e2e4 Uxbridge Training Report

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Sabrina Chevannes
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e2e4 Uxbridge Training Report

Post by Sabrina Chevannes » Sun Mar 27, 2011 6:15 pm

Please find below the report for the training event held at Uxbridge last weekend.

If anyone who was there has any feedback on how they thought it went, let me know. And if anyone has any suggestions for improvement, or ideas for other training sessions, speak up!

The 1st Women’s In-Tournament Training
18th-20th March 2011 at De Vere Hotel, Denham


Sabrina Chevannes reports:

The first of its kind – myself and Jovanka Houska ran some training at a tournament in England where each player received pre-game prep and post-game analysis. The training was offered to women of all ages and standards alongside our role as ECF Managers of Women’s Chess.

Sean Hewitt had kindly offered free entry to women at his e2e4 events in order to try and boost the numbers of women playing chess. We realised that Sean’s events were a nice environment to be playing in due to the lovely De Vere hotels and with this offer of free entry, we saw this as an opportunity to offer females some training alongside this tournament to help cut down costs. So we decided to run a training event alongside his e2e4 event in Denham, near Uxbridge.

We weren’t sure what uptake we would get due to the late organisation of this event and the fact that no-one has ever done this sort of thing in England before. However, we were very pleased with the uptake. Sean’s tournament also displayed the highest number of female players ever entered into an e2e4 event so his offer seemed to have worked!

We saw our training as future preparation for those juniors who wanted to play in World and European Youth events as there is similar training done there. Twelve females of a wide range of ages and abilities received training during the weekend. There were several junior girls who were the leading girls in their age groups and have recently been selected to represent England, there were women who have not played much but wanted some instruction and guidance for the tournament and there were casual players who thought it would be nice to meet other female players and enjoy the game with some support.

The coaching was shared between three of us: myself, IM Jovanka Houska and IM Adam Hunt. We found that four students each was a really good number and we had enough time to prepare each of our students for their games even in the short time we had once the pairings had come out. There was some swapping of students during the weekend when the openings suited better, but the three of us worked well together to support all the girls despite which coach they were assigned to for the weekend. Between the three of us, we had a very vast opening repertoire and strengths (as well as weaknesses). Each of us built up great rapport with all of our students making it very enjoyable to teach.

Some of our students achieved some really notable results:

Open:
• Amy Hoare: 2/5 – gaining 6.3 FIDE rating points

Major:
• Katherine Shepherd: 2.5/5 - highest scoring female player in her section
• Anna Wang: 2/5 and only 11 years old!
• Anuurai Sainbayar: 2/5 our biggest learner for the weekend
• Jennifer Ehr: 2/5 – gaining 19.25 FIDE rating points!

Minor:
• Beatrice Steele: 3.5/5 – winning a grading prize and only graded 106!
• Corinne Mountford: 3/5 – our most mature student!
• Cosima Keen: 3/5 – narrowly missed out on a prize

All of the female players who received our coaching said they had a fantastic time and couldn’t wait for the next one. Some of the younger ones had never faced adults before and are very glad to have had the experience and are now oozing with confidence. We feel that we not only provided support and company for the weekend, but this event gave the parents an opportunity to have advice from females who have been through the whole junior process as well as receiving new ideas about chess software that they were not aware was available and how this could be beneficial for their children.

We believe the training was a great success and all our students really enjoyed themselves, learnt a lot and played some fantastic chess which is an amazing achievement in our eyes. We would like to thank Sean Hewitt for being a great host and the ECF for part-funding this venture. We hope we can do many more in-tournament training sessions in the future.

Feedback Received

“Thank you very much for the coaching and arrangement. We liked it and is looking forward to the next one”

“It was great to meet you, at the weekend. We had a great time, and are fired with up with new enthusiasm, now that we know all about what Chessbase can do!”

“We loved your coaching! We have never felt so inspired to play more chess!”

