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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:
3 November 2026
For more information about chess for over-50s, please see our Seniors calendar. Newcomers to 50+ chess should read our Seniors introduction page. We also have pages for specific British Seniors and Irish Seniors news.
The individual World Senior Championships began play today, 3rd November, in Vrnjacka Banja, Serbia. We now have a separate page for reporting on this event while other news remains here.
Also in progress is the 2nd Spessart Seniors Festival, organised by the Förderkreis der Senioren im DSB, at Bad Soden/Salmünster (north of Frankfurt in Germany). This is over nine rounds instead of the seven played in 2025.
They had advertised three sections again (50+, 65+ and 75+) but eventually received only 23 entries so there is just the one tournament. Moving the event to earlier in November (so clashing with other events) and adding extra rounds was perhaps a mistake but this was a successful congress last year despite the cold weather.
For the older players, the summer congress in Bad Neuenahr is undoubtedly more attractive. We had some success in Bad Soden last year but decided to go to a warmer destination this time.
There is a much stronger and more international entry for the 4th Cap Negret Seniors congress at Altea, Spain (near Benidorm) which begins next Saturday, 7th November, and continues until the 14th of November over 9 rounds. The chess-results page currently shows 129 entries (including your editor) for the 65+ section and 46 for the 50+, including some titled players in both tournaments.
The English Senior Championships concluded last weekend. Congratulations to the new champions Ian Snape (65+) and Philip J. Crocker (50+). See our British Seniors page for more on this.
It is now confirmed that the 2027 World Senior individual championships will be organised by the Italian federation and played at Orosei on the east coast of Sardinia from 1-14 October. This could prove to be a popular venue.
The ECU calendar says that its 2027 European individual senior championships are scheduled for Chotowa in southern Poland at unspecified dates in July. (The nearest international airport is Katowice, about 36km). This seems rather close in time to the German individual seniors, and the British championships (usually early August) which may affect entries.
The 2027 World Senior Team Championships, which will start just after Easter in Magdeburg, Germany, seems certain to be a very popular event, although the cost of full board at the venue hotel seems rather high and the organisers require all payments to be made in advance.
The European Senior Team Championships are scheduled to start less than two weeks than the previously mentioned event at Acqui Terme, Italy, their dates being 23rd April to 3 May. The Italian organiser, Cristina Rigo, told players at her recent Arco congress that the dates cannot be changed. (See our calendar page to download the official invitation document for both events.)
The ECU and the Italian organisers somehow missed the announcement about the dates for Magdeburg which the German federation made last May, although we several times wrote here about the risk of a clash. FIDE were remiss in not updating their calendar until recently.
As the Scots have suggested, there really should be one person coordinating the dates and venues for the four senior championships run annually by the ECU and FIDE to achieve sensible scheduling of these events twelve months in advance.
The Asian Seniors, which were played over only nine rounds, finished on the 24th of October. The announcement of dates and venue was made far too late for many players who might have been interested and only a few federations were represented. See chess-results if interested in learning more about this.
We have unfortunately not received any information about the USA Senior Championships this year.
The inaugural European Rapid and Blitz Championships will be played at the Novotel in Monaco from 10-14 Januay 2027 with a good prize fund for both the 50+ and 65+ with separate women's sections is the entry is large enough. See also our calendar page for links.
The rapid championship will be played on the 11th and 12th of January over 11 rounds with the rate of play 15 minutes plus 10 seconds increments. The blitz, on the 13th, will also be over 11 rounds at the rate of 5 minutes plus 3 second increment.
Monaco is of course expensive but it is also possible to commute there by train quite easily from Nice or other towns in south-east France and Nice is the most convenient airport.
Back to our Seniors introduction page