The DCCA team event for the Peter Rooke Cup was held at Newton Abbot Chess Club on Saturday 20th June 2026. This is the last of the season's DCCA team events and was contested by four teams: Newton Abbot, Seaton, Teignmouth and Barnstaple. Paul Hampton provides a report of the event. (the games along with analysis are now available here in the games database).
Trefor Thynne welcomed the teams and gave a brief introduction to the event, which has an interesting history that you can read on the Peter Rooke Team Event Info page.
The event format is for 8 board teams with a total grading limit of 14,000. This makes for some interesting strategies in player selection. For example, strength in the higher boards can make it more challenging for the lower boards but having 8 players of similar strength can make it tougher for the higher boards.
The total ratings for each team were as follows:
- Team A – Newton Abbot: 13717
- Team B – Teignmouth Tigers: 12585
- Team C – Seaton: 13875
- Team D – Barnstaple. 13309
Back: Jon Underwood, Steve Dean, Barry Perchard, Toby Ralph
Front: John Chappell, Tim Fox, Paul Hampton, Terje Lundin
Newton Abbot had an excellent start in the first round scoring 6/8. Barnstaple scored 4.5, Seaton 3.5 and Teignmouth 2; a disappointing start for Seaton who were the highest rated team.
Seaton fared slightly better in the second round scoring 4.5 to bring their tally to 8/16.
Barnstaple unfortunately suffered defeats in the mid position boards to score 3 in the second round bringing their tally to 7.5/16. 
A good second round from Teignmouth won them 3.5 points, bringing their total score to 5.5/16, a respectable result given the significant grading difference from the other teams.
Newton Abbot continued to hold their early dominance and ran out winners with a 5 points in the second round bringing their total to 11/16. An impressive performance from the team!
Thanks goes to Newton Abbot Chess Club for hosting the event and in particular Trefor Thynne for running the event on the day.
Final scoreboard:
You can now see most of the games in the games database now kindly annotated by Dave Regis.
