A Happy New Year! Preparations for the next NCC and the Anniversary Book are under transit!
21 December 2024: By the webmaster
FM Robert Stein wins 4th Joint EU and NATO Online Blitz
At 18 December, the 4th Joint EU and NATO Online Blitz tournament was played in lichess. Despite the late announcement, the event had more than 50 players. Here are the results of the top 3 rankings. 1st: FM Robert Stein, 2nd: EUIM2024, 3rd: FM Finn Pedersen. Congratulations!
Results 4th Joint EU and NATO Online Blitz
29 October 2024: By the webmaster
Greece wins 34th NATO Chess Championship
Last week the 34th edition of the NATO Chess Championship was held. Here are the results of the different competitions.
In the Final Team Ranking, Greece won the title (24.0 points) by a distance over the numbers 2 and 3, Germany (20.0 points, 124.5 TB1) and Poland (20.0 points, 119.5 TB1).
In the Individual Ranking, the battle was more exciting: 1st Dimitris Alexakis (GRE) (6.5 points), 2nd Alexandros Papasimakopoulos (GRE) (6.0 points, 30.5 TB1), 3rd Mateusz Tustanowski (POL) (6.0 points, 30.0 TB1).
As a tradition, a Blitz tournament was held after the team tournament. In the Blitz tournament, local players were also invited. Final standings: 1st Alexandros Papasimakopoulos (GRE) (10.5 points), 2nd Dimitris Alexakis (GRE) (9.5 points), 3rd Patrick Emilio Aizpurua (USA) (8.5 points).
It was a whole week with sunny weather (26C, 79F) while most of the participants of the northern countries were struggling with rainy days and leaves falling at the ground. We thank the local organizers for their hospitality for arranging the beautiful playing location!
18 October 2024: By the webmaster
Upcoming Event: 34th NATO Chess Championship, Rhodes
FM Patrick Emilio Aizpurua wins NATO Chess FIDE 100 Years Online Blitz
At 20 July, the NATO Chess FIDE 100 Years Online Blitz tournament was played in lichess. Due to the holiday period, there were not many players available. Finally 10 players managed to play the online tournament with 9 rounds, so the Swiss Format of the tournament had automatically been changed to a Round Robin. 1st: FM Patrick Emilio Aizpurua, 2nd: Ionel Luca, 3rd: Sławomir Kędzierski. Congratulations!
Results NATO Chess FIDE 100 Years Online Blitz
16 May 2024: Jan Cheung
Solution of the exercises - part 1
Here are the solutions of the previous 6 exercises. I have also updated the intro article, with more review at endgame publications.
At 21 December 2023, The 3rd EU-NATO Blitz Tournament was played. Robert Stein finished 1st, Dariusz Sycz finished 2nd, Andreas Keil (EuropChess) 3rd.
Results.
14 November 2023: By the webmaster
Alexander Flaata gains FM title
One month after the 33th NATO Chess tournament, the European Chess Team competition was held in Durres, Albania.
In ChessBase, there was much coverage of that tournament because Magnus Carlsen took part with his club Offerspil. There was much publication because a high ranked player
like Magnus normally will not take part in these open tournaments because he could lose many rating points if he draws games. But he didn't. He led his team and Offerspil
finally won the tournament.
But there was more Norwegian news...
We have been all grown up how to get a FM title, by having a rating of at least of 2300 points at the monthly FIDE rating list. Since 2017, according to the
FIDE Handbook there are extra opportunities to get that title, such as a
minimum score of 65% in a minimum of 7 games in a Continental Team (or Club) Championship. That is good news for many senior chess players, who have aspirations
to gain an on the board chess title. We all know that gaining the FM title with a low K factor in the rating is very difficult. Alexander played for the Norwegian
team SOSS, played 7 games, scoring 5 points, and a rating performance around 2250. The performance was sufficient to earn the FM title immediately.
