Leicester Juniors achieved some excellent results at the Northern and Southern Gigafinals (the regional stage of the UK Schools Chess Challenge on the weekends of the 15th/16th July and 22nd/23rd July respectively.

In the Northern Gigafinal Daniel Chen won the U10A Boys section, whilst Anika Khare and Lindsay Pyun were 2nd in the U11 girls and U8 Girls respectively. Tom Brown was 2nd equal in the U16 Boys and Milly Kotecha was also 2nd equal in the U12 Girls Southern Gigafinal. Shyam Modi was 3rd equal in the U14 Boys.

Full results of all Leicestershire players are below: Continue reading →

Leicestershire convincingly won their National U100 final against Warwickshire 8½ – 3½ at the Trident Centre, Warwick on Saturday. It’s the first time Leicestershire have won the title in this section since the the competition began in 1995/96 which is well before 8 of the 12 players (all juniors) in action for Leicestershire were born. Continue reading →

The County U100 team beat Surrey convincingly 7½ – 4½ in the National Semifinal on Saturday at Brogborough in Bedfordshire. They will now contest the final on July 1st against Warwickshire, who perhaps surprisingly knocked out Notts in a close match in the other Semifinal. Once again half the Leicestershire U100 team was made up of juniors and collectively they had a particularly successful day with all six scoring points for the team. George Worrow-Goodin (4½/5) and Joseph Ward-Langman (3½/5) remain unbeaten all season in this competition. Wins were achieved by Mike Griffiths, Stuart Hollingworth, Umar Syed, Rory Haywood and Jason Liacheng LV. The full scoresheet is here. 

The County U100 team qualified for the National Semifinals in fine style by beating Lancashire 8-4 in the their quarterfinal. The foundation of the victory was laid by a particularly strong performance from the top boards with 6 points scored from boards 1-7. Again 6 of the team were juniors and George Worrow-Goodin on board 2 lengthened his winning streak to 4 in the U100s this season. Joseph Ward-Langham, taking promotion up to board 1 in his stride, achieved a good draw and maintained his unbeaten U100 season so far. There were also victories for the Syston ‘3’ (Stuart Hollingworth, Mick Adams and Reg Agger), Paul Mottram, Thomas Blay and Paul Martin. The full scoresheet is here. Report by Paul Mottram

The UK Schools Chess Challenge Megafinal (for those qualifying from schools in Northamptonshire and Leicestershire) took place on the 13th May at Wellingborough School. Those U11s scoring 4pts (or more) and those over 11s achieving at least 3.5 pts qualified for the next stage, the Northern Gigafinal, which takes place in Manchester in July. The best boy and girl within each year band also won the Supremo/Suprema title respectively. Leicestershire had plenty of Gigafinal qualifiers on the day: Continue reading →

At the final J4NCL weekend of the season, we played one team in Div 1 and one in Div 2. Leicester Blues managed to win Div 2 despite an inauspicious start which saw the team comprehensively beaten in the first round. Thereafter the team managed to win the remaining 4 rounds to swoop into the lead for the first time at the conclusion of the last round. Having played a fine drawn game against a very highly graded player in the 1st round when playing in the reserves, Umar Syed then proceeded to win the remaining 4 games, this time playing for the team each time. Matthew Lo played in the final two rounds on Sunday and took a win and then a mature and ‘strategic’ draw to clinch the match as the final game to finish in round 5. Jason Lv also had a good weekend winning 3 games. Continue reading →

Leicestershire hosted the twice yearly 4 Counties U130 U18 competition between Yorks, Notts, Lincs and Leics at Leicester Grammar School on the 26th March. Having won the competition at Notts High School back in November the Leicestershire team had something to live up to and gave a spirited if ultimately unsuccessful defence of their title by finishing 2nd. Leicestershire played Notts and Lincs in the first two rounds and won both matches relatively comfortably, 8-4 and 10-2. Meanwhile Yorkshire also won the first two rounds even more convincingly meaning that Leicestershire would need to beat Yorkshire in the final round to win the competition. In the event Yorkshire, who were still fielding 75-80 calibre players on boards 11 and 12 and outgraded us comfortably on boards 1-4, proved just too strong and beat Leicestershire 8.5 – 3.5. Although the result was never really in doubt for Yorkshire, a couple of late reverses in the last games to finish made their margin of victory seem a little more flattering than it felt at the time. Every member of the team achieved at least one win over the three rounds and there were outstanding performances from Matthew Lo and Thomas Blay (3 wins out of 3) and Anika Khare and Sasha Kerbel (2 wins and a draw). Continue reading →

The Leicestershire Junior Congress (incorporating the County Championships) took place on Sunday 5th March at Leicester Grammar School with 50 entrants in the Open section and 38 in the Minor Section. Unlike previous years the sections were divided by playing level/ability rather than age in order to provide better and more balanced competition for all players and this clearly did encourage more children to enter who had previously not played outside of their school chess clubs. Continue reading →

Leicestershire Juniors competed in the Midland team Championships on the 25th February at Nottingham High School. Many children were making their debut playing for the county. The U9 team finished an unexpected and excellent clear 3rd behind strong teams from Northants and Nottingham on 12.5 points (out of 24). Continue reading →

Three teams of Leicester Juniors played in a record field of 26 teams in Division 2 of the 2nd J4NCL (Junior 4 Nations Chess League) weekend on the 21st/22nd January in Solihull and the Leicester Reds team achieved a historic victory. In the 1st weekend back in October the two Leicester teams had finished 3rd and 7th respectively but with a few key players missing on the 2nd day, we were left with the feeling that, but for that, Leicestershire might have placed higher. This time with a more settled team it was a different story. Continue reading →