On Saturday 8^th March Kent, hosted the EPSCA U9 East Zonal and it was the first opportunity to see how our talented young players would fair against the best of some of the other counties. Well, they certainly didn’t let us down as Kent led from the front and ultimately accelerated away to victory, giving us qualification to the finals and gold medals all round.

The Kent committee and supporting parents were complimented on the day’s excellent organisation and as the event was being held at Eltham School, we were able to give 24 juniors a taste of competition chess at county level. Each and every one of them did our county proud and the main team of 12 ultimately finished with a score of 25/36. This was comprised of a reasonable round 1 score of 8, followed by a slight dip with 7 in round 2 before showing our true colours with an excellent 10 in the final round.

Although the coach (that would be me!) was content with the final placing, it was also noted that a few unnecessary points were conceded through not looking out for checks (that both you and your opponent can do) and on occasion, moving too quickly. Although we must continue writing our moves down (except when short on time) so that it becomes second nature (helping us to remain calm and avoid becoming over-excited), I was extremely pleased to see techniques learnt at our coaching days, being employed to great success.

The KJCA has worked very hard to try to improve both the numbers and the standard of young players in Kent and this is was a clear indication that we are going in the right direction. The only sad element is that we will have to whittle the squad down to 16 for the EPSCA U9 final on April 26^th and that is a decision that will be made straight after GP6 at Sommerhill. As always we are looking for a good attendance for that tournament and if you are available, myself and the team managers would particularly like to see in attendance all who are in contention for team places.

Congratulations then to the Kent U9 squad for Saturday’s excellent result:

Haolin Zhao, Ranesh Ratnesan, Robert Akeye-Price, Navieinaah Haridas, Thomas Gardner, Charlie Metcalfe, Alexander Levin, Huseyin Gueriane, Saahil Bansal, Abishaik Gnanenthiran, David Dallakyan, Dennis Ivin, Moad Shamekh, Charlotte Bruce, Anika Roy, Shaun Pasari, Kimball Catling, Oliver Dobson, Efe Shimwell, Mason Graves-Brown, Yong Gui Wang, Jai Singh Chaturvedi, Ishaan Yewale, Radha Ratnesan  

 My conclusion: Pretty good and with definite room for improvement too. We can move on to the final with confidence and further tussles with Barnet as well as the likes of Wey Valley, Sussex and Nottinghamshire in their own back yard. Exciting times!          

GM Chris Ward

Well done, we are so proud of you all, from the KJCA.

Full results can be found on the following link:

http://oxfordfusion.com/epsca/TeamsOverall.cfm?EventID=44

Our fifth GP was held on Sunday 2nd March at Dulwich College.

Beautiful sunshine welcomed everyone on arrival at this magnificent venue, steeped in history. It was great to see so many children coming along from so many different schools and counties, making this another hugely successful KJCA event.

Thank you to all the parents and children who kindly helped out on the day, any and as always all help is always much appreciated. It was great to see all the familiar faces as well as the new faces especially the friendly contingent from Holy Trinity School!

U9: 1st Charlie Metcalfe (6 / 6), 2^nd Huseyin Gueriane (5.5 / 6),

U11: 1st Aryan Naryan (5.5 / 6), 2^nd equal Ben Barton, Bridie O’Leary (5 / 6)

U14: 1st Francesco Bernardini (5.5 / 6), 2nd equal Ranesh Ratnesan, Alejandro Ito-Aramendia, Eoin O’Leary (4/5)

U18: 1st Freddie Hand (5 / 5), 2^nd Anantha Anilkumar (3.5 / 5)

Primary School: King’s College School (57.8)

Secondary School: St Olave's Grammar (68.0)

Full cross tables can be found on: http://www.kjca.org/result/68

Current leaders of the GP tables after this event are as follows:

U9: Ranesh Ratnesan

U11: Ximan Mao

U14: Anantha Anilkumar

U18: Raunak Rao

Primary School: Dulwich Prep London

Secondary School: St Olave's Grammar

Full GP tables can be found on: http://www.kjca.org/site/page?view=GPTables.

Many thanks to Dulwich College for accommodating us and also a huge thank you to all the many parents and children who helped on the day.

Please note: Our sixth GP, will be held on the Sunday April 13th 2014 at The Schools at Somerhill. As usual you can enter online and we hope to see many (if not all) of you there.

Well done to all those Kent Juniors who travelled down to Swindon to participate in the West of England Junior Chess Championships on the 22^nd and 23^rd February.

Kent was represented across all the age groups, from the beginners and U8 championship through to the U16 Major section.

The best result of the weekend was achieved by Jacob Watson, who scored an excellent 5½ out of 6 in the U12 Challengers, winning the section outright.

Michael Green also did very well in the U16 Major section and got the Grading prize. Girinath Haridas, Jessica Wen  and Jackson Wen also competed in the older sections.  

