Our 18th Chess Rising Stars Camp took place at Marlborough Primary School in Chelsea, London. We improved our chess skills together from Monday 23rd to Thursday 26th August 2021.
It was a delight to return to teaching chess camps in-person. Our children (and staff!) had all missed playing and learning chess together over the board.

Our camps are open to children from ages 6 to 14 and of all chess levels so beginners, intermediate and advanced children were all there with us. We split up into two classes for the activities. This helped us to match children with those of a similar level of chess experience and ensure they all made maximum progress.

Lessons had a mixture of chess tuition, mini-games and sportsmanship advice. We also made sure to find time for a break but some of our students just continued to play chess outside!
Each day we finished with several games under tournament conditions. We awarded trophies, medals, toys and certificates to our fantastic students. Particular congratulations go to Brain L., who scored 8 out of 9, and was the overall chess camp champion and Nicolas T., who scored 4.5 out of 9 and won the second group. Hector M. was our most improved player for his 5 consecutive wins to finish the tournament.

The camp was organised and delivered by WFM Maria Manelidou, CM Thomas Villiers and Chris Russell. We had a great time and our students did too.

Our next Chess Rising Stars Camp will be held in October for half-term and we hope to see you there! Please do contact us if you are interested in finding out more.

View more photos of the event

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Wimbledon Chess Rising Stars

Launching in January 2025, our new junior chess club will be open to children of all chess levels, ages 7+, with a mixture of chess lessons, friendly games and an internal tournament with plenty of prizes for the winners!

Lessons will be taught by our expert coaches, including FIDE Instructor CM Tom Villiers, who are passionate about developing young talent. We will also support more experienced children who intend to compete in chess tournaments and team matches.

It is exciting to expand our chess club provision and offer an in-person club at a new venue. William Morris House is an 8-minute-walk from South Wimbledon underground station and a 14-minute-walk from Wimbledon station.

Our new junior chess club has limited availability and we will allocate spaces on a first-come, first-served basis via our online form below. Booking is open now and your child can be among the first to join us. Once this club reaches capacity, we will open a waiting list to add a second group.

Register today to secure your child’s spot at Wimbledon Chess Rising Stars.

Nov 12, 2024

Chess Ratings: A Guide For Parents

Chess ratings can be tricky to navigate with different organisations (ECF and FIDE) and categories (OTB or online, standard, rapid and blitz) so we’re here to help! This guide will give chess parents a feel for how ratings work and advise how to choose suitable tournaments for your children.

Before we continue, it’s important to stress that ratings are only one measure of chess progress. Focusing too closely on rating is likely to have the opposite of the desired effect and may well lower the quality of your child’s chess. Skill development and enjoyment naturally lead to improved ratings over time – play and study regularly and your rating will take care of itself.

Chess Federations

The English Chess Federation (ECF) and World Chess Federation (FIDE) each keep their own separate rating lists. ECF ratings are a good starting point for children and, for more advanced players, FIDE ratings form the basis for chess master titles.

ECF Membership

ECF membership is a must if you want to play rated games. There is free membership available for a child’s first year by selecting the ‘Free Junior Gold’ category. Chess Rising Stars is listed in the Clubs filter and can be selected as a Nominal Club on registration.

ECF Tournament Calendar

The vast majority of UK tournament organisers will list their events on the ECF site. Their tournaments are categorised by ECF and FIDE ratings filters plus for the time control. You can quickly find suitable local tournaments for either age or rating.

When starting out we would recommend contacting the organiser first to check if the tournament is beginner-friendly. For more experienced juniors, have the following prestigious tournaments in mind: Autumn Term = London Junior Chess Championships + Qualifiers, Spring/Summer Terms = UK Chess Challenge & EJCOA National Youth Championships, Summer Holidays = British Junior Chess Championships.

Time Controls

Tournament games can be played at standard/classical (slowest), rapid and blitz (fastest) timings. Typically a standard tournament will take a whole weekend, rapid tournaments will last a day and blitz are for an evening. Junior students tend to start out with rapid events and move to standard when they are more experienced and generally play more slowly. Players will receive separate ratings for each of the above time controls.

ECF Online Ratings

Ratings are further separated into over-the-board (OTB) and online categories. For example, Chess Rising Stars students compete in both the J4NCLO and 4NCLO online team competitions.

Rating Databases

ECF and FIDE ratings are both updated on the 1st of each month. On the databases below you can search by surname, club affiliation or age group:

ECF Rating Database
FIDE Rating Database
Chess Rising Stars Students

Further Questions

Please do drop us an email if we can support you further: london@chessacademy.uk

Jun 08, 2024

SW England v Wales – 26th May 2024

Match Report by Noah Bevis

I was really excited to be playing Board 1 for the SW England team in the fixture against Wales. It was my first fixture since being selected to join the England U11 team and it was brilliant to travel to Bristol with Aden, who is also a Chess Rising Star and my best chess friend.

Chris Strong, who is the team captain, met us when we arrived and showed us to our team waiting room where we were given our England t-shirts. I played a few friendly games against Aden and other members of the team to warm up. The atmosphere was quite exciting.

Each player played two standard-play games (60+10). I played Wales’s Boards 1 and 2, and Aden played their Boards 3 and 4 (as he was on Board 3) and our Board 2 played their Boards 1 and 2.

My first game, which was against their Board 1, was very rough as I made a losing mistake around move 20, but thankfully he could not punish my error. After that, it was very smooth for a while. Eventually, he got into time trouble in a complex position and ended up blundering a fork! He realised his mistake immediately and I smoothly converted the winning position that arose after that. Then there was a break between rounds for lunch and we took a whole team photo which was really fun!

I played some more friendlies before going in to Round 2. In this round, I played their Board 2. It was pretty even throughout because we both played very accurately. Like before, this opponent got into big time pressure in a key rook endgame. In the endgame he lacked technique and tried to rush to a draw. He made some poor choices in pivotal moments (admittedly, rook endgames are very hard!) which led to a resignation and that meant 2/2!

The final score overall was 10.5 England – 9.5 Wales in the U11s. Altogether, the day was a big success!