We had a magnificent number of 34 juniors that came along on Saturday morning and the mix now between the regulars of advanced / intermediate players is being matched by 15 beginners that came to learn and play chess yesterday.
A warm welcome to our latest recruit Adaberk.
These numbers are increasing by the week so it’s encouraging, but we remain dedicated to spending as much time as possible with every junior to make sure they engage and learn chess.
This week marked a special event as our very own Zander Booth gave a simultaneous chess display to 18 of our juniors which resulted in an amazing score of played 18 – won 17 and one draw.
Zander who is still only 12 years old is an inspiration and a fantastic example to all chess players who want to progress in chess. The future bodes well for him.
In all his games he showed his ability to play several types of styles over a period of 2 hours, excelling in sportsmanship by giving one opponent a queen back during a game, he stayed calm, composed and in control of nearly all the boards.
Well done to Finn, in gaining a hard fought draw on board 1 and good games by Jesse, Rafan, Yash, Lathujan, Bertie, Daniel and Kane who had to leave before the end.
Commiserations to those that succumbed early, but well played to all, a great experience was had by everyone, I’m sure.
It was great to see 19 juniors concentrating (in the main) over this period and the event was well received by parents, juniors and our coaches.
All other members who weren’t challenging Zander, were given tuition by Steve, Paul, Graham H and Graham M. Openings, middle game, tactics and notation were topics of the morning, well done to Daisy and Alvin for mastering the latter in quick time.
Notation is very important as it gives a record and history of your games played, which can be analysed for possible improvement. There is a page on our website ‘Notation of Games’ dedicated to teaching how this is done, should you need to learn.
No Round Robin games played this week so charts remain as last week.
Thanks as always to all our helpers who support every week.
Happy Holidays to Graham Hillman who’s off to Australia for 6 weeks, we will surely miss him.
Eric Sachs
