Yet more local junior success

ByDrDave

n the Clubs/Organisations competition as part of the UK Chess Challenge, Exeter Junior Chess Club came out as South-West region winners.  Well done to them!

South West  
RankSchoolScoreNo. of PlayersGF QualifiersTF Qualifiers
1Exeter Junior Chess Club21421
2Bournemouth Junior Chess Club19321
3Downend & Fishponds Chess Club17.5221
4Frome Chess Club14220
5Musketeers Junior Chess Club10210
6Pete’s Potentials Chess Club8.5110
7Wellington Chess Club7110
8Wotton Hall Chess Club7110
9Moonrakers Chess club6200
10Ringwood Chess club5.5110

Similar Posts

  • The 65th square

    ByDrDave

    The secret of Grandmaster play is to make use of the hidden 65th square on the chess board. I’m sure you’ve all had the experience of having a piece come at you, apparently out of nowhere, to take one of your army. That piece came from the 65th square.

    I can’t show you the square, because it’s not on the usual 8×8 grid system, but I can show you that it is there. Watch…

    Take a 8×8 chessboard (64 squares, right?), and divide it up in a special way:

    These can be rearranged to make a rectangle. 

    But of course, the 5×13 rectangle has 65 squares. I’m not sure which one is the extra square… but now you know it’s there, you can maybe use it in your games!

    (Post inspired by Ivor Annetts, but puzzle devised by Sam Loyd, I believe.)

  • Exeter Juniors (3-1) Newton Abbot Juniors 1st April 2011

    ByDrDave

    Ken Bloodworth, who donated the Cup for this junior chess league, died just over a week ago aged 96, playing chess even in his last year. A wonderful man and a player, who did so much for junior chess, not just in Devon but all over Britain.

    Obituary at Keverel Chess: http://www.keverelchess.com/ken-bloodworth-1914-2011/
    Biography at Keverel Chess: http://www.keverelchess.com/k-j-bloodworth-25-06-1914/

    {This back-and-forth game was settling into a tense endgame when White allowed
    a snap mate. Both sides allowed and missed chances!}

    {Black won a pawn and a piece early on and steered the game to a calm win.}

    { White grabbed a loose piece but lost it back to a neat Black tactic. White came up with a tactic of his own to win the exchange, and swapped off to win.}

    {Some loose play by Black gave White a pawn in the opening, and White swapped
    his way to the win.}

  • Exeter Juniors ½-3½ Tiverton Testosterones

    ByDrDave

    {A terrific scrap where both sides took and missed their chances. In the end
    the struggle with the 32 pieces on the board was decided as much by the clock
    as by the moves.}

    {White played an unknown system and got a bit lost. Trying to save a pawn,
    White lost one piece and should have lost another. The position settled down
    with Black dominant, and White never really had a chance.}

    See also: http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/making-it-you-go-along

    {Black wins a pawn but misses a discovery to lose a piece. Black keeps going
    and eventually finds a perpetual check.}

    {White started very well but the position became blocked and difficult.
    Trying to get something going, you played a poor move, and things then went
    from bad to worse.}

  • Exeter Juniors (2½-1½) Seaton, 25th March 2011

    ByDrDave

    [Please ignore the stupid number of page visits, I think someone’s robot threw a wobbly]

    {
    White eventually took a loose pawn and played good aggressive chess to wrap up.
    }

    {Black had the advantage but allowed White to stop him castling, when there
    was always a mating attack up White’s sleeve.}

    {White made good use of his extra space and activity.}

    {Black let a pawn advantage slip through his fingers.}

  • Exeter Juniors 1-2 Sidmouth B

    ByDrDave

    A tale of three discoveries: a discovered attack proved the winning move in all three games.

    Unmasked threats – discovered attacks and discovered checks – are the
    most difficult threats to spot. You pay attention to the piece that
    moves, but the threat comes from the piece behind.

    I’ve attached a discovered attack training page – get your eye in! In 2010, the Devon U14 team lost an awful lot of points (or a lot of awful points) to discovered attacks, and the puzzles are all things that they missed.

    {Some over-cautious play by Black gave White some chances early on, but it
    fizzled out. White decided to save a pawn … but lost a Knight instead!
    White then attacked very well and won the Exchange, leaving the balance Rook
    against two minor pieces – about equal. But then Black sprang a deadly
    discovery to win.}

    {White’s home-made system against the Dragon got into a bit of a muddle, and
    once it started going wrong, White jumped from the frying pan to the fire to
    the furnace…}

    {In a line Black was unsure about, White got an advantage in space and
    development, which was used to put pressure on the Queen’s-side. After a big
    chance was missed by White, the game fizzled out into a standard French
    better-for-Black endgame, and Black took the chances that came by.}

  • Said the Elephant to the Bishop…

    ByDrDave


    “What’s this piece called?”
    “A Bishop.”
    “What is it in Spanish, Sophie?”
    “Alfil”
    “And in French, Agathe?”
    “Fou!”

    Therein lies a story…

    The old Arab form of chess had a piece called the elephant, which, unlike most elephants I know, could jump two squares at a time, diagonally. And ‘al-fil’ means the Elephant in Arabic (Pil in Persian).

    But if you have a lump of stone, or wood, and you want to show that it is an elephant, you might carve two curving lines on it for tusks, or make two points on it to show the same.

    And if you then showed it to someone from England, you might hear them say, what’s that, a Bishop’s hat?

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Mitre_evolution.gif

    And if you showed it to someone from France, you might hear them say, what’s that, a hat for a jester, the court fool?

    http://a401.idata.over-blog.com/0/26/53/98/logos/eeg.jpg

    Here Bruno Fauditti has swapped a jester’s hat for a metal funnel:
    https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temp%C3%AAte_sur_l%27%C3%A9chiquier

    Now in modern Western chess, this piece doesn’t hop a little way, it can run right across the board. So the Germans adopted a different name for this piece, Läufer, the runner. There used to be played a version of chess in some parts of Germany which had both the old short-hopping Bishop, and the new long-running Currier, and that variant is called Courier Chess.

    http://www.chessvariants.com/historic.dir/courier.html

    There is a famous painting of some people playing this game:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courier_chess#/media/File:Lucas_van_Leyden…

    The Chinese form of chess still keeps the original piece with its original move; in fact, the name of the game, Xiang-Chi, means the Elephant Game.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiangqi