Training Day Tour: New Dates

Two new CSC Training Day tour dates have just been announced, in Middlesbrough and London.

Further details can be found here.

Thornaby Library: Queen's Gambit Challenge

It has been a busy week for library announcements and here is another one.

Over to Brian Whitaker...

In this most royal of years why not take on the challenge of this most royal of games?

Can you defeat the maestros? To give you a chance Chris and Brian will be taking on five players all at the same time!

Choose your colour and take a seat at a board. Make your move when Chris or Brian arrives at your board. They will reply and then move on to the next challenger.

Are you the next Magnus Carlsen or Beth Harmon? Give it a go and you could win a prize!

Display will run from 10.00 a.m. - 2 p.m. on the day.

More Library Chess

Four of the CSC-supported chess sessions at our local libraries are now back up and running on a regular basis.

They are: Stockton, Thornaby, Billingham and Stokesley.

 

Please check with the individual libraries for the finer details.

Stockton Library Session Back On

Mr. Cassidy’s Stockton Central Library chess sessions are back on this Saturday (21 May), after a break of one week.

Everyone is welcome, regardless of current playing strength.

Coming Soon: The 10th CSC Teesside Team Tournament

The 10th CSC Teesside Team Tournament is coming soon.

This event is for our current CSC Teesside curriculum schools and it started at the end of the very first year of CSC (2010-11).

Unfortunately, the COVID emergency prevented me from running the tournament in both 2020 and 2021, but we are now reconnecting with our history.

Roll of Honour

2011: Ings Farm and Throston
2012: Ings Farm and Billingham South
2013: Throston
2014: Errington
2015: Throston
2016: Sacred Heart
2017: Westgarth
2018: Westgarth
2019: Westgarth and Billingham South

Invitations have been sent to the relevant schools and we look forward to seeing their teams (of four players) in action.

Further details - and a report - will follow in June.

This is what happened last time.

Winning Debut

Alice Sturman, our most successful local junior, made her debut for the Redcar A team this week.

A winning debut in Teesside’s top chess division represents another big step forward for mighty Alice.

Event Announcement: 9th Teesside Individual Junior Chess Championships

All of our CSC Teesside Schools and CSC Libraries have received a copy of the entry form. Please check with your school if you have not received a form.

Event: 9th Teesside Individual Junior Chess Championships.

Venue: Yarm Preparatory School, Grammar School Lane, Yarm, Stockton-on-Tees, TS15 9ES

Please note - if you played in the recent Megafinal, that was at the Senior School just across the road from the Preparatory School.

Date: Saturday 11 June 2022

Timings: Please arrive for 9.45 a.m. Play will start at 10.00 a.m. The prize giving will be at approximately 2.30 p.m.

Format: All players will play five rounds, on the Swiss system.

We have sections for Under-7s (Year 2s), Under-9s (Year 3s and 4s), Under-11s (Year 5s and Year 6s) and Over-11s.

The champions (Boys and Girls) of each section will receive the trophies and titles.

Open to junior players in the boroughs of Stockton-on-Tees, Hartlepool, Redcar & Cleveland and Middlesbrough.

The tournament is not just about winning titles and trophies. It should be seen primarily as an excellent experience for all competitors who will be able to learn a lot by playing against new opponents from a large number of different schools.

General Information

The closing date is Wednesday 8 June 2022

We cannot accept late entries and will definitely not be able to take extra entries on the day.

We cannot offer full supervision anywhere outside of the playing rooms. Parents/guardians must supervise their children at all times other than when the children are in the playing rooms.

Parents, guardians, teachers and chess coaches will not be allowed in the playing rooms during the rounds.

Problems arising during the games will be solved by the tournament Arbiter or another member of the control team. Children must alert the officials to any problems by raising their hand at the time. It is very difficult to solve problems retrospectively.

We will not be operating a tuck shop at this event and we advise you to bring a large packed lunch.

We will be working very hard on the day trying to ensure everyone has a great time. As usual with our events, we want to keep the pressure on the children to an absolute minimum. To help protect this ethos, we want the children to relax between the rounds and to temporarily forget about their chess battles. It would be greatly appreciated if all parents, guardians, teachers, chess coaches et al supported this ethos too and helped all of the children to enjoy the day without applying any pressure between the rounds.

Full reports will appear across our range of social media platforms. Please let me know on the day if you have any concerns regarding the use of photographs, names or any other information.

The Arbiter's decision in all matters relating to the tournament is final.

Any late announcements and updates will follow on here, on our Facebook page and via our Twitter account.

The Fifth Delancey UK Schools' Chess Challenge Teesside Megafinal: Gallery

Here is a gallery to accompany our report on the The Fifth Delancey UK Schools' Chess Challenge Teesside Megafinal.

All photographs in this gallery are © Johannes Grundmann.

The Fifth Delancey UK Schools' Chess Challenge Teesside Megafinal: Results

The Fifth Delancey UK Schools' Chess Challenge Teesside Megafinal took place on Sunday 1 May and sold out all 150 places.

We had representatives from 26 different schools, clubs and home tutored pupils.

We were very fortunate indeed to be able to utilise Yarm School's famous Princess Alexandra Auditorium for our Megafinal. Take a look at their packed schedule to find out why!

This was, of course, our first Megafinal since 2019, when the world was a much simpler place (although it certainly didn't seem so at the time).

