The Leicester Junior Congress took place on Sunday 13th January at Leicester Grammar School.

In the Open section Sasha Kerbel & Jason Lv, Leicestershire Chess’s’Most Improved Junior’ and ‘Junior Team Player of the Year’ last year, underlined their progression by winning gold medals tying on 5 points (out of 6) each. 8 year old Kajus Mikalajunas also had an excellent competition in winning a bronze medal with 3.5 points.

There were 35 players in a competitive Major (U80) section. Leonard Wylie topped the list with 5.5pts and along with Zain Amir (5pts) and Leicestershire’s Joshua Tang (5pts) won gold medals. Leicestershire Juniors Kori Lee & Henry Powell both won silver medals with 4pts and Noor Datoo, Alan Skaria won bronze with 3.5pts.

In the Minor section, the 3 gold medallists on 5 points (Catharine Lv, Josh Crook and Arav Ajaykumar) were all Leicestershire Juniors, with Adeeb Syed winning silver (4pts) and Varad Dahi a bronze with 3.5pts.

Detailed Results are here: Open, Major, Minor

Over 30 Leicestershire juniors played in the Four Counties Invitational Match for U18, U11, U11 Girls and U9s against Warwickshire, Oxfordshire & Northamptonshire that took place at Kenilworth School on Sunday 2nd December.

The U9 team was the most successful of the Leicestershire teams finishing 2nd in the competition with wins against both Oxfordshire & Warwickshire Yellow (Warkwickshire fielded 2 U9 teams) before going down 5.5-2.5 to Warwickshire Red in the last round. Individually Joshua Tang achieved 3 straight wins on board 2 with Madhav Eradi (board 5) also unbeaten with 2.5pts. Arooj Mahajan, Alex Shen & Martino Lombardo (on his county debut) all won 2 out of the 3 games.

The U11 team (comprising mostly year 5s) faced fierce competition losing in the first two rounds against Oxfordshire & Warwickshire but did well to draw with Northants in the last round. Aarav Sinha did well to score two wins.

It was a similar story for the U11 Girls (3 of whom are under 9) who similarly lost to Oxfordshire & Warwickshire in the first two rounds but finished well with a 3-1 win against Northants. Catharine Lv had an excellent competition with 3 wins.

The U18 team was missing many key players and much of the team was only just out of the the U11 ranks but nevertheless had relatively close matches with Oxfordshire (2.5 – 5.5) & Northamptonshire (4-4) but found it tough going against a dominant Warwickshire (1-7). Recently invited national squad member Jason Lv (aged 12) impressively won all 3 games on board 4.

Full detailed results of the competition are available here

Jason Lv won the Kings competition with 4 out of 4 with Henry Powell in 2nd on 3pts with Alan Sharia.

Meanwhile Jason’s sister Catherine won the Knights section with 5 out of 5, with Josh Crook and Arav Ajaykumar in 2nd on 4pts.

Sasha Kerbel and Jason Lv won the Most Improved Junior and Junior Team Player of the Year titles respectively at the recent Leicestershire & Rutland Chess Associations awards. Not only did they win these awards but Sasha also received the trophy for winning the County Major (U140) Championship and Jason the trophy for the County Minor (U120) Championship which they won in the 5 round competitions that take place over the summer.

The following Leicestershire juniors played in the ultimate stage of the UK Schools Chess Challenge on September 15th/16th at Peterborough. To even reach this stage of the competition is a huge achievement and collectively they performed impressively with Kishan Modi’s 3rd= in the U14s the highlight.

U18
Shyam Modi 9th= 3.5/6

U14 
3rd= Kishan Modi 4.5/6
13th= Milly Kotecha 3/6

U12
18th= Jason Lv 3/6

U10
40th= Lindsay Pyun 2/6

The 2nd Leicester HE Atkins Memorial Rapidplay will take place on Sunday 7th October 2018 at Leicester Grammar School. It’s an ECF graded 6 round Swiss rapidplay (20 mins + 10 sec) in Open, U165, U140, U115 and Junior U80/U40 sections. The Junior U40 section would be suitable for inexperienced players.

