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Editor: Dr Tim Harding |
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Editor: Dr Tim Harding |
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© Dr Tim Harding
Last modified:
26 January 2023
For more information about chess for over-50s, please see our Seniors news and Seniors introduction pages.
The English Chess Federation has now released full details of the English Senior Championships, to be held in early May (see below), and released provisional details for the British Championships, for which the eligibility criteria are wider.
We have also noted some changes of dates, cancellations and additions to German tournament announcements in recent weeks so if you were planning to play in that country please recheck the details below.
Tournament organisers, please send us your announcements in good time. We know from talking to players at last year's World Seniors that these pages are widely read but we don't have much time to research events.
The European Chess Union has released the prospectus for its individual championships this summer in Acqui Terme, Italy (see below), and also announced the venue and dates for its 2023 senior team championships in Swidnica, Poland, though no details of that event are ready yet.
As we report on our news page today, the FIDE events commission is actively considering where and when the two World Senior events will be held. Sochi, in Russia, had been announced for the individual championships but was removed from the FIDE calendar in late 2022, and the Commission intends to reopen bids.
Newly announced events are added to this page when we find out about them. Please inform us if you know of an international senior tournament that is not mentioned. In our calendar we include only those tournaments which are described as Open and FIDE-rated, and we omit events restricted to players from one country.
For tournaments, such as the British Championships, run on FIDE Senior rules, you do not have to wait for your birthday; you are qualified from 1 January in the year in which you reach the qualifying age.
The qualifying years for the two FIDE age groups in 2023 are 1958 (for 65+ events) and 1973 (for 50+) but some German senior organisers have different rules. Note that the eligibility rules for German-language Senior events vary. It is usually 60+ for men and sometimes 50+ or 55+ for women. Check the particular details for any event that interests you.
The German Senior tournaments calendar now includes tournaments which they list as privately organised (i.e., not by the German federation). As annual 2022 events are played, we usually find the dates for next year's event are released and some can be seen below. We also regularly search on chess-results.com and sometimes find a few events (mostly in Austria) which we add below if relevant.
Tournaments are usually removed from our listings once their start dates are reached, or soon after.
** A double asterisk in the list below indicates new or recently updated information.
3-11 March 2023: 38th Bad Wörishofen chess festival, organised by ChessOrg, including a Seniors tournament. The invitation document (PDF in German) does not state the age rule but previously (so presumably again), that has been open to men aged 60+ and women aged 50+.
15-19 March 2023: The Klaus Gohde Memorial at Wesel-Undeloh in Lower Saxony. This "Nestorenturnier" is only open to members of the German Chess Federation born in 1948 or earlier but some readers may be eligible. We mention it because 75+ events are still rather rare and we should like to see more of them. Information on the German calendar.
26-31 March 2023: The Serpiano Senior Chess Trophy International Challenge at Hotel Serpiano, above Lugano, Switzerland. Download the invitation (which is in English, German and Italian). The views from the venue, in the hills above Lugano in the Italian-speaking Ticino canton, are sure to be spectacular, but some of the reviews of the hotel on TripAdvisor are less encouraging. The price of food and drink are sure to be as steep as the surrounding mountains too.
15-23 April 2023: The 11th International Schach-Senioren-Cup am Tegernsee at Rottach-Egern. This is a 50+ tournament. See the German calendar for more information.
** 30 April-6 May 2023: The 30th Oberlausitz Senior Open at Großschönau in eastern Saxony (close to the Czech border). There are two 7-round competitions with unusual age categories. The 60+ tournament is for men aged between 60 and 69 (by the end of this year) and women between the ages of 55 and 64. The 70+, a welcome innovation, is for men aged 70 or over (by the end of this year) and women 65 years or older. There will also be a blitz tournament. Download the details (Word file in German).
2-11 May 2023: The second ACO Super Seniors (65+) congress at the Atlantica Belvedere Resort on the Greek island of Kos. Regulations in English (PDF) can be downloaded. The main ACO senior event is in October (see below).
** 4-8 May 2023: The English Seniors Championships (50+ and 65+) at Leamington Spa in the West Midlands. Expect more details to be available soon on the English Chess Federation website. Download the regulations (PDF file). This tournament is not open to players registered to other federations even if they are English by birth, unlike the British Championships (also organised by ECF but not yet announced for 2023) which are open to British and Irish players registered to non-ENG federations.
** 8-13 May 2023: 55th Lower Saxony Senior Open at Sottrum, for men born 1963 or earlier and women born 1968 or earlier. Download regulations (PDF in German).
13-19 May 2023: The Bodensee Senior Open at Bregenz, Austria, alongside the international Open (13-21 May). This Congress on the shores of Lake Constance (Bodensee in German) is a popular annual holiday event, and advance information can be found on their website. We are now informed that the 7-round Seniors event (with extra prizes for 75+ players) is played in the mornings (9.30am start) while the 9-round Open is in the afternoons (3pm start).
** 25 May-4 June 2023: The European Senior Individual Championships (50+ and 65+) at Acqui Terme, Italy; nine rounds. Download the official invitation (English PDF). This will be the fourth FIDE seniors event at this venue since 2015, so we can imagine that many players who have been there at least once previously will choose to play elsewhere. The playing hall is excellent but Acqui in summer can be hot so the extra expense of an air-conditioned hotel room might be advisable. We cannot in all honesty recommend you to enter this congress because the organisers are the same as for the 2022 World Seniors.
