Reviving the Juniors Chess blog

From 2017-2020 this website (specifically for the Juniors club part of Rugby Chess Club) has been 'in retirement' as the juniors shared the Rugby Chess Club site with other information shared directly via email and in person at club meetings.  

However with the onset of COVID we have been unable to meet in person since March 2020. In September we decided to restart club meetings as online activities for existing members. Warwick University Chess Club members are helping teach us, we entered a team (Rugby Chess Juniors & Co) in the CDCL online league (the only juniors team to enter). We have a club space in chess.com and hope to use this space during current uncertainty to share resources and information. >

You can also find out about the main club at the main website

Rugby Chess Club website.

 

Megafinal success for Jude and David - well done guys!

Jude with this year's Megafinal trophy.

Although Rugby Junior Chess Club is not taking part in the UK Chess Challenge in 2018 two of our members have competed in the first (Megafinal) stage and have done exceedingly well. Jude is Supremo  (higest scoring boy) in the U-8 age group.  He scored 5.5 out of a maximum of 6 (so no losses at all!)

David Phillips won the same title in the u-15 age group. Again a magnificent achievement.

The Coventry Chess Academy had a fantastic performance  overall and you can read more about it here.  The next stage will be the Gigafinal in July. Fingers crossed for great results there. Very well done David and Jude.

Megafinals Congratulations to Jude, David and Ed

We were delighted on Monday to hear about Jude Shearsby's success in the Warwickshire Megafinal. He won six out of six games and was declared Supremo in the Under 7 category! You can see him with Nalin admiring the shiny trophy.

Congratulations also to David Phillips who came 3rd in the Under 14-18 category  wining 4.5 games and Edward Saierli who won 3.5 games in the under 12-13 category. 

This means that the junior club have three players who qualify for the Terafinal and we wish them well.

Chess club closed for the summer holidays

Rugby Junior Chess club is now closed for the summer holidays. It will resume in September.

Jamie Kearney wins U16 National Junior Chess Squad Champion 2016

Hottish off the press is news that Jamie Kearney won the u16 section of the National Junior Chess Championships at the start of this month. He finished in first place after 3 wins and a draw and played some very impressive chess against other top seeded juniors at the tournament.

Well done Jamie.

If you want to play through the games he played the notation (in PGN) is copied below, You can use the viewer at Chess.com to 'see' how these games progressed. PGN is portable game notation and is how chess games are recorded [in case you did not know]. Using the viewer is a simple five stage process.

1. Copy the notation for the game that you want to look at. Copy everything except the title (the Game 1, etc. part)
2. Go to the PGN viewer on Chess.com  (you do not need to log in or register  to use this). The direct link is https://www.chess.com/analysis-board-editor
3. Click on the 'Paste PGN' option and paste the game that you copied into the box that opens up. Press OK.
4. You will be told that you are replacing previous games and asked to OK or Cancel. Remember that once you have the PGN code you can easily get back previous games so its fine to press OK.  (This warning is because the viewer only allows you to see one game at a time. You can open a new window or tab in your browser if you want to keep track of all games at once.) 
5. The board will now show the end position and you can use the play or forward/back controls to go back to the start and look through the game.

Game 1

[Event "Junior Squad Championship 2016"]
[Site "Wokefield Park"]
[Date "2016.04.02"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Yash Gulve"]
[Black "James Kearney"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "126"]
[BlackElo "159"]
[ECO "E77"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Bd3 O-O 6. Nge2 e5 7. d5 a5 8. O-O
Nfd7 9. Be3 Na6 10. Qd2 Nac5 11. Bc2 f5 12. exf5 gxf5 13. f4 e4 14. Bd4 Nf6 15.
Rae1 Bd7 16. Nc1 Qe8 17. Re3 Qf7 18. Kh1 b6 19. Rg1 Rae8 20. Bd1 Re7 21. g4 fxg4
22. Bxf6 Qxf6 23. Bxg4 Bxg4 24. Rxg4 h5 25. Rg2 Qxf4 26. N1e2 Qe5 27. Reg3 Rf1+
28. Rg1 Rxg1+ 29. Rxg1 Nd3 30. Nd1 Qf5 31. Ng3 Qf3+ 32. Rg2 h4 33. Ne2 h3 34.
Ng1 Qxg2+ 35. Qxg2 hxg2+ 36. Kxg2 Nxb2 0-1

