CRS London Academy, UK Chess News
Chess Rising Stars

To help prepare our students to compete beyond Chess Rising Stars, we are delighted to announce our first Online Grand Prix.

You can find our free Grand Prix tournaments on our lichess team page this term. Chess Rising Stars students, parents and friends are all welcome to take part.

Each tournament will have 5 rounds of 10+5 and points will be tallied across the 6 Grand Prix events. We have chosen this time control to mimic the playing conditions in the Junior Four Nations Chess League Online (J4NCLO).

Prizes will be awarded based on the number of entries and will be confirmed at a later date. Your top 5 scores from the 6 Grand Prix events will count towards this.

The online chess tournaments will take place on the following Sundays at 4 pm (GMT) in the Spring Term 2024:

28th Jan = Warm-Up

4th Feb = Grand Prix 1

11th Feb = GP 2

25th Feb = GP 3

3rd Mar = GP 4

10th Mar = GP 5

17th Mar = GP 6

To ensure the integrity of the Chess Rising Stars Online Grand Prix tournaments are maintained, we will use the lichess cheat detection system alongside the observation and judgement of our experienced coaching team.

The Chess Rising Stars London Academy team hope to see many of you there.

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CRS London Academy
Sep 04, 2024

Four Nations Chess League Online

Chess Rising Stars has entered our first team in the Four Nations Chess League Online (4NCLO) for Season 10, starting on 10th September.

We’re excited to expand our team chess provision by entering a second online competition, aiming to build experience and squad depth for future over-the-board events.

Matches will take place on lichess on Tuesdays at 7:30 pm

As veterans of the junior league (J4NCLO) since 2022, we’ve claimed four divisional titles and two runner-up finishes. Now, Chess Rising Stars is ready to compete in the main league against adult teams. This will provide an extra challenge for our Elite Club and Adult Improvers students.

Don’t miss out. Join our squad this week to be part of this exciting opportunity! You can also follow our progress on the 4NCL website.

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CRS London Academy
Aug 28, 2023

CRS London Academy hosted its first cross-continental chess teaching collaboration

Chess Rising Stars London Academy had the great pleasure to host its first ever cross-continental chess teaching collaboration on Saturday 26th August. This online event brought us together with the Chess To School initiative for an exciting afternoon of chess.

Chess To School is a non-profit organisation, dedicated to harnessing the power of chess to educate children in the slums and schools of Lagos, Nigeria. Their commitment to equipping underprivileged children with valuable life skills through chess is inspiring to witness and we recommend following their progress.

Photo by @Chesstoschool

WFM Maria Manelidou opened the event by demonstrating one of her own games. The depth of understanding exhibited by the children during the ensuing analysis demonstrated their obvious chess potential.

Following her lesson, the competition came alive in a tightly contested 3v3 match. Excellent sportsmanship was displayed throughout and, despite some unsteady internet connections, we were able to complete a 6-game match.

We are grateful to the Chess To School team for sharing this experience with us. Their enthusiastic participation and shared vision for a better future through chess resonated with us. This event would not have been the success it was without their involvement.

Our gratitude goes out to Chess To School for their enthusiastic involvement. We eagerly await our next encounter!

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UK Chess News
Jul 22, 2024

Southern Gigafinal @ Sandown Park Racecourse

Over 700 players, including 18 Chess Rising Stars students, took part in the Delancey UK Chess Challenge Southern Gigafinal on 20th and 21st July. Sandown Park Racecourse was a fitting choice of venue for such a substantial junior tournament. We were treated to a massive tournament hall, plenty of room for parents indoors, plus outdoor space for the kids.

Chess Rising Stars coaches Maria, Chris and Vinay came along to support our students. It was a challenging tournament with 7 rounds of 15+10. We had entries in the U8B, U8G, U10B, U10G, U12B, U12G and U14 categories! From these were several exceptional achievements:

Aden scored 6/7 in the U10 Boys section, improving on his Northern Gigafinal score by 0.5. Aden managed to qualify for the Terafinal after winning a tense blitz play-off. It is the second year in a row that he has reached this prestigious tournament to be held at Blenheim Palace.

Tauyekel (U8B) and Noah T (U12B) both qualified for the Challengers with 5/7 each. Neither have reached that stage of the competition before and both are looking forward to tackling their next obstacle.

Up next in the UK Chess Challenge 2024 is the Online Gigafinal, followed by the Challengers and we conclude with the Terafinal – which is scheduled for October.

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