Congratulations to all the players in the Kent U14 Major team for their fantastic result of 1st place at the National Youth Chess Association county tournament.

This keenly fought national contest was held at the Malcolm Arnold Academy, Northampton on Sunday 27th September. There were six other counties competing, South Wales, Berkshire, Cheshire, Leicestershire, Richmond and our close rivals and previous winners, Sussex.

The tournament consisted of three rounds of rapidplay chess and there were 12 board plus a reserve game in each round.

Kent started the competition with a great score of 9½ out of 12 in the first round, which put us in equal first place with Sussex. In the second round Kent gained another 9 points, however the Sussex team played equally well and finished the second round one point ahead of us.

So, with all to play for in the last round, our Kent juniors pulled out all the stops and scored a fantastic 10 out of 12, bringing our overall total to 28½ points.

As the last few game results came in the tensions grew and fingers were crossed to see who had secured the top place. A win and a draw in the games that were head-to-head against Sussex helped to push Kent just ahead.

So, the final scores were:

First Place - Kent on 28½ points.

Second Place - Sussex on 27½ points

Third Place - Berkshire on 23 points

All the Kent players were delighted with their well deserved win. 

The team were: Anantha Anilkumar, Aditya Verma, Francesco Bernardini, Ximan Mao, Mikey Watson, Jacob Watson, Alejando Ito-Aramendia, Aurideep Nayak, Charlie Metcalfe, Nikhil Chidipothu, Mahuaa Verma, Alex Thompson and Huseyin Gueriane.

A big thank you to all the parents and carers who travelled to Northampton and supported our victorious team.

The first GP tournament of the new season was held at The Judd School in Tonbridge on Sunday 20th September. It was very well attended, with over 100 players across all age groups.

This event is also a London Junior qualifier for those in the U8, U10 and U12 sections. Players who achieved 4.5 points or more in the U10 and U12 qualify for the major finals whilst those getting 3.5 or 4 qualify for the minor. In the U8 section those gaining 4 points qualify. The London Junior Chess Championship finals are held in Harrow, London in December.

The top three in each section were as follows:

U8: 1st equal (5/6) - Shreyas Royal, Shlok Verma, Idhant Lodha and Yacine El-Bachir.

U10: 1st Abigail Weersing (5.5/6), 2nd equal (5/6) Logan Fear and Saahil Bansal.

U12: 1st Gurveen Kapoor (5.5/6), 2nd Viktor Jamroz (5/6) and 3rd equal Shahjahon Saidmurodov and Jonathan Britnell (4.5/6)

U14 (merged with the U18s): 1st Alex Thompson (3.5/5), 2nd equal (2.5/5) Sarah Weersing, David Dallakyan, Nikhil Chidipothu and Alex Garfield.

U18: 1st equal Mikey Watson and Aditya Verma (4/5), 3rd equal Francesco Bernadini and Jacob Watson (3.5/5).

The best scoring primary school on the day (top three raw scores from pupils at that school) was Claremont Primary and the best scoring secondary school was St Olaves' Grammar.

Well done to everyone who played, from experienced county players to those at their first chess tournament. We hope you all enjoyed the day and look forward to welcoming you to more of our tournaments throughout the season.

A big thank you to all the organisers and volunteers who ensured that the day ran smoothly. Remember, we are always keen for parents and carers to get involved with our successful events, so if you think you can help in any way, please do get in touch.

Also thanks to The Judd School for the use of their school, it is a lovely venue and ideal for our tournaments. 

The next tournament, GP2, will be held on Sunday October 18th at Skinners' School in Tunbridge Wells. Please see the events section of the website to register.

Please read!

The KJCA is a volunteer organisation and is in URGENT need of more parent volunteers to help run its events and continue the great work which has been done over the years.

The smooth running of our events unfortunately does not happen by magic, it is solely due to all the hard work being done in the background by volunteer parents, parents who are no different from yourselves. Over time as children grow older some of our parents have to start moving away from their commitments to the KJCA. As such we are in great need of more volunteers to help run our events.

We are currently looking to fill two key roles.

1 – Website and FACEBOOK updater – we are looking for someone who can help write articles such as this and help keep our parents informed of upcoming events. We pride ourselves on keeping our parents and children informed and up to date with what is going on at the KJCA and in the chess world in general. We need your help to keep this going. No real technical knowledge is required since this role is well supported by a team of dedicated technical experts.

2 – Support Catering Managers – our current catering manager will not be able to attend every GP and training day event this coming year and urgently needs the support of other parents to keep our catering services going. Last season, our catering services were the envy of most other chess associations in the UK, but we need several more parents to help share the burden and to cover for each other at upcoming events.

If you are interested in offering your help for either of these roles please let us know as a matter of urgency on webmaster@kjca.org.

As always, any volunteer help at our GP events and coaching days is always hugely appreciated. If you are able to offer support in this way please make yourself known to any of our officials at the events. There are many things which we need your help with.

Many thanks for your continued support

KJCA

Please note that there is limited parking at the Judd. Once this is full there is free parking around the local roads just past the Judd, turning into Shakespeare road and surrounding roads. This is only a short distance from Judd. 

Please respect the parking signs which are on display at the school. Under no circumstances should you park on the school’s playing fields or drive up kerbs onto grassed areas and around barriers.

Please treat all our venues with respect.

We look forwarding to seeing you all next Sunday.

KJCA