Chess: Britain’s 4NCL league fosters potential grandmaster talents

Britain’s Four Nations Chess League (4NCL) is a team competition, but it also plays a key role in providing opportunities for the best young talents aiming at the grandmaster title. The potential rewards of becoming a strong GM have just jumped, due to the new prize structure of the revamped online chess.com Champions Tour.

After last weekend’s fifth and sixth (of 11) rounds, there is already a huge gap between the top five teams and the rest. Wood Green, Chessable White Rose and Chess.com Manx Liberty all have a maximum 12/12, while The Sharks and Cheddleton have 11/12 after drawing with each other. The rest, led by Celtic Tigers on 5/12, are already concerned only with avoiding relegation. 4NCL pairings always put likely title deciders at the end of the season.

The 4NCL has long been a route to the GM title for the best young talents. Staged over five weekends at Midlands hotels, it provides strong opposition and the support of teammates. To become a grandmaster, a player requires three norm performances at 2600+, plus a personal rating of 2500+. England’s established GMs are ageing, so generation Z has an opportunity.

Harry Grieve, 21, and Matthew Wadsworth, 22, fought out the 2022 British championship in an epic final round in Torquay. Grieve won with a GM performance, and, with 5.5/6 so far in the 4NCL, is well placed for his second norm. The Guildford master is competing all this week, with another norm chance, in the powerful Cambridge International Open at the University Arms Hotel, where the first-round shock was 17-year-old Henry Adams from Lewes, Sussex, drawing with the England No 1, Michael Adams.

There are nine rounds in five days, viewable live and free at chess24.com.

Shreyas Royal, 14, who set a record