Final Thoughts for the season from GM Chris Ward
Wow another lovely GP event this weekend, ending a truly wonderful season of big attendances and brilliant individual and team results. In coming 4th at the U-11 EPSCA final (in adding to our excellent boys and girls team performances up until then) our ultra-young team helped ensure that for the first time since 2009, Kent won the National Counties Grand Prix. We officially can say that Kent are the best!
In addition to the scores you can read on our cross tables, I can also now announce that the results of the final IOC (www.instituteofchess.co.uk) exams taken this season:
Level 3: Denis Dupuis-Distinction, Danny Oprea-Distinction, Vaidehi Varma-Distinction
Level 5: Dominic Coates Merit
Excellent stuff and stay tuned to the events calendar for confirmation of when our coaching days (as well as the new season of GPs) will be restarting.
We have so much budding talent (Grandmasters in the making!) and already quite a few representing England. On Saturday 3rd June: Mikey, Charlie, Aurideep, Orla, Saahil and Ciaran were amongst those representing their country in the annual match against Wales.
Whilst, two of our young regulars, Stakhey and Denis had to miss GP8 because they were playing in the Rapidplay World Cadet Championship in Minsk, Belarus!
Meanwhile we’ve already read how James, Shlok and Shreyas will be showcasing their talents in the World and European Championships later in the summer and we also have a deserved candidate up for the English Chess Federation Player Of the Year award.
In reference to this exciting opportunity, Jitendra writes about his son:
‘It is with great pleasure that we present the candidature of our son Shreyas Royal for the prestigious ECF Player of the Year Award. In many ways exceeding the challenging requirements and expectations for the award, Shreyas' ambitions, intelligence, and accomplishments complement precisely the stellar community of past recipients and make him highly deserving of the honour and opportunity bestowed by this award. We would be pleased if you go through his complete profile and endorse him for the award which in a way would inspire a lot of youngsters to take up this royal game seriously.’
Most of the other candidates on the shortlist as established Grandmasters and, whilst I certainly haven’t got a bad word to say about them, this is about player of the year this season, not best player full stop! With hard work and dedication, Shreyas has come so far so quickly and in this last year and has achieved some phenomenal results. For me, though a vote for Shreyas would be like a vote for all the talented young juniors that we have helped progress in Kent over the season. Hence I urge all those amongst you who are ECF members to please do just that on https://britchess.wufoo.eu/forms/x169pi7s1v4fj5d/
Finally none of this would be possible without the efforts of a few parents and helpers that make up the voluntarily run organisation the KJCA. They are always looking for volunteers and helpers though that don’t even need to know how to play chess! For example right now we are now in dire need of someone to run the catering at events and there are always smaller jobs that could help take the strain off of the workload of other committee members.
Please, please, please if you feel that you have a little time to spare (at events or otherwise) then do let us know on webmaster@kjca.org I cannot understate how gratefully such offers would be appreciated.
Best wishes and hope everyone has a fantastic summer
GM Chris Ward