Playing some quality games in the U12 Championship section were Anantha Anilkumar, Francesco Bernadini, Mikey Watson, Emily Green, Ximan Mao and Guarav Kocher.  

Kent was represented in the U10 section by Freddie Nunn and Rajeiv Ratesan, and in the U9 by  Ranesh Ratesan and Navienaah Haridas.  They all played very well. There was a special mention for Navienaah at prize giving for her tactical gameplay and she received the controller prize. 

In the U8s, Robert Akeya-Price, had a superb result with 4 ½ out of 6, and secured joint 2^nd place.  Radha Ratnesan also did very well and was rewarded by jointly winning the best girl prize.

See http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/WiltshireWoEPrizes14.pdf for a link to the prizegiving. (note: a number of our Kent players are being shown as Surrey!) 

The results achieved at the KJCA's Institutue of Chess examination session held at Barming Primary School on Saturday 9th February 2014, are as listed below. The certificates will be presented during the afternoon of the KJCA GP5 tournament at Dulwich College on Sunday 2nd March 2014. 

Level 5: Coach – GM John Emms: 4 candidates

Merit:             

Charlotte Wistow

Pass:             

Nii-Akwei Carty Bing-Pappoe

Riya Parikh

Emily Wistow

Level 4: Coach – GM Chris Ward: 15 candidates

Distinction:   

Nikhil Chidipothu

Ximan Mao

Aurideep Nayak

Rajeiv Ratnesan

Ranesh Ratnesan

Jacob Watson

Mikey Watson

Merit:             

Rikin Parikh

Aria Sharma

Rishi Sharma

Pass:             

Sebastian Davies

Navieinaah Haridas

Dennis Ivin

Jacob Scarse

Isabelle Wistow

Level 3: Coaches – WFM Ros Kieran and Matt Lunn: 20 candidates

Distinction:    

Oliver Dobson

Matthew Dubery

Oleg Gaidai

Huseyin Gueriane

Charlie Metcalfe

Anika Roy

Efe Shimwell

Jai Singh-Chaturvedi

Merit:             

Charlotte Bruce

Frederick Donaldson

Alexander Levin

Costas Nomikos

Madhav Suraj

Pass:              

Kimball Catling

Abishaik Gnanenthiran

Mason Graves-Brown

Shazia Khan-Bourne

Haris Nomikos

Suriya Velayudham

Rhea Rentala

Dhruv Madan (exam taken since Barming)

Level 2: Coach – Robert Maguire: 14 candidates

100%:            

Theodore Panchev

Shaylan Roy

Distinction:   

Aditya Chaurasia

Xirui Mao

Tom Mortimer

Seth Pierce

Raakavi Rajaseelan

Joshua Taylor (exam taken since Barming)                       

Merit:              

Ira Dubey

Gregory Ivin

Radha Ratnesan

Pass:            

Sam Gardiner

Luca Ricci

Michael Stringer

Meenaxi Suraj

Level 1: Coach – James Maguire: 7 candidates

Distinction:   

Maxim Catling

Nell Grabham

Sofia Winchester

Merit:             

Arthur Hillard

Claire Holtgen

Anya Srivastava

Pass:             

Joe Grabham

Our fourth GP was held on Saturday 15th February at Gravesend Grammar School and marks the half way point of the 2013/14 season. Please take a look at the GP tables to see how you are all doing.

Many braved the fierce storms to turn out in impressive numbers, making this another hugely successful KJCA event. Thank you to all the parents and children who kindly helped out on the day, any and all help is always much appreciated.

With 64 participants competing across four sections, the top two in each section were:

U8: 1st  Anika Roy (6 / 6), 2nd Mason Graves-Brown (5 / 6),

U9: 1st equal Shaun Pasari and Thomas Gardner (4.5 / 6),

U11: 1st Bridie O'Leary (5.5 / 6), 2nd Rikin Parikh (4 / 6)

The U10s were mergerd into this section: 1st Ben Barton (4.5 / 6), 2nd equal Matthew Dubery and Alex Garfield (4 / 6) 

U18: 1st Raunak Rao (5 / 5), 2nd Ximan Mao (4 / 5)

The U14s were merged into this section: 1st Ranesh Ratnesan (3.5 / 5), 2nd Jacob Watson, Zeeshan Kisat and Aurideep Nayak (3 / 5)

Full cross tables can be found on: http://www.kjca.org/result/67

Current leaders of the GP tables after this event are as follows:

U9: Ranesh Ratnesan

U11: Kiran Shiatis

U14: Anantha Anilkumar

U18: Raunak Rao

Primary School: Dulwich Prep London

Secondary School: St Olave's Grammar

Full GP tables can be found on: http://www.kjca.org/site/page?view=GPTables.

Many thanks to Gravesend Grammar for accommodating us and also a huge thank you to all the many parents and children who helped on the day.

Please note: Our fifth GP, will be held on the 2nd March 2014 at Dulwich College. As usual you can enter online and we hope to see many (if not all) of you there.

KJCA