26 May-4 June 2023: 33rd Bavarian Senior Open at Bergen-Chiemgau. This is an annual 60+ tournament. The clash with the European Seniors is unfortunate but the organisers are of course in their rights to stick with their usual dates. Details can now be downloaded here (PDF in German).
17-25 June: The 33rd Brandenburg Senior Open at Miedzyzdroje on the Baltic in Poland. This event is organised by Germans in a region that before World War II was in East Prussia. Details can now be downloaded here (PDF in German).
23 June-1 July 2023: The 50+ Bad Bertricher Schachtage 2023 in the Great Hall of the Bad Bertrich Kurhaus. For players born 1973 or earlier. No PDF is available but some information can be seen on chess-results. A contact email address for the organiser Dr. Matthias Kleifges can be found on the German calendar.
** 3-9 July: The 31st Open Senior Championship of Sachsen-Anhalt at Magdeburg (50+ and 65+). No PDF available yet; you may be able to find information in German only on their website.
Please note that the above event was originally in our calendar for 31 July-6 August but the dates have changed to avoid a clash with the closed German Senior Individual Championships which will start on 21 July in Braunschweig (Brunswick) instead of the previously scheduled August dates.
** 7-15 July: The 8th Open Senior Championship of Baden-Württemberg at Bad Herrenalb (50+ and 65+). Their information file can now be downloaded (PDF in German). This tournament clashes with the next event.
** 11-21 July: The European Senior Team Championships (50+ and 65+) at Swidnica. The venue is a city in Silesia, south-west Poland, and dates were only announced late last year; details will probably follow in a month or two. The nearest airport, Wroclaw (40.3km distant, pronounced approximately Vrotslav) is served by Ryanair. We can expect this to be a popular event unless the World Senior team championships are awarded to Germany.
** 14-22 July: The just announced Oberfrankische Senior individual championship at Bischofsgrün / Fichtelgebirge (near Bayreuth in Bavaria) is for players born in 1968 or earlier, i.e., this is, unsuually, a 55+ event. It is possibly for local players only, and it clashes with several other events as the calendar shows. Another event at the same venue is scheduled for September; see below.
** Apparently cancelled: The 20th Rheinland/Pfalz Senior Open had been announced for 21-29 July at Altenkirchen/ Westerwald (about 40km east of Bonn) but those are now the dates of the German Senior individual championships (to be held at Brunswick).
** 24-30 July 2023: Provisional dates for the British Senior Championships (50+ and 65+) to be held at De Montfort University, Leicester, with the main championship beginning on the 21st. Afternoon play for both the senior tournaments. Full details are expected to be posted in arly February at the English Chess Federation website. DMU, near the centre of Leicester, is the main centre in Britain for academic research into sports history and the English Chess Library is now hosted there.
** 5-13 August 2023: 9th Arber Senior Cup (50+, alongside an Open tournament) at Bodenmais in the Bavarian woods, a region that has won tourism awards. Some details are available in German on the organisers' website.
2-10 September 2023: First Fränkischer Senioren Cup in the Great Hall of the Bischofsgrün Kurhaus (Bavaria). Details may become available later on the German calendar but a contact email address for the organiser Wolfgang Fielder is available on that calendar. A chess-results page has been started for this event.
5-13 September 2023: 20th Rheinland/Pfalz Senior Open at Altenkirchen/Westerwald, for men born 1963 or earlier and women born 1968 or earlier. Flyer with advance information (PDF in German). A chess-results page for this event already shows 24 entries.
28 September-6 October 2023: 17th Schleswig-Holstein Senior Open at Busum, for men born 1963 or earlier and women born 1968 or earlier. Contact details for the organisers can be found on the German calendar.
** 1-10 October 2023: The unofficial ACO "World Senior Championship (50+)" at the Fodele Beach Resport on the Greek island of Crete. Full information (PDF). Early bird discounts offered until 31 May; GM Danny King will be in attendance as on-site trainer. Warning: NOT FIDE-rated.
9-17 October 2023: 31st Saxon Senior Open at Dresden. Contact details for the organisers can be found on the German calendar.
** November 2023??: This is the month when the World Senior Individual Championships are normally held but who knows??
Some senior players may be interested in the European Chess Union's European Amateur Championship tournaments which will be played in Perugia, Italy, from 20-30 April 2023. There are no age restrictions but sections are divided according to FIDE rating (usually U2300, U2000 and U1700). The rule for the 2022 event was that a player must not have a published FIDE rating above the cut-off point for at least one year prior to the registration deadline of the event.
The following dates and venues were just announced on the European Chess Union website. The awarding of these events was presumably agreed at the ECU Board meeting in Thessaloniki, Greece, a few days ago.
** 6-17 October 2024: The European Senior Team Championships (50+ and 65+) at Terme Catez, Slovenia. Terme Catez is an aquatic spa near Brezic, close to the border with Croatia, so flying to Zagreb may be the best option for getting there.
** 18-29 October 2024: The European Senior Individual Championships (50+ and 65+) at Lignano Sabbiadoro, a resort in north-east Italy, about an hour west of Trieste.
Not only the early notice seems surprising, but also the fact that the dates are consecutive. A subsequent change of dates for one event or the other is perhaps to be expected, although geographically they are probably close enough for somebody who wished to play both to travel between the venues by road or rail.
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