Chess to music

The start of this does not appear to be about chess ... but then it gets down to business :-)

UK Chess Challenge

It was fantastic to see so many juniors playing chess at Rugby Workers Club last night. We went around and asked them if they wanted to take part in the UK Chess Challenge which we are aiming to start in our next club meeting which will be on Monday 7th February.

The UK Chess Challenge is a junior competition held every year right across the country in schools and junior chess clubs. Players who do well can play in the next stage of the competition which for us is in the Birmingham/Solihull area one Saturday in May. It is usually called the 'Megafinal' and there is a separate one for each county in the UK.

It is not compulsory so if you don't want to take part in the UK Chess Challenge that's fine. The ladder competition will take a secondary role but it will continue. Of course you can always play for fun or challenge one of the adult players.

Hope to see you next time.

Bob and Sue

Happy New Year

We will be meeting at Rugby Workers club on Monday 3rd January 2011 although quite often the club is closed on a Bank Holiday Monday.

In the coming weeks we will be looking to run the UK Chess Challenge which we have entered for the club and we will also be planning some formal coaching as part of the session.

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. :-)

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.

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.

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.