We were not sure what to expect after enduring a forced hiatus from Megafinal action. Initially, I was happy when the entries broke the halfway barrier, but we went on to sell out very quickly, as everyone seemed to relish the opportunity to return to over-the-board tournament action.

We had an excellent mixture of veterans from the last Megafinal and players who were playing in their first-ever inter-school event.

Of course, we presented lots of trophies, medals and certificates at the end of the tournament but as I keep on saying at our events, it doesn’t really matter how many games you win, draw or lose; the most important thing is that YOU are there.

I was particularly pleased to see all parents, teachers and coaches respect our own tournament ethos of keeping pressure off the players and allowing them to be children once they left the playing hall at the end of each round.

Our control team of Joannes Grundmann, Richard Harris, Catherine Lloyd, Mike Pointon and Katie Sidgwick rose to the challenge of an exceptionally busy day.

Thank you to everyone who helped to make the day such a great success.

Those who reached the Gigafinal qualification target received an information leaflet from me on the day and the entering details can also be found on the UKCC website.

The sections have been streamlined for this year, which enabled us to have big competitions with a fierce battle for the top places but also to accommodate a large range of abilities, giving everyone a very good chance of earning a significant number of points.

Here are the results from our very busy and enjoyable day.

Under-8s

6/6 Section winner and Boy Champion: Ryan Liu

5/6 Second Place: Fathe Chahal

4/6 and sharing the Best Girl place: Rosa Williams and Isabelle Little

Also on 4/6, Sharing Third Place: Alexander O'Kane, Harry Metcalfe, Arthur Cordry, Olly Rutter, Isaac Brette, Stanley Dugdale

3.5/6: Sylvie Brown, Tyler Hanson, Dax Cullingford, Evelyn Ward, Noel Adams, Rory Fitzgerald

All of the above have qualified for the Gigafinal.

3/6: Hugo Kelly, Edward Shim, Evie Bell

2.5/6: Faye Brown, Leo Smith, Wilfie Chatterje-Doody, Maddison Green, Dara Jafari, Edward Prescot-Burton, Isaac Hamilton-Bowen, Jude Cardwell, Halle Jefferson, Cooper Willis, Manha Abdullah

2/6: Felix Maredia

1.5/6: Agoston Major, Daisy Simpson, Aiden Smith

1/6: Ananbelle Hall

0/6: Harry Norton


Under-10s

5.5/6 Section winner and Boy Champion: Bertie Leatham

5/6 Equal Second and Girl Champion: Renee Liu

5/6 Equal Second: Ethan Ross, Can Sezen, Miles Page

4.5/6: Kavan Sidhu, Sam Stevenson

4/6: Dylan Broumley, Anwita Dara, Parsa Mohibi, Miguel Ramos Moreno

3.5/6: Sumedha Kumar, Griff Williams, Joseph Dodds, Henry Stanley, Kaira Nalawade, Marawan Saad, Sid Suryadevara, Jacob Bell, Udham Chahal, Benjamin Fulford, Rosajean Bowstead, Eric Pinedo Fuentes

All of the above have qualified for the Gigafinal.

3/6: Lawson Spencer, Samuel Isukapatia, Jay Greig, Zack Adamson, Dylan Carter, Luca Sidgwick, Ava Woodhouse

2.5/6: Tyler Beazley, Noah Field, Lacie Robson, Oscar Tindle, Alexander Thompson

2/6: Annabelle Lyver, Penny Boyes, Hope Vidgen, Victoria Tooke, Loui Nelson, John Mcelvaney

1.5/6: Alexandra Prideaux, Iris Chatterje-Doody, Phoebe Barznji, Eleanor Cordry

1/6: Imogen Canwell, Maria Madzou


Under-12s

6/6 Section winner and Boy Champion: Sagar Patil

5/6 and Girl Champion: Natasha Pointon

5/6 Second Place: Vinh Han

4.5/6 Jake Gray

4/6: Nethuki Mudduwa, Isaac Jones, Noah Coulman, Luke Palmer, Flynn Gorton

All of the above have qualified for the Gigafinal

3.5/6: Aditri Kulkarni, Olly Brice, Oliver Lavery (Aditri and Olly have also qualified for the Gigafinal, as Under-11 players required 3.5/6 or more).

3/6: Zane Barznji, Sophie Hall, Joshua Scott, Joshua Rudd

2.5/6: Isaac Pearson, Riley Filius, Felicia Jude, Edie Redhead-Sweeney

2/6: Sophie Hatton, Noah Dent, Avighna Arvind, Willow Thompson

1.5/6: Nicola Hatton, Alex Hutchinson

1/6: Lacey Perry

Under-18s/Under-14s (Combined Section)

5.5/6 Section winner and U-14 Boy Champion: Aryan Nalawade

5/6 Second Place: Avanish Batra

4/6 Equal Third Place: Ajay Selvan, Emma Salazar Eyre, Prachi Arora (Emma and Prachi shared the Best Girl place).

3.5/6 U-18 Girl Champion: Alice Sturman

3/6: Joseph Machin, Ella Field, Harris Wilson

2.5/6: Girvan Paisley

2/6 Under-18 Boy Champion: Samuel Turner

1.5/6: Calix Thompson

1/6: Josh Reynolds

A gallery of memorable moments will follow in the next blog post.