English Chess Forum

Angus French wrote:Win for White with 1 Be6! I think. After 1... Rxd2, White takes Be5 with discovered check and then comes back with Nf7+ followed by Nd6+ and Nxe8 and there's no stopping Bg7 mate (Qh1+ only delays). Nice!

But does Black have anything better than 1...Rxd2 ?

The following position was interesting, from Ravi Haria (Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School) v Michael Ashworth (Sir Thomas Rich’s School) Round 3, board 1. With best play what should the result be?

Adam Raoof wrote:ON THAT NOTE - NEXT YEAR’S DATE - is Saturday 7th July 2018 - stick that in your diary!

Which is likely to be County Championships Finals day, as it is the first Saturday in July, unless varied by the Director of Home Chess.

Winners: RGS Guildford

Round 1 KEGS Chelmsford 1 – 5 RGS Guildford Reading School 6 – 0 Sir Thomas Rich KES Birmingham 1 – 5 Hampton School Haberdashers 4 – 2 Wilson’s Schools Eltham College 0.5 – 5.5 The Judd School QE Barnet 6 – 0 Wirral GS QEH Bristol 0 – 6 City Of London Notts High School 6 – 0 Yarm School Round 2 RGS...

At the finals at Uppingham School, RGS Guildford, Reading School, Hampton School and The Judd School are in the semifinals, to be played tomorrow.

This evening's 60 player fun blitz was won by Matthew Wadsworth with 6.5/7

There is an article in yesterday's Guardian on chess in Primary schools, focusing on the work of CSC: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/jun/24/chess-pupils-digital-detox-uk-state-primary-schools Headline: Schools teach chess to help ‘difficult’ pupils concentrate Game takes off in primaries...

Having promoted grading and ECF membership at my secondary school there are now over 80 graded pupils with 50 being ECF members. However, even in the secondary school context there are a couple of problems which can arise: 1) The Silver Free membership is great to get players to become ECF members b...

My wife (who is Director of Women's chess for ECF) and I tried to find some proxies for the male/female imbalance in sports, education and chess in other nations. For example the lowest proportion of female students in university subjects is 'technologies', 'engineering' and 'computer science'. My ...

One area I'm particularly interested in at the moment is the balance between 'knowledge' and 'skill' - particularly in chess of course but also in more general terms. Certainly in chess it seems most training and coaching focus is on the accumulation of knowledge (openings, tactical patterns, endga...

"To consider the following motion: "The British Chess Federation Council recommends to the Trustees of the John Robinson Youth Trust that: (a) The Trustees give due consideration to requests for funding for junior chess made by the English Chess Federation; and (b) When determining whether such req...

After 4 decades of trying I have finally got into the 180s - is it due to grade inflation, experience or luck?
In my case I think it is exercise.

This year's tournament was won by Hampton School.
A report can be read at http://englishchess.org.uk/NSCC/201617- ... ge-201617/
About 400 pupils from 50 schools played at 16 regional finals, with 14 schools playing at the finals at Imperial College.

Nick Grey wrote:It is a nice proposal & I'm presuming if goes through effective this season so comes with the invoices in September.

I assumed that it would not be back dated, and so first apply for 2017/18 season. Can someone confirm?

Alex Holowczak wrote: I've just spoken to David Thomas - I assume no one else decided to contact him to ask the question?

You are privileged - I am afraid that not all of us have the ability to get a quick answer from him on this subject.