News

Displaying 101-110 of 289 result(s).

Kent juniors qualify for the National Chess Junior Squad

Congratulations to  Bobby Akeya-Price and Charlie Metcalfe who played at the trials for the England U11 team and National Junior Chess Squad, held in Liverpool over the weekend of the 23-24th  April.
 
The trial is a closed competition requiring pre-qualification. In order to be invited, players must get two norms (usually a score of 4 points or more) from national tournaments throughout the season.  Qualifying to play at the trial is an achievement in itself and it attracts a highly competitive field from around the country, all aiming to join the National Chess Junior Squad.

Bobby and Charlie both played quality chess and gained enough points for the EPSCA England U11 team and the National Junior Squad.

Also well done to Jacob Watson, who qualified for the National Chess Junior Squad earlier this season by gaining norms with strong results at national tournaments, including the British Rapidplay U140 section and the South of England Championships U16.

All three young players are great representatives for Kent Juniors and we wish them continued success and enjoyment with their chess careers.

Kent U9 team win EPSCA Finals

Congratulations to the Kent U9 team for winning the 2016 EPSCA U9 Finals and becoming the National Champions.

The finals were held at Nottingham high school on Saturday 23rd April.

Everyone knew it was going to be a long day, starting before 7am and including travels by road, rail, underground and even on a tram.

There were 17 teams who had qualified for the finals and the competition was tough. Last year’s
winners, team Barnet, were one of the obvious competitors, and many of the other county teams posed an equal challenge.

Despite the long journey, the team were ready to take all opponents. All the young Kent players lived up to expectations and continued with the high standards set with their record-breaking victory at the zonal.

The first round ended with 10/12 with one loss and two draws. The second round finished with 11/12 with just one unfortunate loss – a very close game. However, the improving pattern continued and our last round was a clean sweep – 12/12 - wins on all boards!!

All the rounds had some close games which could have gone either way, but the players kept their nerves, maintained focused, increased concentration levels and eventually managed an overall victory. Our strong finish gave Kent a clear first place, leading the runners-up by 3.5 points.

The final scores were:
1st – Kent   33/36
2nd - Barnet   29.5/36
3rd - Sussex  26.5/36

Congratulations also go to the players who were on the reserve boards, they played some quality chess and secured a number of strong wins and ended the day with some prizes.

The full team were: Jack Chaudhury, James Merriman, Shreyas Royal, Shlok Verma, Yong Gui Wong, Eoin Moore, Stakhey Sedykh, Athur Chikovsky, Suriya Veleyudham, Madhav Suraj, Lucas Downing, Raghav Vaidya, Danny Oprea, Edward Ellam, Harry Chaudhury & Harry Chauhan.

Many thanks to our team manager, John Merriman and to GM Chris Ward and GM John Emms for their coaching, guidance and support throughout this season.

We also appreciate the efforts from all the parents and carers, who brought the children along to both the zonal and the final competitions and continuously support their chess.

With such a great result from our U9 team, the future for these promising young players looks bright. Well done to everyone.

The full results can be viewed at: http://www.oxfordfusion.com/epsca/#results

Strong performance from the Girls' team in EPSCA U11 Finals

Congratulations to the Kent U11 Girls Team who put in a determined and gutsy performance to finish 6th in the EPSCA National Girls U11 Final at Cheadle Hulme School on 16 April 2016. 

It was a long day, with everyone needing to be on a train or in a car by 6.30am and most not getting home before 9pm, but the girls were spirited and cheerful throughout. 

Although they were drawn from 10 different primary schools from across Kent, the team spirit was wonderful and supportive. 

With expert coaching from GM Chris Ward, both on the train and at the venue, the girls produced some excellent chess.  The stand-out performance was perhaps from Laura, who scored a perfect 3/3, but all 14 players were worthy representatives of the KJCA.

With the vast majority of the team being eligible to play in this event next year, the future looks very bright. 

The full team was: Navieenaah Haridas, Charlotte Bruce, Iris Davies, Natalie Humphries, Samantha Mercer, Diya Choudhary, Neha Iyer, Emily Shaw, Ira Dubey, Hollyann Reeves, Laura Holmes, Roxolana Chaban, Sophie Colvin and Scarlet Watson. 

Thanks to GM Chris Ward, the girls, all the parents and carers and EPSCA for the efficient organisation. 

Finally, congratulations to the Barnet team who were worthy winners, thereby retaining their title. The full results can be viewed at http://www.oxfordfusion.com/epsca/#results

Top of the league for the U14/U130 team

Congratulations to the U14/U130 team for winning the 'east' league of the competition with an unbeaten record.

Throughout the season we have scored some fantastic wins against Essex, Surrey, Sussex and Richmond.

In keeping with the aim of the league, the U14/U130 team has included different players throughout the season and given everyone the chance to be part of the team and play good quality chess against the other local counties. 

Our results this season have been down to the hard work of every one of the players in the whole squad.

We are now through to the county finals against the winners of the 'west' league. This will be played sometime in late May/early June and we are hoping to host it in Kent.

