Northamptonshire Schools Chess Association

Junior4NCL

This competition takes place over a number of weekends during the year, with teams competiting from all over the country. Four of our county players put a team together for their first entry, and came out top in their section, winning by the narrowest of margins, half a point.

The players are Nathan Judge, Max Miller, Samuel Libertiny and David Collyer. Three of these go to Great Houghton School, and the other attends Chesspoints, so they named themselves appropriately Great Houghton & Chesspoints. Many congratulations to all four players on this great success.

Congratulations also to the many players that attend this competition from the Northampton Junior Chess Club - an impressive total of four teams!

Junior success

A number of Northants juniors have been taking part in competitions this weekend (14th/15th January) In particular, many congratulations to Ryan Reed, who played in the EPSCA Rapidplay Championships in Liverpool, and came away with 3.5 out of 6, gaining himself a half norm towards earning himself a place at the England qualification weekend in April.

If you would like to know what you would need to do to try and gain a place in that qualifying event you can find all the relevant details here.

Whilst Ryan was performing well up in Liverpool, a number of other juniors played well in the John Robinson Rapidplay, which is the premier rapidplay tournament of the Northamptonshire Chess Association.

Sam Herring, Owen Robinson and Marcus Rose shared the Junior prize, all scoring 3.5 out of 6, whilst Luke Tooth, Tommy Winstone and Sam Young all shared the Under 90 Grade prize, scoring 3 out of 6. Niall Martin played very well to finish just half a point further back, whilst the junior presence was completed by Myles and Laurent Collymore, Rohit Sonku, and Luke Townsend.

NSCA Grand Prix - points update

Following this season's Christmas Congress the latest positions in the first NSCA Grand Prix have now been updated. To see the leaders in each of the sections click here.

LJCC - more results!

Whilst some of our county players were taking part in the Christmas Congress, others travelled down to London for the second part of this years London Junior Chess Championships. This time it was the turn of the Under 12s and Under 8s.

In the Under 8 section Max Miller followed up his strong showing in the under 10s by finishing 4th

out of 60 with an impressive 5.5 out of 7. But Max was not on his own, as both Joseph Meisner and Josh Khangura scored 4 out of 7, and also representing Northants were Christopher Trotter,

Thomas Caskey, William Caskey and Reece Mitchell.

With 7 players in the Under 8s, we had a 'mere' three in the Under 12 Majors, and the top performing of these was Eva Ressel, who scored a wonderful 6 out of 9. She had a tough draw, being paired with the top graded player in round 1, but far from being fazed by this she played strongly to finish in joint 6th out of 79 players, and went home with the title of best girl. Also representing us in this section were Ryan Reed and Thomas Winstone, whilst in the under 12 Minors we had Jade Miller, who scored 4.5 out of 9, and also Samuel Gilkes.

It is great to see Northants represented by so many players over the various sections during the two playing periods of this years LJCC, with some great performances from many players. Congratulations to all our players who took part, and especially to the high performing Sam Herring, Eva Ressel, and Max Miller.

For all the results and cross tables from all the sections click here.

8th Christmas Congress

The annual Christmas competition took place at Ruskin Junior School, and the number of entrants was up yet again - wonderful to see so many players wishing to spend a day from their Christmas break playing chess.

Sam Herring continued his impressive run of form by winning the under 14 section, whilst the

under 11 section was won by Sam Young - the only player of the day to score a perfect 5 out of 5.

For all the winners you can visit the results page here.

LJCC - We have a champion!

Many congratulations to Sam Herring on a wonderful result in the Under 14 Minors at this years London Junior Chess Championships. Needing to win his last game he did exactly that to take the title outright, scoring 5 out of 6 - a wonderful result.

All the sections in the Under 14 and Under 10 competitions had huge strength in depth and so it wasn't necessarily quite so rewarding for the rest of the Northants contingent, but everybody did their best and seemed to enjoy themselves most of the time.

In the Under 10 Majors Max Miller was our highest scoring player with 3 out of 7, with

Myles Collymore, Pacey Gwynne, and Ethan Majeks also giving their best in this section.

In the Under 10 Minors Tyler Gwynne was our highest scorer with 4 out of 7, with Reece Patel just half a point behind.

In the Under 14 Majors Marcus Rose was our sole representative, scoring 2.5 out of 6, whilst in the Under 14 Minors Daniel Lambley was our second Northants player, along with of course the title winning Sam Herring.

Well done to all nine players on their play in what has become a very high quality event.

For all the results and cross tables from these sections click here.

Online Chess

If you want a bit of online training, or want to pit your wits against another online player, visit our new online chess page here, which gives a few ideas of web pages to visit.