Click here for Online Entry and full details

Current Entries: Open, U165, U140, U115, Junior U80, Junior U40

Any queries to Andy Morley (email: a.morley953@btinternet.com Tel. 0116 2831488/0776 9721980) or Paul Mottram (Junior sections) (email: chess@paulmottram.com tel: 0798 9151175)

In a combined Kings/Rooks section Adam Kerbel won the Kings (>ECF 45) with 4.5/5pts, whilst Aarav Sinha narrowly won the Rooks with 3/5pts on tiebreak from Alan Sharia.

The Knights section was won by Arav Ajaykumar with 4.5/5pts.

There were some outstanding performances by a select group of Leicestershire Juniors at the British Championships at Hull in early August. Many of them competed in multiple sections but particularly eye catching was Shyam Modi’s 6/9 for 13th in the Major Open (2nd only to the Championship section in prestige), Tom Brown’s win in the U1900s with 5/5, and Jason Lv’s 2nd= (4/5) in the Yates U1600 Weekend competition.

Major Open (77 entries)
13th Shyam Modi 6/9
40th Tom Brown 4.5/9
41st Kishan Modi 4/9

U1900 (46)
1st Tom Brown 5/5

U1750 (78)
18th= Daniel Chen 3/5
18th=Jason Lv 3/5

Weekend U1600 (Yates) (53)
2nd= Jason Lv 4/5

Rapidplay (91)
26th= Tom Brown 5/9
63rd= Jason Lv 3.5/9

U12 (39)
18th= Jason Lv 3.5/7
32nd= Daniel Chen 2/7

U11 (60)
17th Daniel Chen 3.5/6

U10 (36)
28th Olivia Chen 2.5/7

U9 (68)
36th Olivia Chen 3/6

U8 (48)
36th Olivia Chen 2/6
45th Catherine Lv 1/6

The UK Schools Chess Challenge Midland Gigafinal took place in Solihull on the weekend of the 7th/8th July. Shyam and Kishan Modi both qualified for the Terafinal both finishing with 5pts (out of 6) in U14 and U15-18 sections respectively.

The following scored 4pts and qualify for one of the UK Schools Chess Challenger events:

Arooj Mahajan (U8 Boys), Kajus Mikalajunas (U8 Boys),  Madhav Eradi (U8 Boys), Joshua Tang (U8 Boys), Sophie Mehta (U8 Girls), Alex Cimurs (U9 Boys), Tom Brown (U15-18), Ben Raine (U15-18)

A few Leicestershire Juniors played in the UK Schools Chess Challenge Northern Gigafinal on the weekend of the 14th/15th July.

Jason Lv (5.5/6) and Milly Kotecha (4/6) had outstanding results to win the U11 Boys and U13 Girls sections respectively. Both qualify for the Terafinal as did Lindsay Pyun who finished 3rd in the U9 Girls with 4.5pts. Daniel Chen scored 4pts in the U11 Boys to qualify for the Challenger event.

Leicestershire Juniors had the following results at the Rugby Junior Open on Sunday 1st July:

In the top U11A section (for players graded > 75) Jason Lv won a bronze medal scoring 3/5.

In the U11B section (ECF 50-75), Kajus Mikalajunas had an outstanding performance winning the section and all 5 games. Lindsay Pyun (2.5) and Joshua Tang (1) also played in the section with Lindsay winning a bronze medal.

In the U11C (ECF 25-50) section, newcomer Kori Lee won a silver medal with 4/5 and Sophie Mehta a bronze medal with 3/5.

In the U11D (< ECF 25) section Lailim Ryskali won a silver medal with 3.5/5 and Avnish Patel a bronze with 2.5/5.