Coaching

The Dorset Junior Chess Friday evening online chess coaching and tournament continues to grow in popularity and this week, including the coaches and parents, there were more than 20 people online. This is great to see.

We have continue to run online coaching in two virtual rooms to cater for all levels and abilities. In one virtual room are the extremely keen Rookies and the hard working Improvers who are learning the slightly more advanced chess concepts in the other.

This week the Rookies practiced Rolling Rook Checkmates, chasing the King to the side of the Board by rolling just the two Rooks. One to practice at home!

Meanwhile the Improvers were taken through the instructive game played between Vishy Anand (White) and Boris Gelfand (Black) in 2012 which was won by Vishy. It was the shortest ever decisive victory in the history of the World Chess Championship as the game only lasted 17 moves!

This game is an excellent example of how Black’s queen was developed a little too soon, won a White rook but then got trapped!

Any juniors who would like to see this game again, here is the link Anand vs Gelfand

Tournament

After the coaching sessions, there was the usual Chesskid.com – 5 minute tournament to round off an enjoyable evening. There were some very exciting games and some very close finishes. 14 juniors participated with

Harry and Matthew in 1st place,

Max, William, Florence, Konstantinos and Raphael in equal 3rd place.

Well played to all the juniors.

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.