commentary back here:

https://www.youtube.com/live/H7JyFf1FFT0

Commiserations to Petts Wood & Orpington, a fine season from them.

Well done to South African Chess Hub, they will now face Chess Club Dragon from Serbia in the quarter-finals on the 12th July.

The next match sees the last remaining English team Durham University Alumni face-off against Team Iran Pro on the 22nd June 8pm UK time:

https://www.chess.com/play/match/2905079

[Peter Hornsby]

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Congratulations to Team Iran Pro on their emphatic victory against Durham University Alumni- knocking out the last English team remaining in the quarter-final stage.

Special mention however to Phil Purcell who won his second game GM Amir Reza Pourramezanali in a huge upset!

https://www.chess.com/game/live/146143413671

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amir_Reza_Pourramezanali

There is one British team remaining however, Dundee City A, and they play next Saturday against Chongqing Yangtze from China.