Gigafinal Part Two

A quick Gigafinal update…

Congratulations to Olga who won the U7 girls and Nina who came 2^nd in the U8 girls. A couple of pictures below courtesy of Yegor of the two girls together and Olga with her trophy.

 

Congratulations also to Elliot and Findlay who both play at the adult club in Chelmsford. Elliot scored 5/6 in the U15s and Findlay 4.5/6 in the U11s.

 

All 4 players qualify for the Terafinal – Findlay in the Challengers section and Olga, Nina and Elliot in the Champions.

 

This is the National Final with a top prize of £2000 for the overall Champion!

Gigafinal Part One

On behalf of CJCC congratulations to Toby who scored 4/6 at the Gigafinal today. They'll be other scores to follow over the weekend but as this message came with a photo I thought I'd post it straight away. The rosette even comes in West Ham colours.

Congratulations to Fraser as well who qualified through his school (Heycroft in Leigh with possibly the strongest primary school chess team in Essex) and finished a magnificent 3rd in his section. Fraser comes along to the adult club in Chelmsford on Thursdays and has been to a CJCC coaching workshop.

Tuesday will be the final meeting of the club before the holidays when we'll have some end of season prizes to hand out so this will be a week of reporting prize winners and fine performances.

Best Wishes
Robin
chelmsfordjuniorchess@gmail.com

Saturday 9th July

Saturday saw the second CJCC Saturday morning coaching session (next one 20th August) and the Essex Senior Rapidplay Championships. 11 children came along to the coaching and we worked as a group on finding some pretty tough checkmate patterns then doing some puzzles in pairs. There was (as always) plenty of time to play some chess and eat plenty of snacks.

Nina and Olga from CJCC took part in the U90 grading section in the Rapidplay tournament and it was good to see a few other juniors from around Essex. It gave me a chance to meet Ben who'll be along to CJCC next week for the first time. Also to talk to a few juniors about coming along to the adult club in Chelmsford on a Thursday evening over the school holidays where I look after our junior players. Club details via the link below.

www.necl.org.uk/Chelmsford

Well done to Nina on winning the junior prize in her section. Nina's dad Richard retained the overall senior title to make it a successful family outing.

Next weekend is the Gigafinal then the following weekend (23rd July) sees the start of the British Championships in Bournemouth. No fewer than 5 of our club - Nina, Max P, Jerry, Harry and Olga - are playing in the U8 or U9 sections at the British Championships. Also Max Y and Ethan who came along to the coaching workshop today. The best of luck to all our players in these competitions. You'll be able to follow their progress via the "Essex at the British" section at

www.essexchess.org.uk

Best Wishes
Robin
chelmsfordjuniorchess@gmail.com

KEGS chess

This week saw the final of the U19 National School's Championship. 16 schools from across the country including KEGS from Chelmsford qualified for a two day final at Uppingham School.

The competition was for teams of 6 although KEGS took 8 players along. Despite having England internationals Daniel Gallagher and Elliot Cocks we were seeded 13th out of the 16 schools.

KEGS performed well above all expectations to win 3 out of 4 matches and finish in 5th place. This included victories over 2015 winners Haberdasher's Aske's and 2011, 2012 and 2013 winners Manchester Grammar School. There are some photos on the KEGS twitter feed at

https://twitter.com/KEGS_Chelmsford?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

All 8 players are or were regular competitors at the Essex Junior Chess Association Grand Prix tournaments and deserve huge credit for this result. They showed great determination as a team to dig in and fight even when their opponents' were simply stronger players than them. Chess is an individual game but being part of a close-knit team can raise a player's level to unexpected heights.

Best Wishes
Robin

Saffron Walden tournament

Today was the final Essex Junior Chess Association tournament of the season. It was great to see so many players from Chelmsford there and I managed to round most of them up for a photo before battle commenced.

 

Nina (third from the left and bolting for freedom) and Harry (who was hiding) both won two trophies – one for scoring 5/6 in the U9s to finish joint second and one for coming 2^nd and 3^rd respectively in the overall U9 Grand Prix – to be CJCC’s most successful players of the day. Congratulations to all our players who took part and among those from CJCC Sebastian and Josh also won a trophy.

Best Wishes

Robin
http://chelmsfordjuniorchessclub.blogspot.co.uk

Coaching Workshops

Chelmsford Junior Chess Club are holding monthly chess coaching sessions on a Saturday morning (next one 9^th July).

These are aimed at children graded between about 40 and 90 who play in the EJCA tournaments and the Essex U9 and U11 teams to help them move their game up a level.

The sessions last 2 hours and are a mix of coaching, problem solving and guided playing.

Number are limited to about 12 a session so if you’d like your child to take part please get in touch.

Robin Slade

chelmsfordjuniorchess@gmail.com

Photo Boards

Congratulations to Anika who came along to the club Tuesday proudly wearing a chess medal she had won in Kent the previous weekend. Anika stayed with her friend Shlok and (at 5 years of age) scored 3/6 in an U9 tournament. Shlok flew off to Greece yesterday to represent England at the European School Championships so perhaps some of his chess magic rubbed off on Anika. Essex Juniors Elliot and Giulio are also in Greece and you can follow their progress via the link below.

http://www.euroschools2016.org/ 

Next weekend a number of CJCC players will be competing at the EJCA tournament in Saffron Walden. Good luck to all of them. I’ve put a couple of boards together for the event to advertise our club in Chelmsford so the CJCC players in the photos might reach minor celebrity status at the tournament.

Best Wishes
Robin
chelmsfordjuniorchess@gmail.com