The Chess Academy has gone from strength to strength this season. Attendance at our Sawston Village College Friday evening club nights is now regularly in the 30-40 range and the quality of play has risen noticeably.
In February we organised a five round rated tournament open to all juniors across a range of year groups. Academy members won five of these: Minh Nguyen (Year 3), Ivan Yu (Year 4), Antonio Di Fruscia (Year 5), Guy Parsons (Year 6) and Yiqian Zhao (Year 7).
In March we entered 7 players, 4 of whom were still at primary school, in the East Anglian Team Championships. Playing against seasoned adult players all scored at least one point, and despite lowly seedings shared first place in the 11 team Under 6400 rated tournament. An outstanding result: congratulations to Thomas Sha, Ethan Liu, Ivan Yu, Lee Kanchi, Guy Parsons, Neel Mishra and Minh Nguyen.
Throughout the season two Academy teams have been playing in the first division of the Cambridgeshire Schools League. In teams of 6, ALCA A scored 78/90, defeating all 15 opposing sides and clinching a comfortable victory against older established teams. ALCA B provided experience for more Academy players and finished a worthy halfway up the table on 48/90 points.
My sincere thanks for the support and encouragement of many college staff and for the work of the Linton chess coaches, especially Paul McMahon who worked with the leading players and Mauricio Varea who organised the Schools League teams. My thanks to all who made this possible.
The Chess Academy is a partnership between Sawston Village College and the Linton Chess Club. We meet at the college 6-8pm on Fridays in term time between September and the end of May. We welcome all promising chessplayers between Year 5 and Year 11. Through a combination of coaching and tough games our aim is to prepare players with a good grounding in the game for competitive tournament chess. For more detailed information and reports visit the College website: Parents; Clubs & Activities; Chess Academy.
Paul Kemp