Finally, thanks to everyone that has helped with the home matches and to all the parents and carers who have come along and supported our team.

Update - Changes to GP7 and GP8

Please note that we have now changed the date and venue of our next tournament, GP7, and the date of GP8, the final tournament of this season.

GP7 will now be held on Sunday 15th May at Bromley High School,  Blackbrook Lane, Bromley, Kent BR1 2TW

The entry details on the website have been updated, so if you child would like to play, please do register and pay as soon as possible. 

Early registration really helps with the organisation of the tournament, allows the rounds to start on time and the day run smoothly. If you would like to register go to the event page at http://www.kjca.org/event/120

We have also changed the date of GP8 (the final GP of this season) and this will now be held on Sunday 12th June.

The venue is the same, Newstead Woods School, Avebury Road, Orpington, Kent, BR6 9SA

We look forward to seeing all our young chess players and their families at these tournaments. 

However, if you had previously registered for either of these events but now cannot make the dates, please do let us know.

Kent U11 team come second at the EPSCA Zonals

Congratulations to all the players in the KJCA U11 team who finished a strong second in the EPSCA U11 Zonal tournament at Richmond on 19th March 2016.

Nine teams from Barnet, Cambridge, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, Newham, Northants, Richmond and Suffolk contested the event.

Richmond were excellent hosts and our thanks to all at Richmond Junior Chess for making us all so welcome.

For Kent, there were strong performances across all boards.

In the first round, our team scored 15 out of 20, in the second round 14 points, and they finished strongly with a fantastic 17.5 points in the third round. 

Kent finished the competition with 46.5 points, just 3.5 points behind winning Barnet and 9.5 points ahead of Richmond.

Also, well done to those who played on the reserve board, who got some great wins and finished first in that section.

The team were: Ranesh Ratnesan, Bobby Akeya-Price, Haolin Zhao, Charlie Metcalfe, Viktor Jamroz, David Dallakyan, Ciaran Brightley-Davis, Saahil Bansal, Huseyin Gueriane, Jack Chaudhury, James Merriman, Shreyas Royal, Shlok Verma, Yong Gui Wang, Eoin Moore, Stakhey Sedykh, Dominic Coates, Alexander Levin, Lakshya Lokwani, Jai Singh Chaturvedi,Oliver Dobson, Kimball Catling, Abishaik Gnanenthiran and Marius Kobler.

Well done to everyone on another great result and thanks to all the parents and carers for coming along and supporting our team.

Institute of Chess Exam results - Spring 2016

The results achieved at the KJCA’s Institute of Chess examination session held at Sevenoaks Primary School on Sunday 28 February 2016 are listed below.

The certificates will be presented during the afternoon of the KJCA GP7 tournament, the revised venue and date for which will be announced on the KJCA website soon.  

Level 5: Coach – GM John Emms: 7 candidates 

Distinction:

Oleg Lyakh 

Alex Thompson

Merit: 

David Dallakyan

Alexander Levin

Pass: 

Jai Singh Chaturvedi

Matthew Dubery

Madhav Suraj 


Level 4: Coach – GM Chris Ward: 7 candidates

Distinction:

Shreyas Royal

Yong Gui Wang

Merit: 

Dominic Coates

Marius Kobler

Suriya Velayudham

Pass: 

Iris Davies

James Holmes


Level 3: Coaches – WFM Ros Kieran and William Jones: 23 candidates

Distinction: 

Egor Chernyshov

Lakshya Lokwani

Samantha Mercer

Aditya Palaniappan

Adhith Srikanth

Merit: 

Nilay Balaji

Shreyas Bharadwaj

Henry Gooderham

Arjun Jadhav

Advait Menon

Zachary Michaelides

Jonathan Murray

Oliver Poulter

Adam Sameen

Pass: 

Vieran Austin

Thomas Griffiths

Laura Holmes

Nathan Lenoble

Timothee Menoumba

Ben Reinton-Brown

Angus Warne

 

Level 2: Coach – Matthew Lunn: 10 candidates

Distinction:

Amani Campbell-Okolo

Dominic Frankel

Theo Kritzinger

Bjorn Madsen

Luke Penfold

Olly Thwaites

Sophia Wang

Merit: 

Yifan Luo

Aneesh Sagar

Arman Tengayev

  

Level 1: Coach – Luca Bernardini: 3 candidates

Distinction: 

Vashti Burns

Tinaye Menoumba

Leo Michaelides

 

Many congratulations to everyone for working hard and achieving great results. 

Success for the U14 and U18 teams at the SCCU Jamboree

Kent fielded a team in each of the four sections of the SCCU Jamboree, held on 13th March 2016 at Gravesend Grammar School.

All our teams rose to the challenge against some very strong and highly graded opposition. The team spirit of Kent shone through, fighting hard throughout, often grinding out wins and draws from some deeply precarious positions, and all enjoying their chess and being with their friends.

Fantastically, we finished in medal positions in all the sections, taking an excellent first place in both the U14 open section and U14 minor sections. Congratulations to all.

