Record Turnout for Friday Evening
Our flagship event for the Dorset junior chess is the very popular free Friday evening coaching and tournament sessions which is rapidly becoming the highlight of the week. This Friday saw 18 juniors attending which, with parents and coaches, meant that up to 25 people were online, including a very enthusiastic and vocal Harry! The juniors are becoming increasingly confident in both their answers to the puzzles and in the tournament play, which is great to see.
As reported last week, we have now split the online coaching into two virtual rooms with the extremely keen Rookies who are learning the core chess concepts in one room and the hard working Improvers who are learning the slightly more advanced chess concepts in the other. This week the Rookies studied how other pieces can help the queen to checkmate in puzzles entitled ‘Help Needed for Checkmate’. Can you see the helper in the puzzles below? The Rookies certainly could!
The Improvers meanwhile were tackling the tricky topic of ‘Stalemate’ or how to avoid it, especially when in a winning position.
At least one Rookie has made such excellent progress that she is now ready to join the Improvers section. Well done!
After the coaching sessions, there was the regular Chesskid.com 5 minute tournament to round off yesterday’s enjoyable evening. 18 juniors participated with Florence in 1st place, and Jack in 2nd place and Max, Matthew & William in equal 3rd place. Well played everyone, especially Florence who is showing great improvement. It is wonderful to see the juniors taking on board the techniques learnt from the lessons. Games are definitely getting longer and we are seeing some excellent moves.
Extra Fun Puzzles
If the juniors would like some extra puzzles to work on during the week, the excellent UK Chess Challenge activity booklets, catering for all levels and abilities, are available here. Check out our junior home page for more news and information.
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.