Game 2

[Event "Junior Squad Championship 2016"]
[Site "Wokefield Park"]
[Date "2016.04.02"]
[Round "2"]
[White "James Kearney"]
[Black "Girinath Haridas"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "159"]
[BlackElo "184"]
[ECO "B72"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 a6 7. f3 b5 8. Bd3
Bb7 9. Qd2 Nbd7 10. a4 b4 11. Nce2 Rb8 12. O-O Bg7 13. Kh1 O-O 14. Bh6 Nc5 15.
Bxg7 Kxg7 16. Bc4 Qc7 17. Bb3 Ba8 18. Ng3 Nxb3 19. cxb3 d5 20. Rac1 Qe5 21. f4
Nxe4 22. Nxe4 Qh5 23. Ng3 Qg4 24. f5 g5 25. f6+ exf6 26. Ndf5+ Kh8 27. h3 1-0

Game 3

[Event "Junior Squad Championship 2016"]
[Site "Wokefield Park"]
[Date "2016.04.02"]
[Round "3"]
[White "James Kearney"]
[Black "Anshu Ramaiyan"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "159"]
[BlackElo "163"]
[ECO "B35"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. Nc3 Bg7 6. Be3 Nf6 7. Bc4 Qa5 8.
O-O O-O 9. Bb3 d6 10. h3 Bd7 11. Qd2 Rac8 12. Rae1 Qd8 13. Kh1 Na5 14. Bh6 Nxb3
15. axb3 Bc6 16. Bxg7 Kxg7 17. f4 Qc7 18. f5 Bd7 {black offers a draw} 19. fxg6
hxg6 20. Nf5+ Bxf5 21. exf5 Qd7 22. Ne4 Nxe4 23. Rxe4 Qc7 24. Qg5 Qd8 25. Rxe7
Rc5 26. Qxg6+ Kh8 27. Qh6+ Kg8 28. f6 1-0

Game 4

[Event "Junior Chess Squad Championship"]
[Site "Wokefield Park"]
[Date "2016.04.03"]
[Round "4"]
[White "Rohan Yesudian"]
[Black "James Kearney"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[WhiteElo "175"]
[BlackElo "159"]
[ECO "E94"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O a5 8. h3 Na6
9. Bg5 h6 10. Be3 exd4 11. Nxd4 Nc5 12. f3 Nh5 13. Qd2 Ng3 14. Rf2 Qh4 15. Nd5
Ncxe4 16. fxe4 Nxe4 17. Qd3 Nxf2 18. Bxf2 Qd8 19. Re1 c5 20. Nb5 Bxb2 21. Bg3
Be5 22. Bxe5 dxe5 23. Qe3 Qg5 24. Qxg5 {white offers draw} 1/2-1/2

Is chess a sport ?

Interesting article here : http://www.sportandrecreation.org.uk/blog/guest-blog/06-08-2015/question-sport

Northern Gigafinal -Thr 2015

Four of the five 'contenders' who succeeded at the Warwick Megafinal travelled to Manchester last Sunday to play in the Gigafinal, two of them for the first time. All four did well and three (pictured) qualified for the TeraFinal Challengers Competition. It was a long journey (or in one case a short journey but a short night also) and a hot humid building, so congratulations on some strong wins and staying the course.

L to R: Jamie Kearney, Robbie Cockell and Rhys Davies (click on photo for close up)

 Thank you to Phil for the detailed results ...

Julien 

W v Edward Bach 1-0; Moby Wells v B 1-0; W v Gregor King 1-0; W v James Dessent 0-1; Robert McLean v B 1-0; Adair Cole v B 0-1

Jamie

W v Chris Marshall 1-0; John Hayton v B 0-1; W v Holden Davis 0-1; W v Vamsi Pratapa 1-0; Simeon Bott v B 1-0; W v Harshith Chakka 1-0

Rhys

W v Alexander J Cartlidge 0-1; Adam Malik v B 1-0; Bye; Jonny Dowie v B 0.5-0.5; W v Haydn; Godfrey 0-1; Laura X Smith v B 0-1

Robbie

Dominic MW Taylor v B 0-1; W v Dmitri Whitmore 0.5-0.5; Robert Oxley v B 1-0; W v Emilia O'Reilly 1-0; Benjamin Fuller v B 1-0; W v Charlie Watson 0-1

Warwickshire Megafinal 2015

Seven club members took part in the 2015 UK Chess Challenge Warwickshire Megafinal at the Trident Centre, Warwick on 10 May 2015 scoring an impressive total of 28.5 points between them, and this despite the club's scoring opportunities being hampered when on three occasions club members were pitted one against another.

