Due to the popularity of the Friday evening junior chess sessions, we last week trialled the split of the online coaching into two virtual rooms, the Rookies and the Improvers. This format proved very successful so we repeated it once again this week and plan to keep this format going for the foreseeable future.

In the one virtual room are the extremely keen Rookies who are learning the core chess concepts and this was enthusiastically run by Nikki Forster and Andy Baskett.

After learning about the three ways to get out of Check last week – being CPR for the King – this week the Rookies learnt about when CPR isn’t possible and it is Checkmate.

In the other virtual room are the hard working Improvers who are learning the slightly more advanced chess concepts run by Martin Simons and Andy Baskett. Andy is perfecting his multitasking as he maintains his internet connection in both rooms!

 

After the coaching sessions, the Rookies and the Improvers came together for the popular Chesskid.com tournament to round off yesterday’s enjoyable evening. A total of 16 juniors participated in the 4 round tournament with Matthew in 1st place on full score of 4 points, and Harry, Lohit, Max & Jack in equal 2nd place on 3 points.

 

It is great to see the juniors taking on board the techniques learnt from the lessons with the individual games definitely getting longer and closer. Most importantly they are having fun whilst showing a little competitiveness! The occasional head holding could be seen.

 

Chess preparation for Rookies

For any juniors who would like to join and are unsure about how the chess pieces move, we highly recommend the following Chesskid.com videos which are available for free as these cover the basics of how the pieces move.

Pawn level 1 https://www.chesskid.com/lessons/view/meet-the-rook

Pawn level 2 https://www.chesskid.com/lessons/view/meet-the-bishops

Pawn level 3 https://www.chesskid.com/lessons/view/meet-the-queen

Pawn level 4 https://www.chesskid.com/lessons/view/meet-the-king

Pawn level 5 https://www.chesskid.com/lessons/view/meet-the-pawn

Pawn level 6 https://www.chesskid.com/lessons/view/meet-the-knight

 

Join us

These evenings continue to be very popular. If you know of any juniors who would be interested then please contact [email protected]. We welcome all junior chess players from across the Dorset and Bournemouth & District chess league catchment areas (and some who are just over the border in Hampshire!) irrespective of your school or chess club affiliation.