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This has been another excellent year for the Academy, both as a friendly but competitive chess club, and through team and individual performances by the players. Numbers have risen steadily with over 50 registrations this season, and the standard of play has increased dramatically in the three years since the Academy was formed.

The Academy combines coaching and play at its Friday evening meetings. We run two groups; Ravenclaw (advanced) and Gryffindor (intermediate) with championships each term. Guy Parsons (autumn), and Thomas Sha (winter and spring) won the Ravenclaw championships, with Matthew Guo (autumn), Ziyu Ong (winter) and Jesse Prince/Juncheng Lin (spring, shared) taking the Ravenclaw
honours.

The Academy once again entered two teams in the Cambridgeshire Schools League, which we won last year. This season new rules on eligibility weakened our teams and we narrowly lost a close battle against the Perse School, which was galling as several of their leading players are Academy members!

An Academy team was entered in the East Anglian Team Championships. Playing in the Under 7000 tournament the Lions came second. More significantly the Lions also played in division 2 of the local adult chess league, winning it with eleven wins, two draws and one defeat. Congratulations to our squad of Thomas Sha,
Antonio Di Fruscia, Lee Kanchi, Kayal Vijay and Neel Mishra.

The inaugural East Anglian Junior County Championships were held over 20 boards in October. The Cambridgeshire team included 9 Academy players and ran out comfortable winners. Thomas Sha is now a regular (adult) County first-team player and Antonio Di Fruscia, Lee Kanchi and Guy Parsons have represented the second team.

Over the past year players have achieved many individual triumphs. Kayal Vijay was crowned British Girls Under 8 champion at the British Chess Championships last August, going on to represent England in the world junior championships in Kazakhstan and scoring an impressive 5.5/11 over two weeks. This spring she surpassed even that by winning the European Girls’ Under 9 championship in Croatia.

October saw the final stages of the Delancey Schools Challenge, which for most players is held over four weekends with the qualifiers from each stage whittled down to an all-play-all tournament. Antonio Di Fruscia came third nationally in the Under 10 section with Minh Nguyen second in the Under 8s. Minh was to score two more really impressive results either side of Christmas against adult opposition: second in the Cambridgeshire County Championship and winner of the East Anglian Under 1600 championship.

Lee Kanchi showed his ability in weekend tournaments over the season, winning the Cambridgeshire FIDE Congress and Bury St Edmunds Congress Under 1500 tournaments in the autumn. He then went on to compete in the Under 1750 tournament at the St Albans Congress, winning the prizes for best Hertfordshire player and best junior player, thereby collecting two trophies!

In February the Academy staged its own junior tournament, open to other schools cross the County and beyond. Thomas Sha won the Open tournament and Ofri Pilowsky-Bankirer the Under 1000 competition. More success followed in April in the local qualifying event for the national junior championships, with Elliot Lingard winning the Under 12 section and Ofri the Under 10 event.

The achievements listed above cannot capture all the successes (apologies for the inevitable omissions), but we have tried to reflect the range and diversity of the Academy’s activities, and our approach of gradually introducing our stronger players to tournaments and adult chess when they are ready.

Finally our thanks to Sawston Village College and the staff who have been very supportive and to the coaches who organise the chess activities and encourage the students. But to achieve what our juniors have done over the past year demands dedication and hard work on their part, and considerable parental support. A real team effort, so thanks to all. We hope to see you all again in September.

Paul Kemp
Paul McMahon

I can report on another successful season, albeit not reaching the heights of last season where we won most events we entered, including the East Anglian Team Championship, the first division of the Bury Area Chess League, the Roger Goldsmith tournament and the Fenland Trophy. This year we mainly came second.

In the Bury League the Lions and the Llamas came first and second in division 2, the winning Lions team consisting of five junior players, which augers well for the future. Linton Lions are promoted, taking the place of Linton Llamas, relegated despite their best efforts. In the third division both the Lemurs and Langurs won through to the top group but narrowly lost out to Stowmarket. And in the first division of the Roger Goldsmith rating-limited tournament the Linton
Larks finished ……….second.

