Junior Chess Tournaments: A Guide for Parents

I envy football fans who still look forward to a new season. As a Norwich City fan, the off-season is infinitely preferable.

Take last August, we opened with a 2–0 loss to newly promoted Oxford. Then there was a moment during the first round of the EFL Cup that stays with me:

Two minutes after taking the lead, a Stevenage freekick floated gently over our defenders, reached an unmarked player on the edge of our 6-yard box and nestled into the bottom corner from the header for 1-1.

The camera cut to Johannes Hoff Thorup, our newly hired (now fired) manager, shaking his head with glazed eyes.

I suspect he was thinking about Philidor.

Which brings us to endgame training. When done well, it’s the chess equivalent of having practised thousands of hypothetical freekicks. You can become grim, repetitive and reliable, unlike Norwich’s defenders, fully prepared for both common and uncommon scenarios. 

Queen vs Rook is a perfect example, full of neat bits of geometry and calculation exercises that will improve your general chess understanding. Let’s first see what might go wrong.

What Not To Do

When the black King is on the edge of the board, there are two main defensive tries to be aware of:

1. … Rb6+!
1/2 – 1/2

White is unable to capture the Rook because of stalemate but neither can we move away because of the skewer.

1. … Ra7+!

Again, the Rook is immune because of stalemate. This time White will either get caught in a perpetual on the a- b- and c-files or, if we try running away, there’s a pin on the d-file:

2. Kb6 Rb7+
3. Kc5 Rc7+

(3. Kc6 transposes to the stalemate defence)

4. Kd5 Rd7!
1/2 – 1/2

Good Chess Culture

Here’s where François-André Danican Philidor can step up and show us how it’s done:

This instructive zugzwang was supposedly found by the man himself. Black is forced to separate the King and Rook because keeping them connected immediately loses:

1. … Rg8
2. Qh5#
1-0

1. … Kh6
2. Qf8! picks up the Rook
1-0

Once Black separates the Rook, we have a nice pattern of checks leading to a fork or mate:

1. Qe4+ Kh8

(1. … Kf8 2. Qh4#)

2. Qa8+ Kh7

(2.  … Rg7 3. Qh1# is pretty)

3. Qa7+!
1-0

With White to move, we need to Bend it Like Philidor™

1. Qe4+ Kg8
2. Qa8+ Kh7
3. Qe8

Et voilà, the triangulation brings us back to the zugzwang.

Of course, there are plenty of other winning methods to explore in just this one endgame but hopefully you have acquired a taste of what it takes to effectively manage a football team handle this endgame. 

One must imagine Philidor happy.

Chris Russell

Additional content:
Interactive ‘Bend it Like Philidor’ lichess study
(22/07/25)

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

The game of chess is witnessing a fascinating trend. New research by Chess.com shows that grandmasters are now achieving their titles at an earlier age than ever. Will the chess world see 10- or 11-year-olds becoming grandmasters in the next few years?

In the past year, we’ve seen a surge in children scoring extraordinary results. Records that would’ve seemed unbreakable only five to 10 years ago aren’t as shatterproof as we once thought, and it’s just a matter of time until they are broken again. “Child’s play” as some say.

Here are some examples:

• FM Faustino Oro (Argentina). Became the youngest ever 2300-rated player, at nine years and three months last year, and is the youngest ever to score an IM norm.
• WCM Bodhana Sivananandan (England). Won the World Youth Championship Girls under 8 in classical, blitz and rapid scoring 33/33, becoming England’s first youth chess champion in 25 years. She’s currently the world’s highest-ranked player under 9 years.
• Ashwath Kaushik (Singapore). Broke the record for youngest player to defeat a grandmaster in classical chess, one month after Leonid Ivanovic broke the previous record from 2012.
• Roman Shogdzhiev (Russia). Beat five grandmasters in the 2023 World Rapid & Blitz Championship.

The results appear to be a part of a new trend as shown by Chess.com research that looks at the age of players who secure the grandmaster title.

While the average age for players achieving the most prestigious title in chess was 30 between 1975-1979, it dropped to 22.8 between 2020 and 2024. The highest age for a new GM was 32.8 in 1977. More then four decades later, in 2021, the average age is down to a record low of 20.9.

10 players are currently pending approval for the GM title in 2024. The average age is down to 21.4, the second lowest to date.

Article source chess.com