NATO Chess congratulates Alexander Flaata! Hope that this will inspirate players that is still possible to achieve titles after many tens of years of struggling behind the chess board!
9 September 2023: By the webmaster
The 33rd NATO Chess Championship has been ended. Final team ranking: 1) Germany, 2) Greece, 3) USA. Gratulations to all winners! Thanks for all participants, their supporters, the staff of the Slovenian Armed Forces, the staff of Grand Hotel Bernardin, Hote Histrion, Hotel Vile Park, and the Slovenian Chess Federation to make this event happen!
Last month, The 13th Canadian Military Chess Championship has been held. Media coverage could be found at the Facebook site of Military Chess. Here are some links to articles of this championship.
To start with, I shall stress that I am extremely honoured to write these words on NATO Chess from Polish perspective following good examples of Germany, Norway, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
Read more...
15 August 2022: By the Chairman
Two decades of the Polish Armed Forces in the NATO Championship
Chess is a popular sport discipline in the military environment of the NATO member states.
This is evidenced primarily by the competitions organized at the allied level: the 12th NATO
Tournaments (1978-1988 and 1993) and the 31st NATO Championships (1989-2021).
Read more... Original article in Szachista (Polish)
15 August 2022: By the Chairman
Lt. Col. Sławomir Kędzierski: the most important thing is the team's success
Three gold medals, 11 silver and four bronze were won by the Polish Army representation in 20 competitions in the championship chess competitions at the NATO level. The last championship in Estonia and the results obtained by our chess players in previous competitions are summarized by Lt. Col. Sławomir Kędzierski, chairman of the International Military Chess Committee.
Last week, the 32th NATO Chess Championship has been played. Despite 30 degrees Celcius (86F) the whole week which was very unusual in Estonia this time,
the chess event and the cultural events were wonderful organized!
The winner of the 1st Joint EU and NATO online blitz tournament is Cpt. Dariusz SYCZ. The participation of almost 30 players on Lichess, 29 Dec 2021, gives hope to continue the project. The main goal to get started has been successfully achieved. :-) Moreover, the competition offered a good chance to Albanian and Czech soldiers to show up. All veterans are welcome, too.
Happy new year! The world situation is still unclear. We hope that the NCC tournament in
Estonia can be organized this year. In the mean time, the web site is being updated with old pictures that were a) stored in Google+ in the past or b) couldn't be stored in Google+ due to space problems.
The news section at the countries pages are being updated from collections over the web sites in the world. There is much written about the
NCC tournaments and it is a pity that some material is being lost due to space problems at the servers. Recovered news material will be summarized at the countries pages.
In the mean time, an online blitz tournament was played at 29 Dec 2021. The games can be viewed and downloaded from
28 June 2020:
Due to the uncertainty of the world situation, the 31th NATO Chess Championship has been postphoned to 2021.
Details will be followed later.
30 April 2020: Armed Services invites you to read their articles.
They can be found at a tab called 'download'. You need to click on this and then the password all in uppercase is OFREADERS
and this will take you to the magazines including the latest one which is Spring 2020. You are most welcome to download what
you wish, but all we ask is that you keep the password to yourself.
26 April 2020:
With sadness we have to inform you that our Belgian NCC player Ben de Cat unexpectedly passed away on 21st April 2020.
Ben will be forever remembered by the NCC community with his love for life and for his unconventional chess playing
style.
More details about Bens funeral
01 December 2019:
The 2019th Nato Chess Website is updated! Please checkout for some nice photos.
Link to the tournament site
08 November 2019:
Wolfgang Berger - the "face" of the catholic working group for soldiers (KAS) - is no longer with us.
For details click here
24 September 2019: The 30th NATO Championship has been finished last Friday. Final Team Ranking: 1) Germany 2) Poland 3) Greece. Thanks to all the players, home front, organizers, sponsors and supporters for making this event possible!
Pictures are included at the news pages of the Championship page.
The web master is currently checking the PGN files.