Our U18 open team fought valiantly and secured third place in their section with 8 points, one point behind Surrey and just two points behind the winners Sussex. There were many exciting matches throughout and many distinguished wins against much more experienced and highly graded players.

The U18 open team were Rohan Bansal, Michael Green, Anantha Anilkumar, Andrew Ng, Alex Selway and Emily Green.

Our U18 minor team finished second with 10.5 points, just half a point behind the eventual winners Sussex. A great result from a young team, all of which were actually U14, and included an great performance by one of our up and coming U7 juniors on board 6.

The team were Alex Thompson, Alex Garfield, Orla Dorman, Mahuaa Verma, Huseyin Gueriane and Shreyas Royal.

Our U14 open team were up against very strong county teams, in particular Richmond and Sussex who brought out some of their big guns for the occasion. With Sussex scoring an excellent 6 out of 6 in the first round, it seemed like the day would be a huge uphill struggle, however the Kent team also scored well in all three rounds and never wavered from the ultimate prize.

It was a very close contest with some high quality and tense games in the last round. Kent finished on 13 points, tying with Richmond. Every point and half point counted, and an exciting last minute win on our top board secured us the title on the board count tiebreaker (the number of wins by both Kent and Richmond were the same).

The team were Freddie Hand, Aditya Verma, Ximan Mao, Kiran Shiatis, Robert Akeya-Price and Charlie Metcalfe.

Our young U14 minor team showed huge strength in character and, despite being behind after the first two rounds to both Sussex and Essex, continued to play consistently and achieve good results to earn them the win overall with 12.5 points. It was a very close section with Essex second on 12 points and Sussex third on 11.5.

The team were Ciaran Brightley-Davies, Saahil Bansal, Charlotte Bruce, Sholk Verma, Mihika Verma and Sidharth Nair.

Overall it was another great day for all the Kent Juniors who played.

Thank you to all our volunteers which made this event such a great success, to our team managers, the arbiters, our tournament managers and of course to all our supportive parents and our Kent junior players.

A particular thank you to Anil Anilkumar, Samantha Metcalfe and Luca Bernardini who all worked so hard in organising and making this event happen and to GM Chris Ward for being there to offer his support and for presenting the prizes at the end. A special thank you also to Julie Denning, president of the SCCU, for visiting us and for her inspirational address at the end of the day.

Thank you also to Gravesend Grammar School for once again allowing us the use of their lovely school.

Record breaking WIN for Kent U9 team at EPSCA zonal

Congratulations to all the players in the KJCA U9 team who came first in EPSCA Zonal tournament at Newham on 12th March 12 2016.
Nine counties contested the event with the top five qualifying for the national finals, to be held in Nottingham in April. 
All the Kent team put in very strong performances through the day with lots of quality chess on offer.
In the first round, they managed to score full points with 12 out of 12 wins. In the second round nine and half points, and in the third round again the full 12 out or 12. 
All these great chess games added up to a final record-breaking score of 33.5 points and first place in the tournament.  
Barnet were second (26 points), third were Cambridgeshire (21),  Richmond fourth (18.5) and Hertfordshire and Northampton joint fifth (17). 
The Kent reserve players also did very well with a score of 8 wins out of 9 games.
Big congratulations to all the young players who all put in a lot of effort to get such great results.
The winning team were:
Jack Chaudhury, James Merriman, Shreyas Royal, Shlok Verma, Yong Gui Wang,  Eoin Moore, Stakhey Sedykh, Madhav Suraj, Suriya Velayudham, Raghav Vaidya, Harry Chaudhury, Arthur Chikovsky, Lucas Downing, Edward Ellam and Danny Oprea.
Finally thanks to all the parents and carers who brought our young players along to the tournament and supported the team. 

GP6 - held at the schools at Somerhill, Tonbridge

GP6 was held at the schools at Somerhill, Tonbridge on Sunday 6th March 2016.  Thanks to all players, parents and carers who came along.

The prizewinners in each section were as follows:

U18: 1st Aditya Verma (4.5/5),  2nd equal Ximan Mao and Aurideep Nayak (4/5)

U14: 1st  equal Alex Thompson and Charlie Metcalfe (4/5), 3rd equal Kaya Batuhan, James Merriman, Mikayel Suvaryan and Thomas Crawley-Boevey (3/5)

U11: 1st  equal Shlok Verma, Stakhey Sedykh, Eoin Moore and Dominic Coates (5/6)

U9: 1st Arthur Chikovsky (6/6), 2nd Danny Oprea (5/6), 3rd Harry Saddington (4.5/6)

If you would like to see more photos of our prizewinners, please see our facebook  page at https://www.facebook.com/kentjuniorchess/?ref=bookmarks

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 Olaves Grammar.  To see all the results and crosstabs go to: http://www.kjca.org/result/119

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 the schools at Somerhill for the use of their venue.

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.

Please note:  As mentioned  on Sunday - due to a clash with the  national schools' competition semi-finals and unavailability of the venue - GP7 will be changing both date and venue from that currently posted on the website.  We will update as soon as the new arrangements are confirmed.