November News - Chess Rising Stars

Chess Rising StarsNovember 7, 2023

We are keen to share Chess Rising Stars London Academy’s upcoming Christmas and New Year chess courses with you.

Online Chess Camp

The 24th Chess Rising Stars Camp will be held online between Monday 18th and Wednesday 20th December, 9am – 12 noon. Beginners, intermediate and advanced players are all welcome. Our online holiday camp returns by popular request after the success of our Summer Holiday Online Club. Secure your spot with our Early Bird registration discount.

Christmas Tournament

Embrace the festive spirit with our Christmas Online Chess Tournament on Saturday 9th December from 10:00-12:30 using lichess.org! The tournament will also incorporate our 9th Girls’ Online Chess Tournament. Entry is open to all Chess Rising Stars students, parents, coaches and friends.

Spring Term

Be the first to mark your calendars with the Spring Term dates for all of the Online Chess Clubs and our prestigious Chelsea Chess Club. Chess Rising Stars clubs will have 9 weeks of lessons across the term and a week off for half-term. As usual, spaces are limited across our chess clubs and allocated on a first come, first served basis.

Chess Rising Stars teacher GM Marian Petrov was selected to coach the Bulgarian team at the FIDE World Youth Olympiad tournament in Eindhoven, Netherlands.

Registration is now open for all of these fantastic courses. If you’d like more details, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

UK Chess News

Jan 03, 2025

Double LJCC Champion

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?

The fearless Rxh3+!!

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.

U14 Major Champion

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.

U12 Major 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!

CRS London Academy

Aug 19, 2025

Rising Stars Online Chess Club

We are creating a new ‘Rising Stars’ club to upgrade our online chess club provision for the new academic year. This group will be part of our Sunday Online Club programme and act as a feeder for the ever-popular Elite Club. It is designed for juniors who are already competing in local and regional tournaments, to support their preparation and help them to take their next steps.

The Sunday Online Club is already our busiest with three weekly teaching groups. The new Rising Stars Online Club will ensure that children who are looking to one day take part in national or even international-level tournaments receive the knowledge and training that they will need.

EJCOA U12 Boys Champion

Why Choose Chess Rising Stars?

Since 2020, Chess Rising Stars has taught hundreds of children in our online chess clubs. Our global community of chess learners has grown to over 500 members on lichess.

Our expert coaches will offer real-time feedback during our private tournaments and follow this with game analysis. We will support each student in gaining an understanding of their current strengths and weaknesses and how best to train in-between lessons.

Through our strong links with experienced local tournament organisers in the London-area, plus in national championship events, we encourage our students to take part in suitable competitions. We communicate regularly with parents to share these opportunities.

We also offer our students an opportunity to represent the Chess Rising Stars teams in both the J4NCLO and main 4NCLO. You can find out more about this later in the article.

Individual Achievements

Our Elite Club members have succeeded at both the national and international level:

• Double 1st place at the LJCC Finals in the U12 and U14 Major sections.
• 1st place in the U12 Boys category of the EJCOA National Youth Finals.
• Two members were selected for the EPSCA South West England team, plus one for the South East England team, to face Wales.
• Elite Club members reached the Terafinal of the UK Chess Challenge and returned as 3rd and 7th place finishers.

LJCC U14 Major Winner

Elite Club

As the Elite Club moves into its fifth season, we are delighted to announce a new Lead Coach, GM Martin Petrov. Martin has been a popular guest coach since Summer 2024 and we are excited to extend his role. Martin’s lectures have included demonstrating his recent win against GM Alexei Shirov from the Bundesliga and explaining when to apply AlphaZero-inspired plans to push our a- and h-pawns.

This club has a limited number of spaces and these are available by invitation only. From September 2025, students at our new Rising Stars Online Club will be assessed for promotion to the Elite Club at the end of each term.

You can follow our progress through our News, Achievements and Top Students pages.

We always welcome parents contacting us, if you would like your child to be considered for a place in this prestigious group.

Team Achievements

Our strongest juniors represent Chess Rising Stars in two major online team competitions:

• Since registering our first team back in 2022, we have achieved many successes in the J4NCLO and are 7-time Divisional champions and 3-time runners up.
• Back-to-back promotions in the main 4NCLO in 2025: Division 5 runners-up in our first season, followed by winning Division 4.

Chess Rising Stars Representing the National Chess Junior Squad in Frydek-Mistek

Please do consider joining one of Chess Rising Stars’ upgraded Online Chess Clubs when we restart in September 2025!

We look forward to hearing from you and would be happy to help answer any questions you may have.

CRS London Academy, UK Chess News

Nov 16, 2023

Learn Chess in London

Chess Rising Stars London Academy is creating the ideal new environment to help to introduce chess to younger children. We are delighted to announce that the Chelsea Chess Club for 5 to 7 year olds will start in January 2024.

Benefits abound as your child discovers the joys of learning chess in an interactive and enjoyable setting. No knowledge of chess is required, although we would suggest that without any chess background it would be best to join the club by week 3 of term.

Lessons are shorter than at our original Chelsea Chess Club and will be held in a smaller teaching group. The venue remains at Marlborough Primary School in Chelsea, where we have been based since 2019.

In 2023 the Chelsea Chess Club was recognised at Level 2 within the English Chess Federation’s Junior Development Pathway initiative. We are one of only eleven junior chess clubs across the country to achieve this status.

Once children have mastered the fundamentals of the game, and are feeling more confident about chess, then the Chelsea Chess Club would be the natural next step in their development.

Registration is now open for the Spring Term at the Chelsea Chess Club for 5 to 7 year olds