A good start

ByDrDave

Great to see faces old and new this evening — welcome to Ernie, Leo N, Orestes and Sophie.

Similar Posts

  • Tues 22 Sept 2026

    ByDrDave

    Welcome to Elliott

    We had an unusual game where the Black King charged up the board to e1! This is called a ‘King march’ if the player chooses to do it, or a ‘King hunt’ if the King is chased there.

    One of the most famous King hunts was this one:

  • Two puzzles

    ByDrDave


    (Black pawns coming down the board)

    (Black pawns going up the board)
    Bennett, Frederick — The Australasian

    Solutions:

    1.Bc6!

    1.Kf3!

  • Puzzle corner

    ByDrDave

    Mr.B was always very good at producing a puzzle for us each week. Today’s puzzle comes from Mr.Lees — many thanks!

    You’re Black, and you can checkmate White in two moves (you move, White moves, then you play checkmate).

    HINTS: select the text below the numbers

    1.

    [White doesn’t have many moves]

    2.

    [If you can play …Na6xBc7 it’s checkmate]

    3.

    [Can you force White to put their Bishop on c7? (yes!)]

    SOLUTION: reveal by clicking the [ > ] button.

  • A second step

    ByDrDave

    Welcome back to some old friends we missed last week, and a warm welcome to Reuben, Dylan and Teddy.

    Sorry I didn’t get around to printing a rating list this week — Tuesday proved to be a longer day at work than I expected! — but they’re all there on the website and updated this evening.

  • |

    New season 2026/27

    ByDrDave

    8 Sept 2026

    I hope you all had a wonderful Summer.

    The first club night of the new chess season will be on Tuesday 8th Sept 2026, at our usual venue of the “DJ Room”, Heavitree Social Club, EX1 3BS.

    Membership fees of £15 will be due for this 2026-27 year from today; perhaps the easiest way for us both is to use this link:
    https://devonjuniorchess.co.uk/content/exeter-junior-chess-club-membership-fee
    Whatever PayPal try to persuade you, you don’t need a PayPal account to pay through PayPal.
    Instructions for BACS payments are also on that page.

    Looking forward to seeing you all again, and I hope you will not object if I notice you have grown.

    bw

    D

    P.S. I am busy trying to retire from work, which I hope to do some time in the New Year, after which I won’t be coming into the SHEU office in Exeter each week.  If there are any roles you could see yourself doing at the club, please let me know.

  • The chess family tree

    ByDrDave

    Last week the juniors saw the game of Shogi played. It’s the sort of chess played in Japan, and by our new friends Kaz and Hatzune. How is Shogi related to the sort of chess that we normally play?

    When I first looked at the history of Western Chess, I thought that the original game was Chaturanga, a game played in India before 600AD. Chess as played in other countries seems to come from the Arab form of Chess called Shatranj. And that is what I used to tell people.

    Chaturanga --> Shatranj --> Medieval chess --> Modern Western chess
                        ---------------------> Chinese Chess (Xiang-Chi)
                        ---------------------> Japanese Chess (Shogi)

    But I now believe that the best picture that fits what we know says that Chaturanga and Shatranj were both later forms of an original game, which we don’t know much about.

    Sort-of-Chess --> Chaturanga 
                  --> Shatranj --> Medieval chess --> Modern Western chess
                               ---------------------> Chinese Chess (Xiang-Chi)
                               ---------------------> Japanese Chess (Shogi)

    There are lots of different sorts of chess around the world that seem to come from the same stock, including:

    Shatar (Mongolian Chess)
    Sittuyin (Burmese Chess)
    Makruk (Thai Chess)

    Each form of chess seems to have its own special rule that makes the game come alive. Burmese chess is the only sort of chess where you can decide where to put your pieces at the start of the game; Japanese chess is the only sort of chess that uses the ‘drops’ that we see in Exchange Chess; Chinese Chess is the only sort of chess that has the Cannon piece; modern Western Chess is the only sort of chess that has the super-duper Queen. (In fact, our game used to be called le Jeu de la Dame enragée — the game with the Mad Queen.)

    You can read about all these different sorts of chess here:
    http://chessvariants.org/
    http://www.ancientchess.com/page/free-downloads.htm