2nd English Junior Rapidplay:Open

Part of the London Chess Classic, this Junior event took place at the Olympia Conference centre in London, and there was a very good turn out of 75 junior players overall. Two of these came from Northants - Max Miller and Eva Ressel. Both players did very well: Max scored 4 out of 6, and finished in 2nd place in the Under 8 section, and joint 12th place overall, whilst Eva scored 3 out of 6 and finished in joint 29th place overall. Well done to both players on their performances in this high quality competition. A full cross table can be found by clicking here.

National Quadrangular

Whilst Max and Eva made the journey south, three other Northants players made the journey north, to Liverpool. Marcus Rose, Owen Robinson, and Seth Tsang were selected to be part of the Midlands squad in an annual quadrangular tournament which pairs them up against three other teams representing Scotland, Wales and The North of England over two days. Marcus & Owen were in the Under 14 team, who narrowly lost out on 2nd place to Scotland - Owen was one of the few unbeaten players, achieving one win and two draws. The North, who are always strong in this competition again, won the Under 14 section. The Midlands however came out on top in the Under 12s, and Seth scored the perfect 3 out of 3 in this section. Well done to all three players. For a full report on the weekend click here.

32nd Northants Junior Congress (more!)

All the winners and placed players can now be seen here, along with a list of those who very generously made donations to the NSCA through this competition, to whom we would like to

express our sincere thanks.

British Rapidplay Championships

Whilst we were hosting our Congress, Eva Ressel was making the trip up to Leeds to participate in this years British Rapidplay Championships. On Saturday she scored a very respectable 2 out of 5 whilst playing in the Under 16 section, and then on Sunday she went one better, scoring 3 out of 5 in the Under 12 section. For full details of the championships click here.

32nd Northants Junior Congress

This years Junior Congress was a great success with a very high attendance. Many thanks to

Kay Gerrett, the Head at Cedar Road Primary School, who made us all very welcome, and who also presented the trophys at the prize giving. The use of the school was very much appreciated.

In the under 12 section Tommy Winstone scored a perfect 6, as did Adam Bennett in the Under 8 section. The results page is now complete, so to find out the winners and runner-ups click here

Also, for the latest top player positions in the NSCA Grand Prix, click here.

The NSCA is also very pleased to announce that this year the trophys were sponsored and supplied by TheBigTrophyShop.co.uk, whose website can be found here. Many thanks to them for this and future sponsorship.

Max Miller:

Barnet Knights, Middlesex County, and Barnet/Finchley Tournaments

Max Miller of Great Houghton School recently made the trip down to Barnet to take part in the

43rd Barnet Knights Tournament and came away with a very impressive 4 out of 6, to finish in

joint 5th out of 35 entrants in the under 8 section. To see all the Barnet results click here. 

He then followed this up with a trip to Middlesex to take part in their County Junior Chess Tournament Under 8 section, and came away with 5 wins out of 6 and 1st place! This qualifies him for the Under 8 section of this years London Junior Chess Championships - the LJCC.

On a roll, Max then entered the Under 10 section of the Barnet and Finchley Annual Junior Congress, and scored 4.5 out of 6 resulting in qualification for the Under 10 Major section of this years LJCC as well. Many congratulation to Max on these brilliant results, and lots of luck for the championships in December. 

Cole Trophy

The NSCA were proud to be organising this years Cole Trophy, the Northamptonshire Senior Championships, on behalf of the Northamptonshire Chess Association.

We were even more proud of our very own Owen Robinson, who came within just half a point of winning the competition, finishing in a wonderful joint second - many congratulations to Owen on a brilliant weekends play, resulting in a final score of 4 out of 5. Congratulations also to the overall winner, James Jackson, who of course used to play for the NSCA until only a few years ago.

Well done also to Marcus Rose & Ben Jackson who shared the Junior prize by finishing on 3 out of 5, to Seth Tsang who won the under 125 graded prize, also on 3 out of 5, and to James Virtue who won the Junior Under 100 prize, scoring 2 out of 5.

A wonderful showing by these, and all the other players respresenting the NSCA in this tough competition.

Here you can see all the NSCA winners being presented with their prizes by our own David Knight, who is also the Northants Chess Association treasurer.

The website for The Northamptonshire Chess Association can be found here.

32nd Northants Junior Congress

We have had to change the venue for this years Northants Junior Congress, but we are pleased to announce that this will now take place on 19th November at Cedar Road Primary School.

The entry form for this can now be downloaded here. 

NSCA Grand Prix

The Northants Junior Congress will form part of the new NSCA Grand Prix, which will take in our four main competitions that we run during the season.

Full details of the Grand Prix can be found on the Grand Prix page here, or download the

details here.

For more news go to the Latest News page,

 and for older news visit the News Archives 

 

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