“Thank you so much for your help this weekend! I learnt so much! Thanks coach ”

“We never knew how great these e2e4 events were – thank you so much for inviting us!”

Sean Hewitt

Re: e2e4 Uxbridge Training Report

Post by Sean Hewitt » Sun Mar 27, 2011 6:19 pm

Sabrina - well done to you, Jovi and Adam for making this happen.

Carl - please lock this thread now ;-)

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Gareth Harley-Yeo
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Re: e2e4 Uxbridge Training Report

Post by Gareth Harley-Yeo » Sun Mar 27, 2011 6:43 pm

That sounds like some really great feedback. I look forward to being beating by girls on a regular basis in the not too distant future :)

Sean Hewitt

Re: e2e4 Uxbridge Training Report

Post by Sean Hewitt » Sun Mar 27, 2011 6:55 pm

Gareth Harley-Yeo wrote:I look forward to being beating by girls on a regular basis in the not too distant future :)
A service you normally have to pay for? :D

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Carl Hibbard
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Re: e2e4 Uxbridge Training Report

Post by Carl Hibbard » Sun Mar 27, 2011 6:57 pm

We are already wandering off the point of what should be a serious topic are we not?
Cheers
Carl Hibbard

Sean Hewitt

Re: e2e4 Uxbridge Training Report

Post by Sean Hewitt » Sun Mar 27, 2011 7:01 pm

Carl Hibbard wrote:We are already wandering off the point of what should be a serious topic are we not?
Apologies for trying to be humerous. Will try not to let it happen again Captain Mannering, Sir! :lol:

Alex Holowczak
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Re: e2e4 Uxbridge Training Report

Post by Alex Holowczak » Sun Mar 27, 2011 8:54 pm

Sean Hewitt wrote:
Carl Hibbard wrote:We are already wandering off the point of what should be a serious topic are we not?
Apologies for trying to be humerous. Will try not to let it happen again Captain Mannering, Sir! :lol:
His name was "Mainwaring"... :roll:

LozCooper

Re: e2e4 Uxbridge Training Report

Post by LozCooper » Sun Mar 27, 2011 11:14 pm

Sean Hewitt wrote:Sabrina - well done to you, Jovi and Adam for making this happen.
Yes, I would like to echo those comments. Also pleasing to see Amy score 2/2 at this wekeend's 4NCL beating players 100+ and 250+ points above her :D

Sabrina Chevannes
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Re: e2e4 Uxbridge Training Report

Post by Sabrina Chevannes » Mon Mar 28, 2011 10:03 am

It's all thanks to our coaching ;)

andrew martin

Re: e2e4 Uxbridge Training Report

Post by andrew martin » Mon Mar 28, 2011 2:38 pm

Sabrina,

Please let me know which of the best female coaches would like to be considered for international coaching trips. I think it's important we have more female representation at major events, if only for the sake of a more balanced party.

I did offer Jovanka the chance to go as Manager to the U 16 Olympiad last year,but unfortunately she was unable to do it at that time. Hopefully in the future.


Thanks, Andrew

LozCooper

Re: e2e4 Uxbridge Training Report

Post by LozCooper » Mon Mar 28, 2011 3:00 pm

andrew martin wrote:Sabrina,

Please let me know which of the best female coaches would like to be considered for international coaching trips. I think it's important we have more female representation at major events, if only for the sake of a more balanced party.

I did offer Jovanka the chance to go as Manager to the U 16 Olympiad last year,but unfortunately she was unable to do it at that time. Hopefully in the future.


Thanks, Andrew
I applaud this post but wonder how practical it will be in the current climate of coaches having to room share :? It should be mentioned that when there is an odd number of coaches this won't be an issue :D

andrew martin

Re: e2e4 Uxbridge Training Report

Post by andrew martin » Mon Mar 28, 2011 3:06 pm

Yes, that is a good point........I have no answer to it.

Well, at least the U16 post was a job for one person.

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