Leicestershire competed in the tough 12 board Open section of the ECF U18 County Team Championships in Grantham on Sunday 25th February and gave a good account of themselves against very stiff opposition. Six counties sent teams to the competition and the top three teams (Kent, Sussex, Surrey) historically have always been considered to be amongst the very strongest chess counties in the country. Continue reading →

The Midland U11, U9 Team Championships were staged at Leicester Grammar School on the 10th February this year barely 6 days after the Leicester Junior Chess Congress took place at the same venue. The competing counties were Notts, Northants, Warkwickshire and Leicestershire. Continue reading →

Leicester Junior Congress took place on Sunday 4th Feb at Leicester Grammar and saw closely fought competition throughout the three sections (Open, Major (U80) and Minor (U30) with awards being made in each age category within each section. Continue reading →

A number of Leicester juniors played in this 6 round swiss open congress. Rakym Serik, who was playing in the Major (U160) had a remarkable competition at this level to score 3.5 pts out of 6 and which could so easily have been 4 had he accepted a draw in his last game before an endgame blunder turned the tables against him.

In the Minor (U110) Joseph Ward-Langman had a great unbeaten day on 5pts to win the section jointly with the Notts University student with whom he drew in the last round. Umar Syed also played in the section and scored 2.5pts.

Jason Lv and Daniel Chen both played in this event (an England U11 Trial qualifier) scoring 3pts and 2pts respectively with Jason playing particularly well to achieve a half-norm.

A young Leicester team in the 2nd division finished 14th out off 22 teams. After a difficult first day with only a point from the first three rounds, the team rallied well in the 2nd day to draw in the 4th round and win the 5th to finish on 4 points. Jason Lv had a superb competition on board 3 winning all 5 matches and Sasha Kerbel who just played on the Sunday also won both his matches. The full team was Daniel Chen, Umar Syed, Sasha Kerbel, Jason Lv, Rakshai Muthusamy and Kareem Patel.

The 2nd part of the super competitive London Junior Chess Championships was held after Christmas and a number of Leicestershire Juniors took part:

U18/21 (6 rounds)

5th= Kishan Modi 3.5pts
10th= Shyam Modi 3pts
10th= Tom Brown 3pts

U12 Major (9 rounds)

15= Daniel Chen 5.5pts
28= Umar Syed 4pts

U12 Minor (9 rounds)

7th= Jason Lv 6pts

U8

Olivia Chen 3pts

In a very competitive Rooks section three players (Arjun Vadgama, Kareem Patel & Lindsay Pyun) scored 3pts out of 4 and had to be separated on tie-break. Arjun was to win due to the fact his loss only came in the very last round (ironically to Kareem Patel). This tiebreak system was used rather than ‘head to head’ record as the 3 players involved didn’t all play eachother.

In the Knights section, Khaalid Patel (Kareem’s younger brother) won the section with 4.5pts out of 5 ahead of promising newcomer Kajus Mikalajunas who scored 4 points.

In the first weekend of the prestigious London Junior Chess Championships (one of the most competitive UK competitions in the calendar) on the 16th/17th December two Leicestershire juniors competed with distinction.

In the U10 Major section Rakym Serik finished 4th= in a field of 115 players with 5.5/7. His only loss came against the outright winner of the whole competition.

In the U14 Minor Section, Umar Syed (who will be playing in the U12 event later in the month) came a fine 3rd= with 4.5/6

Last year the Leicestershire U100 team containing 7 juniors won the National Final. This year Leicestershire have also launched a U120 team to accommodate the growing number of juniors graded over 100. The U100 team have already won their first two matches this season against Staffs 7-5 and Notts 7.5 – 4.5 which assures them of a top two finish in the Midland group and qualification for the national stages. Five juniors played in both matches (Anika Khare, Thomas Blay, Rory Haywood, Austin Meynell & Rakshai Muthusamy) with Thomas & Austin having won both games.