The Durham Alumni Chess team are to face Harvard University in their final qualifying match for the play-offs that will crown the worldwide champions in August.
The Durham Alumni Chess team has had an extremely impressive season in the 2021-2022 World Chess League.Live series, and they go into their last match against Harvard University needing a draw to qualify for the play-offs that will crown the worldwide champions in August.
This season they have defeated opponents from Kyiv, Hawaii, Canada, Poland, Slovenia, Greece and Brazil which has put them joint top of the league, which has 140 teams.
The team is led by International Master Andy Horton, supported by former England Youth Champion Sam Walker. Other players include George Gazidis who graduated from Durham and now is a classics lecturer at the university, along with Will Taylor, Dan Waller, Phil Purcell, Kit Gallagher, David Grant, Matthew Lunn, Szymon Palucha, Kamran Rachlin and outgoing Durham University Chess Society President Ned Carmichael.
The team was created to play online matches when the pandemic hit as a way for friends to keep in touch and compete against high profile opponents in a world league set up by former student Peter Hornsby (St. Cuthbert’s 2016), and they have continued ever since.
You can watch the match between Durham Alumni and Harvard this Friday 24 June at 9pm here.
If you would like to join the team and the group, who also organize social events at tournaments, you can email Peter Hornsby regardless of your ability, beginners welcome!
You can follow the team's league progress here.
You can find out more about the World Chess League.Live here.
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