Welcome to or welcome back to(!) the chess coaching days at the KJCA that I can tell you are the envy all the other counties around the country and are clearly a contributing factor to our national success. To start, please be sure to carefully read the training FAQs that you will find under the ‘training’ tab at the top of this page.

The date for this season are as follows:

IMPORTANT is that when enrolling your child (via the ‘events’ page), you ensure that you are registering for the correct sessions. For the 4 day courses (Levels 3-5) your fee will cover you for all of those days (plus the exam at the end) and we recommend you attend preferably all, but at least 3 of the 4 in order to maximise your understanding and give yourself the best chance to get a good result.

Provided you (i.e. your son or daughter) achieved a merit or distinction at the previous level you sat, we are happy for you to move up and hence register for the next level. If you obtained a ‘pass’ at any level, then clearly there are good things that have been taken on board but we recommend that you re-take that course to help you get to grips with all of the topics involved. Moving up ‘too soon’ only leads to further problems down the line and it really isn’t fun when too much material is going over a child’s head. Please note it is not a race to see who can get through all the exams as quickly as possible and rather all about discovering and understanding different aspects of the game that can be applied when they sit down and play their matches.

We really want our coaching days to be fun but by the same token we don’t want anyone spending a day listening to things that they already totally understand. Specifically, with regards to levels 1 and 2 and new arrivals to the coaching days, boys and girls will be assessed on the first morning of attendance to check they are in an appropriate group. When registering you will see that as levels 1 and 2 are only two day courses (with exams sat at the end of CD2 and CD4), you have a choice of permutations to attend. If your child is a beginner but you feel may be a quick learner and were hoping to join level 3 next season, then for example level 1 in CDs 1 and 2 with the intention of doing level 2 in CDs 3 and 4 makes sense.

Young children will have adult assistance when taking tests and although there will be an alternative exam date or two laid on for those unable to attend CD4, whatever the level there is absolutely no compulsion to take an exam should a child feel unprepared or anxious.

If I could just kindly ask that you don’t leave it too late to enrol as that makes my life easier when obtaining the other coaches. That aside hope to see you all soon!

Grandmaster Chris Ward            

The 2015-16 season has been fun and exciting, with a record number of children participating in the KJCA tournaments throughout the season. 

Congratulations to the leaders of the GP tables for this season. They all played consistently good chess and gained success throughout the season, the winners of each sections were:  

U9: James Merriman,  U11: Charlie Metcalfe, U14: Anantha Anilkumar and U18: Andrew Ng Chen Lok. The winning primary school was Claremont Primary and winning secondary school, St Olave’s Grammar

Full GP tables can be found on: http://www.kjca.org/site/page?view=GPTables

As GP8 was the season final, there were also trophies for those with the highest overall GP score in each age group and loyalty awards for those players attending all the tournaments throughout the year. 

Other young players got well-deserved chess medals and we hope that everyone enjoyed the day and was inspired to continue playing in the Kent junior chess tournaments.

If you would like to see more photos please go to our facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/kentjuniorchess/

Please remember that KJCA is run by volunteers to ensure all our children enjoy local chess tournaments, coaching days and opportunities to represent Kent and play in national competition.

We are always looking for more help, particularly with catering, equipment and setting up tournaments. If you would like to get involved, please do contact jowildman@hotmail.com, or speak to one of the helpers at the next event, and we can chat about how you can be part of our team.

The 2016-17 season beings in September 2016 with both a fun ‘friends & family’ event and GP1. As soon as the details are confirmed the events will be uploaded onto the website for registration.

Wishing all our young chess players and their families a great summer and lots of luck to any of the Kent juniors who are participating in national chess events over the summer, we look forward to reporting on future successes.

 GP8, the 2015-16 season final, was held at Newstead Woods school on Sunday 12^th June 2016.

More than 120 players attending the event and a big thank you to everyone who came along and made it a great day. GP8 is both a stand-alone event and the last tournament of the season, with results going towards the overall GP tables for the 2015-16 season.

On the day the winners for GP8 were as follows:  

U9: 1^st Nour Ajili (6/6), 2^nd equal Ishaan Arya, Lucas Downing, Danny Oprea and Harry Chadhury (5/6)

U11: 1^st equal Kimball Catling and Arthur Chikovsky (5/6) 3^rd Kyle Karaman (4.5/6)

U14: 1^st Alexander Levin (5/5), 2^nd equal Theo Lawson and Logan Fear (4/5)

U18: 1^st equal Anantha Anilkumar, Viktor Jamroz, Andrew Ng Chen Lok and Rajeiv Ratnesan (3.5/5)

The best scoring primary school on the day (top three raw scores from pupils at that school) was The Pointers School and the best scoring secondary school was St Olave’s grammar. To see all the results and crosstabs from the day go to: http://www.kjca.org/result/121

Well done to everyone who played, it was great to see everyone enjoying their chess and having a fun day with their friends.

A big thank you to all the organisers and volunteers who ensured that the day ran smoothly and to Newstead Woods school for the venue.