Thanks are due to Mick Norris for drawing to the attention of the webmaster, whose eye was off the ball, to the latest developments in the arrangements for the County Championship finals. Despite the schedule for successive rounds of the Championship saying

. . . . . . .

06 July – Finals of all championships.

With the exception of the Finals, matches can be made on the immediately following Sunday or on an earlier weekend by agreement.

the final match between Northumberland and Surrey is being played on the 29th of June (a week early) at Newark Congregational Church Hall, 56 London Rd, Newark-upon-Trent, NG24 1TH, starting at 1.30 p.m.

You can watch the games in this match live on either of two sites:

Lichess -	https://lichess.org/broadcast/counties-open-2024/round-1/tOCcfkni
Livechess -	https://view.livechesscloud.com/#a146de3b-7629-4faf-adac-1096e93a6aa7

Clearly, there have been some negotiations going on, and permission has been given for the Open final to be played a week early. Is this the shape of things to come, or is it a one-off?? Reportedly the reason was that a number of Surrey players were playing in the World Seniors on 6th July.

Playing on the “correct” date of 06/07/2024 would have given Northumberland a better chance of winning, so Northumberland deserve credit for sportingly agreeing to play – and sadly lose – on 29/06/2024.

Results were as follows. (To play through a game click on “play”, returning to this page using browser’s “back” function.)

	Home	Northumberland	6‑10	Surrey	Away
1 (W)	2397	James E Moreby	0-1	Graeme N Buckley	2396
2 (B)	2391	David J Eggleston	1-0	Peter G Large	2386	play
3 (W)	2366	Max N Turner	0-1	Gwilym T Price	2339
4 (B)	2301	Tim P Wall	½-½	Susan K Lalic	2272
5 (W)	2269	David J Walker	½-½	Akshaya Kalaiyalahan	2259
6 (B)	2268	Andrew Burnett	0-1	Nigel E Povah	2243	play
7 (W)	2174	Graeme Oswald	0-1	Mark Josse	2243
8 (B)	2160	Andrew C Dunn	0-1	Chris W Baker	2230
9 (W)	2137	Matthew Forster	0-1	Ashley Stewart	2213
10 (B)	2134	Zheming Zhang	0-1	Marcus E Osborne	2177
11 (W)	2105	Paul AG Dargan	1-0	Danbe Luk	2162	play
12 (B)	2043	Nathan Ekanem	0-1	Phil J Brooks	2159
13 (W)	2025	Chris Izod	1-0	Chris Briscoe	2143
14 (B)	1987	Jack Erskine‑Pereira	½-½	Daniel B Rosen	2134
15 (W)	1927	Yaroslav Kolodiy	1-0	Peter Hasson	2122
16 (B)		Jounaid El Archi	½-½	Robert C Noyce	2090

Ratings are FIDE ratings (or where possible an ECF equivalents for player has no FIDE rating)

Yorkshire players with long memories may recall that Surrey board 2 is a former Sheffield University player (and the first over 200 grade player to manage to beat this webmaster!) while Surrey board 6 is a former Leeds University player, both having played in Yorkshire’s Woodhouse Cup.

All the other Finals are still being played on Saturday 6 July:

Under-2050,	Greater Manchester v Cleveland, at Bradford Latvian Club
Under-1850,	Hertfordshire v Greater Manchester, at Coventry
Under-1650,	Greater Manchester v Yorkshire, at Bradford Latvian Club
Under-1450,	Middlesex v Essex, at Whittlesford, 7 miles south of Cambridge
Minor,	Sussex v Lincolnshire, at Whittlesford