Rising Stars Online Chess Club - Chess Rising Stars

Chess Rising StarsAugust 19, 2025August 19, 2025

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.

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.

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

CRS London Academy, UK Chess News

Nov 26, 2025

Christmas Online Tournament 2025

It’s a Chess Rising Stars Christmas tradition to host a December online tournament on our lichess team page. We are offering the opportunity to play in a fun private tournament with players of all chess levels.

Open to all CRS students, parents and including a special welcome to our friends from the Chess To School initiative in Nigeria, fresh off their Division 3 runners-up finish at the J4NCLO.

We will award prizes for age and rating categories including books trophies and private lessons with our experienced coaches. In previous years, we have received over 30 entrants to this event.

Schedule

The Christmas Online Tournament will take place on Sunday 14th December at 4 pm (GMT).

There will be 9 rounds of 5+3 blitz and we’re expecting to finish between 6 and 7 pm.

Warm-Up

Many of our junior students have qualified for the LJCC Finals later in December and this would be an ideal warm-up tournament for them to compete against other strong, experienced juniors.

Fair Play

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

Register Now

Drop us a message on the Chess Rising Stars lichess team page or an email to london@chessacademy.uk to get involved in this exciting and competitive chance to test your blitz skills.

CRS London Academy

May 03, 2025

5th Chess Rising Stars Grand Prix

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

This term, our free Grand Prix tournaments are to be held on our lichess team page. Chess Rising Stars students, parents, and friends are all welcome to take part.

The tournaments will alternate between four rounds of 10+5 and three rounds of 5+3.

Prizes

Trophies to be awarded in various categories (e.g. Top Girl, Rating prizes and Overall Champion). Your top 6 scores from the 7 Grand Prix events will count towards this.

Noah representing the National Chess Junior Squad in Czechia