ChessFest 2022: Day One

The first two days of ChessFest 2022 - the Summer extravaganza presented by Chess in Schools and Communities - had hundreds of children from across the United Kingdom enjoying a whole range of activities at London's Manchester Square Gardens.

We had four tournaments, simultaneous displays by former British Champion Grandmaster Chris Ward, Rachel Reeves MP and seven-year-old stars Kushal Jakhria and Bodhana Sivanandam, chess lessons from our excellent CSC tutors, games on the giant boards, an opportunity to try on the armour kindly provided by The Wallace Collection and a trip to Madame Tussauds.

There were also four extraordinary characters - a White Queen, a Wizard, a Knight and the Jester, from The Provibers, who kept everyone entertained throughout both of the days.

Here are some images (© Chess in School and Communities) from the first of the two (extremely hot!) days. A gallery from the second day will follow in the next post.

The third and final day of ChessFest 2022 is happening this Sunday and the details can be found here.

Jacob Young MP - Chess Player!

Jacob Young MP came to Ings Farm Primary School today to join in with our chess lessons.

Jacob joined us in the middle of a game of The Ultimate King Hunt, in which Black starts with just a king and the class has to take in turns to come to the front and make a move, with the aim of checkmating the black king as soon as possible.

Having taken his seat and quietly awaited his turn, Jacob eventually had his chance to come out and play his move.

White to play and checkmate the black king in one move

Jacob, who used to enjoy playing chess with his Grandfather, showed he has lost none of his skill as he played Bf4, checkmating my king.

There is no escape!

Jacob went on to enjoy one of our Kahoot! quizzes (he chose the one on the bishop, just to remind me of his winning move) and then helped the children with their games.

It was an excellent day and we were helped by chess tutor Catherine Lloyd, Ings Farm teachers Mrs Williams and Mr Senior and, of course, the magnificent Ings Farm children.

Jacob clearly enjoyed his time at Ings Farm, as shown by his post on Twitter.

Thank you, everyone, for helping to make it such an enjoyable and memorable day.

Training Day Tour 2021-22: Middlesbrough

The final date on this year's Training Day Tour brought a return to Middlesbrough, for the first time since 2019.

We always enjoy utilising the fine facilities provided by the Middlesbrough Community Learning Centre at Acklam Grange School and it was very good to return after the lost COVID years.

As always, we had an excellent set of Teesside delegates, who represented a significant number of our local schools.

CSC Teesside tutor Catherine Lloyd was the official assistant for the day and we were joined by CSC Chief Operation Officer Chris Fegan

Everyone worked hard on the mini-games and various other tasks and we had a very good day.

Thank you, everyone!

Dates are now being added to the calendar for the 2022-23 Training Day Tour. Head here for the published dates.

ChessFest - Two Locations

 ChessFest is coming up soon - in two locations.

Yarm KO Championship 2022

The famous Yarm Preparatory School Knockout Tournament finally returned to action, for the first time since 2019.

A different version of the event happened last year, but COVID restrictions meant that the tournament was in year groups instead of being across the whole school.

90 children signed up for this year’s competition and after several weeks of tough games we reached the big final between Miles and Can.

The tournament has been going since 1994 and we cannot recall a previous time when two Year 4 players had contested the final. However, as we already know from our wonderful HMC success from earlier this year, the Year 4s are very strong this year and they have proved to be more than a match for the older children.

This was proved in the semi-finals, when Can beat Waleed and Miles defeated Alfie; both victims are amongst our finest Year 6 players!

The final certainly lived up to expectations. A large crowd gathered for the entertainment and the two players arrived on great form and ready for action.

Can, playing as White, started with some solid developing moves. Miles, looking for an early advantage, made an early queen sortie which netted him an early advantage in material. Meanwhile, Can castled, to make his king safe.

Miles had to try and consolidate the position so his extra material would tell in the endgame. However, with his king one move away from safety, he was hit by a big tactic by Can; using a discovered check, he was able to win a rook from Miles.

This gave Can a winning advantage, but he still had to prevent Miles from fighting back with a last-ditch attempt to change the course of the game.

Can kept his cool when most players would have wilted under the pressure and he finished off with a very efficient checkmate.

Can is the new champion and Miles is the runner-up!

Both players deserve great credit for their magnificent efforts over the course of an exceptional year.

Will they both be back in the KO final next year, or will a new challenger emerge? Find out next year!