Our six years of success in the Patrick Ribbands Team Championships also came to an end this year, though our four teams finished second and third in the Open, and second in both the U1900 and U1600 tournaments.

The highlight of the season has undoubtedly been the achievement of our junior players, both in team successes and individual championships, which are reported more fully in the 2005/06 review of the Chess Academy.

PAUL KEMP

Minutes of the AGM held on 3 June 2025

Attendance

Present were Rob Davies, Paul McMahon, Richard Newman, Nate Weersing, Oded Pilowsky-Bankirer, John Nevin, Konrad Scheffler, Alan Wadsworth, Alan Richardson, Michael Osborn and Paul Kemp.

Apologies were received from Rod Newbery, Simon Marsden, Simon Yates.

Minutes of the 2024 AGM

The minutes of the meeting held on 21 May 2024 were approved. There were no matters arising.

Safeguarding Policy

Alan Richardson introduced this item by explaining the English Chess Federation has drafted a policy for vulnerable members and that in time it may mandate individual clubs to have a safeguarding policy. One element to this would be to have a Safeguarding Officer at the club who has been DBS cleared. Paolo di Fruscia has put himself forward to become the Safeguarding Officer. The proposal was put forward by Paul McMahon and seconded by Nate Weersing.

A draft policy has been drawn up by Paul Kemp and Alan Richardson and it was proposed the Safeguarding Officer will finalise this policy taking into consideration members comments. The Chairman, Club Captain and Treasurer were given the authority to provisionally approve this policy when ready. The full approval would be ratified at the next AGM.

Subsequent to the meeting Paolo di Fruscia has withdrawn from the Safeguarding Officer position.

Review of the 2024/25 Season

Paul Kemp reported on the club having a remarkably successful season, even more so than last year. The Linton Leopards retained the Division 1 title and Linton Lynxes won Division 2. Division 1 of the Roger Goldsmith tournament was won by Linton Larks who were unbeaten and Linton Tigers tied for first place in the Open section of the EACU Patrick Ribbands Team Championship. Linton were also successful in the Fenland Knockout competition and the Cambridgeshire Jamboree.

The club championship (Jim Carr trophy) was won by Konrad Scheffler with 5/5, with Nate Weersing retaining the John Dawson trophy as best placed player in the lower half of the draw.

Report on ALCA

Paul Kemp reported on a very successful second year of the Anglian Learning Chess
Academy with numbers increasing and the quality of play much improved. The ALCA Foxes, shared first place in the U6400 section of EACU Team Championships and ALCA A won the first division of the Cambridgeshire Schools League defeating all opposing teams.

Report on Summer Competition

Konrad Scheffler reported on an improved second year with over 30 players taking part and 100+ games played. He also explained the in-house scoring system which allowed the identification of the player who achieved the highest rating improvement. This year’s competition winner was Thomas Sha.

Treasurer’s Report

Michael Osborn reported that the club had a deficit of £721 for the season. However the majority of this sum (£520) was due to the purchase of 20 new clocks at a price that was too good to miss. He also mentioned that with the investment of part of the Patrick Ribbands Legacy Fund now resulting in interest payments, the club has had to register with HMRC and file tax returns. This can result in a tax bill if subscriptions are too high, so although the club made a loss, Michael recommended keeping them for now at the present level of £60 for adults and £30 for juniors. This was agreed.

Patrick Ribbands Legacy

Alan Richardson described a healthy financial situation where the 1 year bond had earned interest of nearly £2,000, which after taking into account tax liabilities and expenditure on Ribbands Legacy Projects, had resulted in the Legacy having net expenditure of £289. A discussion was held on finding more projects to support, with Paul McMahon suggesting there should be a link on the club website with details on how schools can apply for equipment. This was agreed. Nate Weersing suggested paying for some professional coaching sessions to occur at ACLA. Paul Kemp said this had been looked at but Friday evenings had proved difficult. This led on to the idea of holding 1 or 2 Saturday coaching events with invited professionals running the coaching sessions. This proposal was also agreed.

