Gold at the EJCOA National Youth Finals 2024

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

After what felt like an hour of refreshing our phones, the round 9 pairings were finally published and confirmed our expectations. Aden will have the black pieces against Advait on top board and only a win will be sufficient to share the U12 Major title.

The pair had played to an exciting repetition before Christmas with the same colours, after Aden had sacrificed a Rook to open up Advait’s king. So what will we get this time?

How Did We Get Here?

We can all agree that any five-year-old who can play chess is undoubtedly impressive! In October 2021, we shared a profile with Aden’s chess journey since joining Chess Rising Stars while he was still in Year 1. Aden has grown up a lot and his chess certainly hasn’t stopped improving.

In the centenary edition of the London Junior Chess Championships (LJCC), the Finals were split over two weekends. Over twenty Chess Rising Stars students attended the U10/U14 weekend in Marylebone. It was a pleasure to visit them all on Saturday and soak up some of the atmosphere.

Aden was playing up 3 age categories in the U14 Major and stormed to 5.5/6 beating four higher rated opponents along the way, for his first national title. A remarkable achievement for the 22nd seed in the tournament.

Round 9

After Christmas it was the U8/U12 weekend in Harrow, which brings us back to Advait v Aden. If Aden felt nervous, he didn’t show it – that was left to the parents and coaches! The opening followed their previous game but mass-exchanges led quickly into an endgame.

A long positional battle ensued but this time Aden came out on top after 88 moves. A well-deserved victory for the new double LJCC champion.

Aden will return to the Elite Club in the Spring Term to resume his training. We are very much looking forward to continuing to work on chess with him!