Rugby Junior Chess Club

Monday, 20 December 2010

Merry Christmas

Hope that you all have a good Christmas and here is a little something that I made specially for the chess blogs. Its easy to do if you have a bit of time on your hands. I used the words from 'I wish it could be Christmas every day' - it does this automatically. You can find the lyrics here (and the program seems to have added the word chess by itself). How clever!

You will notice that I have chosen purple to please a certain purple-prone person. :-)

Wednesday, 1 December 2010

Congratulations to Jamie Kearney

Now that Jamie is the joint under 12 Warwickshire Closed Champion there is even more reason to challenge him on the Rugby Junior Chess Club ladder, then after Christmas we should do well as a club when we enter the UK Chess Challenge.

Sunday, 28 November 2010

Warwickshire Junior Chess Tournament

Four Rugby players took part in the WJC Tournament in Knowle on Saturday. Jamie did particularly well with no losses over his six games (4 wins and 2 draws), coming joint 2nd in a very competitive field. As the winner of the U-12s (Joseph Friar is from Worcs) Jamie was joint winner of the Warwickshire Under-12 category, with Ashwin Kalyana from Edgbaston. They share a lovely trophy and are joint age-related Warwickshire Champions. Congratulations to Jamie on a chess triumph.

Leo won four games of his six, again against strong competition, losing first and last game - the last to the age group winner I think. He won a medal. Sam Elks was also there, but not sure what his score was. (Sam, if you let me know I will update this information). We need a banner of some sort to muster Rugby players at large tournaments :-)

Rhys was playing in the 14-21 age group, which contained some very experienced players. He won two games, gained one draw and declined another draw (which he then went on to lose). His first match was against Astghik Stepanyan, a very good U-18 female player with a 156 rating. Several of the older players in this category were very strong, one with a rating of 191 (near Jonn Naylor's own) showing how talented Junior players can be.

Saturday, 27 November 2010

Warwickshire Junior Chess Championship - U12 section

Jamie Kearney had a fun time at the Warwickshire Junior Chess Championship today. There were 42 competitors in the U12 category. Jamie's first three matches were all long fought games but Jamie was triumphant in all three. He then met Ashwin Kalyana from Edgbaston in the fourth round match; another good battle and a draw was agreed upon. Jamie’s fifth round match also ended in a draw as did Ashwin’s. Going into the final round Joseph Friar and Matthew Fergusson, both with 4.5 points were pitted against each other. Jamie and Ashwin with 4 points each were both against players also having 4 points.
Joseph Friar won against Matthew Ferguson to finish the day on 5.5 points and win the Under 12 category.
Both Jamie and Ashwin triumphed in their games to end the day undefeated on 5 points and share the runner up trophy.

Monday, 22 November 2010

Northamptonshire Junior Congress - U-14

Adding to Phill's magnificent post here are the U-14 results. There was only one U-14player (Rhys) and his first game was the highlight of his day as he won on time against English Junior Team player, Marcus Rose (Marcus's only loss of the day). After that excitement Rhys settled into another long game (lost) to Henry Lambley, then quicker wins against Elliott Jackman, Kieran Sullivan and Lewis Newton, another loss against another Lambley brother (Daniel, who came second overall) and a final rapid loss (12 moves)to Alex Gibson. Overall 4 wins from 7 games.

The organisers gave Rugby a special mention for travelling out there, and with Ethan the club was well represented with seven players (compared to two last year). Only one raffle prize won between us though.

31st Northamptonshire Junior Congress

Several of the junior players entered the under 12 section of the 31st Northamptonshire Junior Congress on 20 November and had a very good day. Chris Harling gained a respectable 2 points and Kai Cockerell took 3 points in his first tournament. Kieran Roberts lost his first two games but then took 3 points from the last four games and won the prize for “U12 slow starter”. Jamie Kearney slipped up in his first game and lost when he should have really won. But there were no mistakes in the next four games that Jamie won confidently to qualify for the London Junior Chess Championships. Jamie’s last game against Seth Tsang was a long battle lasting almost the full hour on the clock before Seth triumphed.
Well done to all!
Jamie’s last four games are posted here. Anybody got any tips that might have led to a different outcome in Jamie’s last game against Seth?

Play Online Chess

Tuesday, 26 October 2010

Junior player does game for Rugby D (and wins)

This season with four teams it is possible that junior players can be asked to play the odd chess match for the Coventry and Distict Chess League. This happened over half-term when Rhys played for the D team alongside his Mum (a regular D team player, Jim MacDonald (captain), and Joe Oswell (former team captain). With no high expectation, Rhys won, which helped the team to an overall win.

The match is noted below. It was Rhys' longest ever match he says and although he was chewing his pen a time or two Chis thinks he did better than she would have. To prove it she played Gordon immediately afterwards and was thrashed me convincingly! A convincing win by the D team against a strong side.