Well done to Robbie Cockell (U18 Supremo), Rhys Davies (U18 Gigafinal qualifier), Jamie Kearney (U15 Supremo) and William Kendell (U12 Supremo) pictured with their prize books and silverware.  Well done also to Julien Carrouche (U14 Gigafinal qualifier 4,5pts ) and to Charlie Kendell (U9 Gigafinal qualifier 4pts) and Zak Fernandes-Coffey (U8 3pts).

Best of luck at the Northern Gigafinal in Manchester (map) on 12 July (more details here)

ps  Full results of the Warwickshire Megafinal are now available here.

[Updated 24May2015 - correction to Charlie Kendell's result (4 pts instead of 3pts) and full results have now been published at the link above.]

Warwickshire Junior Chess Congress 2015

The Warwickshire Junior Chess Congress will be held on Saturday 28^th Feb (for under 8 and under 12) and Sunday 1^st March (for under 10 and under 14) at the Trident Centre in Warwick.

Under 16 and under 18 players will play both days.

More details and an entry form can be found at the tournament website: http://congress.warwickshirechess.org/

35th Northamptonshire Junior Congress

The 35th Northamptonshire Junior Congress takes place on Saturday 22nd November at the Malcolm Arnold Academy (NN2 6JW) just 40 minutes drive from Rugby.   You can download an entry form from the Northants Junior Chess Calendar page here.  Instead of putting your school on the form, put "Rugby Junior Chess Club" and lets see if we can turn up in force :).

£7.50 Entry fee for entries by 15th November or £10 for entries after this date.

Something sweet for the juniors ...

Congratulations to Julien Carrouche who won his match in the Divisional Cup last night.

Wishing all Juniors a great season and here is a video which might make you smile (it reminds me of white and dark chocolate, yum). Remember that to keep in touch with posts on the Junior or main Rugby Chess Club blog you can add your email address. You will then get an email every time we update. Next meeting is next Monday (3rd November) so look out for Bob's email for information about what he has planned.

Well done at the Mega final !!

Well done to all our entrants at Sundays Megafinal at Arden School !
I have been waiting for the official results to come out but can't delay any longer. There is no particular order to this list - they are just the list I used to keep track during the day !

Julien Carrouche Under 13 Supremo
Jason Adams,
Henry Adams,
Shivi Ravi - Under 17 Suprema
Kieran Roberts,
Jamie Kearney - Under 14 Supremo,
Andrew Smith - Under 16 Supremo,
William Kendall - Under 12 Supremo,
Victor Hartas Moody,
Santos Coffey,
Charlie Kendall,
Sanin Jacob Salvio
With 5 age group winners you have done really well!
I am not sure about the Giga final qualifiers as I wasn't able to get the last round results properly but hopefully this will become clear very soon.
Once again well done everyone !! Bob

UK Chess Challenge 2014 - dates

The 2014 Warwickshire Megafinal will be at Arden School, Knowle on Sunday 11 May 2014.

The Northern Gigafinal will be at Wright Robinson College, Gorton, Manchester on Saturday 5 July 2014 for U7-U10 and Sunday 6July 2014 for U11-U18.

The Terafinal will be a two day event, at Loughborough Grammar School.on Saturday 16 and Sunday 17 August, 2014.

(Giga and Tera final dates published here) 

New Warwickshire Chess Champions

Congratulations to William Kendell who now holds the title "Under 12 Warwickshire Chess Champion" having won today with a perfect score of 6/6.

Also a big "Well Done" to Jason Adams who took second place, just behind William and winning a gold medal.

And another big "Well Done" to Charlie Kendell, playing in his first tournament in the Under 8 section, and taking second place and winning a gold medal.

Also congratulations to Jamie Kearney, who came away from the intermediate section of the Warwickshire Chess Championship with the title "Under 16 Warwickshire Chess Champion".

chess joke

Congratulations to Shivi

Very well done Shivi Ravi who recently became the English Chess Federation U18 Girls’ National Champion. She won 3 of her 5 matches.

We understand from the Rugby School website that Shivi will now represent England in the World Schools or European Schools Championships.

Further coverage of the English Girls Championships is given on the ECF site (with a photo of Shiv accepted her award), http://englishchess.org.uk/Juniors/english-girls-championships/



What a fantastic acheievement for Shivi. Wishing her every success for 2014.

 

 

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 !