I am pleased to tell you that on Saturday 20^th February the Leicestershire Juniors closed online chess championships will take place. The games will take place using the Tornelo chess tournament platform (it is free to create an account), and all players will take part in a zoom call whilst games are taking place. This is a similar format that the English Chess Federation used for the recent U18 County championships and the British Online Chess Championships. The tournament will be overseen and controlled by Fide arbiter Adam Raoof.

There will be separate sections for U9, U11, U18 which will also incorporate the U13 section. Entry is only open to Leicestershire qualified players. A Leicestershire player is someone either living, attending school, or attending a chess club within Leicestershire.

Time Control: 10 mins plus 5 sec increment per move

There will be prizes for the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd positions in each age category, with county titles for the overall winners in each age category. If not already winning a prize, there will be prize for the best placed girl in each section.

All ages are at 31/8/20, so the categories will be in effect apply to the school years below. The date of birth will take precedence when choosing a section.

Under 9 : School years 1- 4

Under 11 : School years 5 & 6

Under 13 : School years 7 & 8

Under 18 : School years 9 – 13

If you would like any more information please contact Alan Agnew at alanagnew_uk@yahoo.co.uk or 07434 286896

Online entry is available here:

Lindsay Pyun has been awarded the John Robinson Cup for the most improved Leicestershire Junior Chess Player. She has worked hard at her game and competed extensively with results such as Top U12 Girl at the England Youth Online Championships and 5th U12 Girl at the UK Chess Challenge Terafinal.

Joshua Tang wins the George Winterton Cup for the Leicestershire Junior Team Player of the year. He won all his games at the EPSCA Northern Zonal where Leicestershire qualified for the National final and led the U11 team on board 1 in the Midland Counties Championships. He has also been a regular in the Leicestershire Juniors 1st team in the Online 4NCL competitions.

12 children took part in the last Knights rapidplay of December on Saturday 19th of December, with a trophy available for the winner! Siyoung Ryu took first place with a perfect 5 wins out of 5. Yvon Van Neerven was 2nd with 4 points, and Zara and Mikhail shared 3rd place.

1 – Siyoung 5/5

2- Yvon 4 / 5

3- Zara Mehta and Mikhail Tyukin – 3 / 5

17 players took part in the last rapidplay of December on Saturday 12th of December. John Moughtin Leay and Sophie Mehta finished with 4.5 points out of 5, with a draw in their individual game. John took first place on tie break, and Noor Datoo finshed in clear 3rd place with 3.5 points. All three receive vouchers for the online store at chess.co.uk!

1. John Moughtin Leay – 4.5
2. Sophie Mehta – 4.5
3. Noor Datoo – 3.5

14 players tooks part in the last Rooks rapidplay of December, with trophies and medals available for the first 3 places.

Amelia Ahmad was the clear winner with a maximum 5 points out of 5. Sofia and Anjal fought out a tough game in the last round to decide who took second place.

1. Amelia – 5/5
2. Sofia – 4/5
3. Anjal, Sathsara and Aarav 3/5 – Anjal takes the 3rd place medal on tie break.

16 players took part in the Rooks November Rapidplay on Saturday 28th of November. The clear winner of this month’s trophy was Amelia Ahmad with an undefeated 4.5pts out of 5!

1. Amelia Ahmad – 4.5pts
2. Sofia Hilmi – 4pts
3. Yuvraj Singh – 3.5pts

Leicestershire was one of 12 county teams to compete in this high level national event on chess.com and on Zoom on Saturday 21st November. Each 6 player team had to consist of 2 U18s, 2 U18 Girls, 1 U11 and 1 U11 Girl . It was a 7 round Swiss with a 10 minute + 5 sec time control.

The tone was set right from the start where Leicestershire faced eventual winners Warwickshire in the first round and actually performed very creditably to hold them to 4-2 scoreline with a win and 2 draws. A comfortable win over Greater Manchester followed in the second round followed by losses to Northumberland and Oxfordshire in the next two rounds although at one stage it was looking very promising against Oxon (who eventually placed 3rd) before there were some late reverses in a number of games.

Round 5 saw a comprehensive win against Merseyside, before losses against Kent and Yorkshire followed in the last two rounds. Leicestershire finished in a creditable 7th place overall having faced no fewer than 5 of the 6 counties above them in the final standings over the course of the competition.

Sophie Mehta and Lindsay Pyun both had excellent competitions scoring 4.5 and 4 points respectively but all members of the team scored solidly.

Full results are here

The team comprised: Jason Lv, John Moughtin-Leay, Lindsay Pyun, Rameen Masood, Joshua Tang, Sophie Mehta

11 Players took part in the last November rapidplay for the Kings, with Noor Datoo taking first place with an undefeated 4.5pts out of 5. Leo Abraham was clear second with 4 points out of 5, with both boys winning vouchers for the online Chess and Bridge store. Madhav, Anish and Laurence tied for 3rd place

1. Noor Datoo – 4.5/5
2. Leo Abraham – 4/5
3. Madhav Eradi, Anish Das, Laurence Norton – 3/5

9 chidren took part in the last Knights Rapidplay of November, with Yvon taking her 2nd trophy, winning all 4 games, well done! Abhiraj finished in clear 2nd place with 3pts out of 4, and Bobby finished 3rd with 2.5pts

1. Yvon Van Neerven – 4/4

2. Abhiraj Ingle – 3/4

3. Bobby Sun – 2.5 / 4

An amazing 38 children were represented in the 2nd season of the online Junior 4NCL across 7 teams. Please click the links below to see the league tables. You can see the top scorers for each team below, and well done to Leo Abraham and Amelia Ahmad for playing every single round!

http://www.4nclresults.co.uk/2020-21/media/kids/1st/prog-div1.html

http://www.4nclresults.co.uk/2020-21/media/kids/1st/prog-div2.html

http://www.4nclresults.co.uk/2020-21/media/kids/1st/prog-div3.html

Leicester Juniors 1

Sophie Mehta 6pt (out of 12), Lindsay Pyun 5.5pts (out of 10)

Leicester Juniors 2

Madhav Eradi 3.5 pts, Noor Datoo 3pts

Leicester Junior 3

Leo Abraham 8pts, Rameen Masood 7.5pts (out of 10)

Leicester Juniors 4

Laurence Norton 6ts, Garv Sehgal 3.5pts

Leicester Juniors 5

Anish Das 8pts, Lexi Abraham 7pts

Leicester Juniors 6

Sathsara Dissanyake and Aman Das, both 3pts

Blue Foxes

Amelia Ahmad 6.5pts. Sofia Hilmi 6pts