About Hampshire Chess Association
Hampshire Chess Association was founded in 1890, and endeavours to promote chess within Hampshire.
Hampshire Congress
This event, incorporating the Hampshire Individual Tournament, is held annually, (in 2010 from Friday November 12th to Sunday 14th) in Eastleigh, and is popular with many local chess players.
County Championships
The early stages of the county championship are run at regional level, ie the Unions run their own championships and their champion counties move on to the National Finals. The West of England Chess Union (WECU) runs its county championships from October to March, in sections for county first teams and county second teams. Other Unions, eg Southern Counties Chess Union (SCCU) have more sections than the WECU, because they have more players.
The Final (National) stages take place from April to July and are knockout matches. There are 7 sections: Open, Minor, Under180, U160, U140, U120 and U100. In theory, a county needs to win its regional event to qualify for the National Finals, but not many Unions run all these sections in their events. The WECU asks counties to say if they want to be considered for any places in the National Stages, and then makes allocations accordingly.
Chiltern League
The Chiltern League started as a breakaway from the SCCU (Southern Counties), and then invited Hampshire to make up the numbers after some withdrawals. It is not affiliated to the ECF, and therefore has no interest in the National Finals. (But some of its members would like to.) It also has sections which do not correspond with the ECF sections. But all members of the Chiltern League are also members of a Union, so they all have a way of qualifying for the Finals anyway - Hampshire via WECU and Berks, Bucks and Oxford via the SCCU.
County Correspondence
The Correspondence match is a one-off, played on a "jamboree" basis over 9 months Oct - June.
Leagues
Hampshire Chess Association currently provides website facilities to support both the Southampton ad Portsmouth and District Chess Leagues.