Chelmsford Junior Chess Club

Busy and happy week as ever with the younger players. Welcome to Hugo, Oscar and Abigail who came along for the first time. Thank you to Theo for his help guiding the less experienced players with how to move the pieces and showing a couple of basic checkmates on the demo board.

Congratulations to Eddie for winning one of Olga's medals for being the first player to score 11 points and win a chess mascot a couple of weeks back. Olga has set us a business with her dad designing chess medals, trophies and other bits and pieces then printing them on their 3D printer.

Eddie is standing in front of the finish of his game with Alice where Alice has just played Nh7-g5 to stalemate Eddie instead of Nh7-f6+ Kf7 then Kh7 to get the white pawn home.

Below are the latest standings in the UK Chess Challenge. Lawrence is the clubhouse leader but will have to wait and see how results go over the next month. 11 players won themselves a mascot this week for reaching the 11 point threshold.

Next week (6th March) will be for the older players.

Leon has an Easter Egg Chess Plan for the last two weeks of the tournament (21st and 28th March) to add some fun. Leon is in charge of our snack shop. Once again this week he proved the first rule of CJCC snacks - it doesn't matter how much you bring, it will all be eaten by the end of the afternoon.

Good luck to our players competing in Colchester this Saturday at the Essex Junior Chess Association Grand Prix tournament.

Amazingly this blog has had 50,000 hits now. Impressive!

Best Wishes
Robin
chelmsfordjuniorchess@gmail.com

Long Play Tournament 10th/11th February

International Master Richard Pert and I organised a two-day FIDE-rated longplay chess tournament in Chelmsford this weekend. This is a new type of event for Essex and saw an influx of strong players from around the country to challenge the Essex juniors.

Congratulations to Urbi Modhura who won the trophy for the highest-placed Essex junior in the top section in a play-off with her twin sister Purba (both finishing on 3.5/5).

Most CJCC interest was in the other section with pride of place going to Ben Pickwick who was joint first with 5/6. It was great to have 10 CJCC players in the event with Jake and Olga also winning a prize. Full results are at www.britishchess.co.uk

The 4 joint winners of the U100s - Ben, Fraser, Suriya and Tomas. Ben and Fraser are both part of the strong KEGS chess team. Tomas attends the adult club in Chelmsford.

Action from round 4 of the FIDE event. Max Pert (on the right) would win this game to secure a partial FIDE rating. Next to him is CJCC's Alexander Lockett.

 CJCC's Jake on his way to beating Amy and moving to 4/4.

 Alexander Brown (standing) would get a special prize for the effort he put in. Maheep has his back to the camera playing Jenni.

Highest-placed Essex junior Urbi Modhura with Richard and me.

Best Wishes
Robin
chelmsfordjuniorchess@gmail.com

CJCC dates and UK Chess Challenge standings

They'll be no meeting next week (13th) because of half-term so will meet back on 20th February with the older group. The dates up to Easter are below.

20/02, 06/03, 20/03  - older group.

27/02, 13/03, 27/03  - younger group.

It was good to welcome Prady, Prasid, Aki and Arnav this week - all from St. Cedds which is conveniently just up the road. Rishi was our "Player of the Week" for his infectiuos enthusiasm for the game.

Below are the UK Chess Challenge standings. We'll be playing double rounds after half-term to make sure everyone can reach 7 games by Easter. Lawrence is our current leader with Ed and Cody a point behind. Over 50 children have taken part so far.

Best Wishes

Robin

chelmsfordjuniorchess@gmail.com

Primary School Competition in Chelmsford

Today saw the local qualifying competition for the English Primary School Chess Association. 16 U11 teams and 4 U9 teams battled it out for the next stage of the competition - a weekend away in Camber Sands.

It was a pleasant day's chess and the players are to be commended for the fine spirit the competition was played it. From a CJCC view well done to Jake for scoring 5/5 for the U11 winners Brentwood Prep. Chelmsford schools Moulsham A (all 6 CJCC players) and St. Anne's (4 CJCC players) also qualified for the next stage.

Pushing Brentwood Prep at the top were Elm Green. Pictured below are their top two players Jerry and Harry Zheng. Harry has the U9s trophy he won at last weekend's South of England Championship.

More chess tomorrow with an Essex Junior Chess Association coaching day. It is no coincidence that many of the players from the top three U11 schools - Brentwood Prep, The Abbey Suffolk and Elm Green - attend these and other coaching events.

Best Wishes
Robin
chelmsfordjuniorchess@gmail.com