Playing season
The Inter-County season runs from the start of October to the end of March.  Each team will usually play no more that one game per month.

Matches are played on Saturday afternoon.  They usually start at 1.30 pm.  Depending on which team you play for, matches will be finished by either 5.30 pm or 6.30 pm.

Who are Staffordshire's opponents and where are the games played?
Each Staffordshire team plays matches against nearby counties (e.g. Derby, Leicester, Nottingham, Shropshire, Warwick, Worcester, and Greater Manchester).

About half the fixtures will be played in Staffordshire, the remainder in the opponent's home county.

Teams that do well during the season, go on to the national stages.  In the national stages, they face successful teams from other parts of England, and can become the National County Champions.

Can I play for Staffordshire?
Naturally, there are restrictions on who can play on a Staffordshire team, but basically for Inter-County chess matches:

• With one or two exceptions, you can play for a Staffordshire team if you are a member of any of the clubs listed in the Clubs section of this website.
• If you are not a member of any of those clubs, for this competition, Staffordshire still includes Stoke-on-Trent, Walsall, West Bromwich, Wolverhampton and Sedgeley etc (but not Dudley).

In more detail, the rules are that you can play for the county if:

• You were born in Staffordshire.
• You lived in Staffordshire for 5 years at any time.
• For the last two months, you have been a member of a club either located in Staffordshire, or affiliated to Staffordshire.
• For the last month, you have lived in Staffordshire.
• You are a student or teacher in a school, college or university in Staffordshire.

NOTE: If the county boundary has moved since you were born, you can chose to represent either the old county or the new one.

Rate of play

• The Open team normally play
  40 moves in 2 hours, with a 30 minute quickplay finish.  (5 hours total)
• All other teams normally play
  36 moves in 1½ hours, with a 30 minute quickplay finish.  (4 hours total)

All games finish on the day of the match.  There are no adjournments.

Which team can I play for?
If you do have a grade, your grade will effect which teams you can play for.  As long as your grade is lower than a team's grading limit, you can play for that team.  e.g.  If you have a grade of 128, your grade is to high to play for the U125 team, but you can play for either the Open team, or the U150 team.  If both captains think you are good enough, you can even play for both.

If you do not have a grade, we can help you decide which team might suit your playing ability.  Just get in touch.

NOTE: We do have two teams in the U100 competition, but you cannot play for both of them in one season:  Once you have played for one of the U100 teams, you cannot play for the other U100 team that season.  If you want to, you can change over once the season has finished.

How many players on each team?
All teams except the U100 teams have 16 players per team.  U100 teams have just 12 players each.

How do I get involved?
Each team is run independently, so if you are interested in taking part, let the captain know.