Attacks on both sides of the board (Nov 4th)

Here is the game which we started playing from last time with attacks on both sides of the board. (We actually started at move 12 but here you can see how the master game went). In the final position it is mate in two when black night checks at d3.

34th Northamptonshire Junior Congress

Congratulations to Jamie and Jonathan - first and second in the under 16 section of the 34th Northamptonshire Junior Congress.   Also well done to Santos who qualified for the London Junior Chess Championships in the under 10 section.

The game by Judit Polgar

Here is the game by Judit Polgar where she has a violent attack on Blacks King. Well worth a good look. You can see what would have happened after 17 ...Rh8 by simply clicking on that move after the brackets and following it to the end before the closing bracket

Here's the game from Monday night on the demo board. The two main things to look at are the standard opening (a reversed Sicilian) and the attack that White generates on the king side against the weak squares around the Black king which his minor piecs just hop into !

Manchester Giga Final

Congratulations to all our players who played at the Northern Giga Final last weekend ! William Kendell scored 2.5 points from 6. Jonathan Payne scored 2 points from 6. Jamie Kearney, Andrew Smith and Shivi Ravi all came equal second with 4.5 points from 6 in their respective age groups. Jamie, Andrew, Shivi all qualified for the final stage of the competition in Loughborough for the challengers tournament at the TeraFinal in August. The club is proud of how well you have all done and I'm sure you only have to keep on playing to really go places! Well done Bob

2013 Delancey UK Chess Challenge - Warwickshire MegaFinal

Nine players from Rugby Junior Chess club made the trip to Knowle for the 2013 Delancey UK Chess Challenge Warwickshire MegaFinal today – Santos Fernandes-Coffey, William Kendell, Julien Carrouche, Jamie Kearney, Henry Adams, Jonathan Payne, Kieran Roberts, Andrew Smith and Shivi Ravi.

Santos – under 9 – 4/6 points – qualified for GigaFinal

William – under 10 – 5/6 points, 2^nd and qualified for GigaFinal

Julien – under 12 – 3.5/6 points, SUPREMO and qualified for GigaFinal

Jamie – under 13 –5/6 points, 2^nd and qualified for GigaFinal

Henry – under 14 – 3/6 points

Jonathan – under 14 – 4/6 points and qualified for GigaFinal

Kieran – under 14 – 2/6 points

Andrew – under 14 – 4.5/6 points, SUPREMO and qualified for GigaFinal

Shivi – under 16 – 4/6 points, SUPREMA and qualified for GigaFinal

All in all quite a successful day for the club! Well done to all players.

Full results now online here

A better trick than scholars mate

This is a bit of an old trick for quick wins. It's better than fools mate or scholars mate, but its not as well known :-

A couple of quick games to enjoy ...

... both by Paul Morphy who burst on to the chess scene in the 1850s and blew away all the opposition. These two games give you an idea of how he did it.


This one has one of the standard checkmates - a smothered mate immediately after a Queen sacrifice.