League entries for the 2025/26 Season

Paul Kemp opened the discussion and put forward the idea that the Lynxes promotion into Division 1 should be declined and Linton should continue as this year with two first division teams, two in the second division and at least one in the third. He felt that there had been problems providing cover for two teams in Division 1 this season. Also, it would be difficult with sometimes two division 1 teams and 1 division 3 team playing on the same Tuesday night. Paul McMahon agreed that it had been a difficult season, often having to get last minute replacements. Nate Weersing had a different opinion, believing the Lynxes had earned there right to be in Division 1 and should take there place in the top section. Richard Newman agreed. After much debate on who would be available for different teams, it was decided that Paul Kemp would have another look at the list of available players and look at the feasibility of having 3 teams in Division 1. A decision would then be made by club
officials and team captains.

With regard to the Roger Goldsmith tournament it was agreed to have one team in each division. Post Meeting Note: After a thorough consultation by the Club Captain with players, we have decided to field two teams in each of Divisions 1,2 and 3 and teams in RG1 and RG2. Team captains will be:
Division 1: Leopards Paul McMahon and Lynxes Nate Weersing
Divison 2: Lions Paul Kemp and Llamas Oded Pilowsky-Bankirer
Division 3: Lemurs Michael Osborn + one more team Captain TBD
RG1 Larks: Simon Marsden
RG2 Team name TBD: John Nevin

Election of Officers

The following were elected for the 2025/26 season:

Chairman Alan Richardson
Secretary/Treasurer Michael Osborn
Club Captain Paul Kemp
Website Manager Ben Varea (identified post meeting)
Club Championship Organiser Simon Marsden
Team Captains
Linton Lions Paul McMahon
Linton Lynxes Nate Weersing
Linton Leopards Oded Pilowsky-Bankirer
Linton Llamas Paul Kemp
Linton Lemurs Michael Osborn
Linton Longspurs
Linton Larks (RG1) Not decided
Linton Lapwings (RG2) Not decided

The vacant captains positions will be picked when we have clarity on the squads available for each team so that we can ensure captains play regularly.

New Season Dates

• Tuesday 26 August Autumn opening of Linton Club and Rapidplay tournament
• Thursday 4 September Bury Jamboree
• 28 September Cambridgeshire Rapidplay
• 18/19 October Bury Congress

Any Other Business

Paul Kemp reported that the Linton club would host the Bury League AGM on Wednesday 16th July. He invited club members to attend reminding them the club had a maximum of six votes if that number of members attended.

I’ve summarized the reasonably local chess tournaments that you may wish to consider this spring, together with some dates for your diary in the early autumn.

Full details including online entry can be found on the ECF’s Calendar page. I would advise entering the section appropriate to your rating unless you are at the top end of the rating band and are keen to meet stronger opposition. I have also indicated the minimum rating you should be to enter the lowest tournament, unless you feel that you are significantly under-rated. ECF gold membership is required for all tournaments.

British Rapidplay Championships, Peterborough, 14+15 March

Eleven rounds of rapidplay from midday on Saturday to mid-afternoon on Sunday. Time limit 15+10. Just one section, so you can rub shoulders with grandmasters as well as meeting average club players. You probably need to be around 1500
or better to avoid being outclassed, but enthusiasm and stamina are the main qualities required. It’s not often Cambridgeshire hosts a British Championship so you may wish to enter for the experience and the atmosphere.

Spring Congresses

• Northampton 28+29 March
• Milton Keynes 28+29 March
• St Albans 11+12 April
• Nottingham 18+19 April
• Great Yarmouth 25+26 April
• Northampton 2+3 May

This is just a selection of weekend congresses that are particularly popular at this time of year. They are grouped together because they are very similar: five rounds (3
Saturday, 2 Sunday) with an opportunity to take a half point bye. Standard play time controls (60+30 or 90+10). Four or five sections catering for all standards of player from around 1300 rating up (though they vary a bit, so check).

All of these are excellent opportunities to experience a typical weekend congress and play standard play games. Depending on where you live some will be accessible without an overnight stay, particularly if you take a half point bye on the Saturday evening.

