UPDATE (22-Apr-2023): I’m no longer based in Kenya or involved with Westlands Chess Club. Please click on the link below to visit WeCC’s Facebook page for the latest updates from the club.

Westlands Chess Club (abbreviated as ‘WeCC’)—a club I founded in mid-2011 and which has been defunct since 2014/15—is coming back to life and I am recruiting members for regular activity and for the club’s participation in the 2022 Kenya Premier Chess League. 

Mating Zombies vs WeCC Thoroughbreds at the 2012 Nairobi Chess League

Regular activity will include friendly games, training sessions, and internal tournaments at the club’s meeting venue once or twice a week.

Some tournaments to look forward to this year:

  • WeCC Closed Classical Chess Championship
  • WeCC Closed Rapid Chess Championship
  • WeCC Closed Blitz Chess Championship
  • WeCC Closed Junior Chess Championship 
  • Westlands Open Classical Chess Championship (flagship event)
  • WeCC Open Rapid Chess Championship
  • WeCC Open Blitz Chess Championship
  • WeCC Open Junior Chess Championship
  • George Githui Wanjiku Memorial Rapid and Blitz Championship

The late George Githui Wanjiku (left) who started out as a participant at a WeCC event and went on to lead the club a few years later

League matches will happen over super weekends (where 4 matches are played over one weekend in any given month) as per the schedule released by the league committee.

WeCC’s league team’s composition should look something like this by the end of the recruitment exercise:

  1. Paras Gudka (captain) – 1276
  2. Foreign senior male (rated) – 1700+
  3. Senior male (rated) – 1600+
  4. Senior male (rated) – 1500+
  5. Senior male (rated/unrated)
  6. Senior male (unrated)
  7. Senior male/female (unrated)
  8. Senior female (rated) – 1300+
  9. Junior male (rated) – 1100+
  10. Junior male (rated/unrated)
  11. Junior female (rated) – 1100+
  12. Junior female (rated/unrated)

Terms, conditions, and other points for the league team:

  1. Westlands Chess Club is a Nairobi-based chess club and I am actively seeking to recruit Nairobi-based players (except for 1 foreign senior male and maybe 1 Kenyan senior male/female based outside Nairobi) preferably living or working in or near Westlands.
  2. The all-inclusive fee for being a member of this team is KES 4,800/- which can be paid in 4 quarterly instalments of KES 1,200 each. This fee will cover:
    1. League registration (KES 15,000 for a private club team)
    2. Chess Kenya Federation annual membership for 2022
    3. Westlands Chess Club annual club membership for 2022
    4. A set of the team uniform (1 branded t-shirt + 1 embroidered cap)
  3. Important deadlines to keep in mind:
    1. League registration fee payment – 15-Feb-2022
    2. Team submission deadline – 22-Feb-2022
    3. League kick-off – 5-Mar-2022
  4. Keeping point 3 above in mind, the deadline to express your interest in playing for Westlands Chess Club is set for 12-Feb-2022. The first team meeting will be held at 12 pm on Sunday, 13th February 2022 somewhere in Westlands where the 12 members of the league team will be finalised.
  5. Since Westlands Chess Club has never participated in the league before, we will be joining as a new team in the lower division (called the Super League) where we will need to finish in the top 3 to advance to the upper division (called the Elite League). 
  6. In 2017, I captained Anchor Chess Club to a 4th place finish in the club’s league debut without any titled players from Uganda, or even any top 20 players from Kenya. I believe I can improve on this feat with WeCC’s debut in the Super League. 

With this post, I officially revive Westlands Chess Club. May the club outlive me and prosper for decades to come!