KJCA is affiliated to the English Chess Federation (ECF) which is the governing body of chess in England.

The ECF administers a grading system for chess and all games played in KJCA Grand Prix are submitted to the ECF for rapid-play grading. 

Every six months the ECF publishes its new grading list and Kent Juniors will be able to see how their performances have effected their grade on the ECF web-site at www.ecfgrading.org.uk/menu.php. 

To give you an idea of what to aim for: our head coach GM Chris Ward has an ECF Grade of 240, the Kent Board 1 at the EPSCA U11 in 2017 had a grade of 136 and the Kent Board 12 at the EPSCA U9 in 2017 had a grade of 69.

You will also see on the ECF grading website whether you are a member of the ECF. 

All young chess players are able to get Silver junior membership free of charge for one year.

The KJCA strongly encourages all players to take advantage of this offer, especially if they are hoping to develop their chess by playing in additional tournaments such as the London juniors or other local and county tournaments.  

Also, as an affiliate organisation, KJCA pay a fee to ECF for grading all our games. If our young players are not members of ECF then the expense to us is higher.

To take advantage of the offer of free Silver junior membership for new members  - Please email the ECF Office [membership@englishchess.org.uk] or call Gary Willson on: 01424 775 222, stating the player’s name, address, and date of birth. Please also identify KJCA as the player’s club.

We hope that everyone has had a fun and relaxing summer break and now looking forward to a new and exciting junior chess season.

The 2017-18 season runs from September 2017 - June 2018 and we will be running our popular series of Grand Prix tournaments and Grand Master led Coaching Days, based on the successful institute of chess exams.

The first GP tournament, which is also a qualifier for the London Junior Chess Championships at U8, U10 and U12, will be held on Saturday 16th September on Tonbridge Girls’ Grammar School. For more details and to register, please go to: http://www.kjca.org/event/162

The rest of this season’s GP tournaments are planned as follows:

GP1 – Saturday 16th September 2017 – Tonbridge Girls’ Grammar School
GP2 – Sunday 22nd October 2017 – Bishop Justus School, Bromley
GP3 – Sunday 19th November – Bullers Wood School, Bromley
GP4 – Saturday 6th January 2018 – Cornwallis Academy, Maidstone
GP5 – Sunday 11th February 2018 – Dulwich College, London
GP6 – Sunday 4th March 2018 – Venue (tbc)
GP7 – Sunday 13th May 2018 - Crofton Junior School, Orpington (tbc)
GP8 Final – Sunday 3rd June 2018 – Bromley High School

Coaching Days

The coaching days this season will be held on:

CD1 – Sunday 8th October – Sevenoaks Primary School
CD2 – Sunday 12th November – Sevenoaks Primary School
CD3 – Sunday 28th January – Barming Primary School
CD4 - Sunday 18th February – Sevenoaks Primary School

As usual, we will be offering the Institute of Chess levels. Please note that we are currently updating the KJCA website to improve the coaching pages so further details and registration will available very soon. If you have any queries, please contact webmaster@kjca.org

Wow another lovely GP event this weekend,  ending a truly wonderful season of big attendances and brilliant individual and team results. In coming 4^th 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 3^rd 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