The weekend congress season extends into the early summer
so look at the ECF Calendar page for later options or additions.

Cambridge Megafinal, Perse School Sunday 7 June

This is the East Anglian stage of the Delancy Schools Challenge. Six rapidplay games from 10am through to late afternoon. The leading players in each age range qualify for regional, then national knockout stages before a national final in the autumn. I would thoroughly recommend players of 1000 strength or better to take part. Last year we had players who came second in the Under 8s and third in the Under 10s in the national finals. Details and entry from the ECF Calendar page.

British Championships, University of Warwick, 1-9 August

The premier event in the British chess calendar offers nine days of chess for all players from the very young to seasoned veterans, from beginners to grandmasters. You can play in multiple tournaments from blitz to standard play, lasting from one or two days to the full nine days. Pestigious junior titles are there to be won, opening up international selection opportunities. As always, full details on the ECF’s events calendar page.

Autumn dates for your diary

Not yet registered on the calendar page are two first-rate local events, the Cambridgeshire rapidplay on Sunday 27 September and the Bury St Edmunds Chess Congress on 17+18 October. Make sure they are in your diary.

PS 1. The East Anglian Chess Union is planning a FIDE-rated tournament this spring at Newmarket, possibly around the Whit bank holiday at the end of May, so keep your eye on the Calendar page.

PS 2. I’ve just heard that there is likely to be a qualifying tournament for the National Youth Championships in Cambridge on Sunday 19 April. This is an excellent opportunity for Ravenclaw and the top half of Gryffindor to get some good games. Details to follow, but reserve the date if you can.
PAUL KEMP

The past few months have been both busy and successful for the Chess Academy and for a good number of our members. Enrolments have increased to over 40 divided between the Ravenclaw and Gyffindor houses and there is no doubt that the standard of play has improved markedly.

The in-house Ravenclaw tournament was won by Guy Parsons with 7.5 points, closely followed by Antonio Di Fruscia, Thomas Sha and Jonathan Guo on 7 points. Jonathan won the Most Improved Player prize. The Gryffindor tournament was won by his brother, Matthew Guo on 12 points followed by Moer Sha (girls’ prize) on 11 points and improvers Tomas Drake, Ofri Pilowsky-Bankirer and Pratyush Reddy
on 9 points. Congratulations to all of them.

Away from the Academy the leading players have excelled. For me the following individual performances stood out. Kayal Vijay won the Girls’ Under 8 British Championship in the summer and was selected to represent England in the World Cadets championship in Kazakhstan in September, scoring a very creditable 5.5/11 over two weeks.

The Academy had a dozen entrants in the Delancey UK Schools Challenge, where competitors battle it out through county, regional and national stages as the numbers qualifying for the next stage are whittled down. This culminated in the Terafinal at Blenheim Palace in October, where Antonio Di Fruscia came third in the Under 10s and Minh Nguyen came second in the Under 8s.

Minh also bravely tested himself in the Cambridgeshire County Chess Championships in November against strong adult opposition and scored a remarkable 4/5, pushed into second place only on tie-break. A truly exceptional result.

Other players have also played in adult tournaments through the autumn. Leeladharahas Kanchi won the Under 1500 tournaments in both the Cambridge FIDE Congress and the Bury St Edmunds Congress, scoring 4.5/5, taking last round draws to win outright in best grandmaster style. Ivan Yu, Guy Parsons, Kayal Vijay, Neel Mishra, Jack Mao and Ming Nguyen also collected prizes at these and similar tournaments. And in the final tournament of the term newcomer Ishaan Sreenath won the Cambridge Rapidplay Under 1150 tournament outright. Apologies if I’ve missed anyone.

In team competitions ALCA provided the backbone of the Cambridgeshire Junior side (9 out of 20 boards) in comfortably winning the East Anglian Junior Counties Championship in October. The Chess Academy is also competing in the Cambridgeshire Schools League, and despite rule changes which have diminished our squad, are neck and neck with the Perse School halfway through the season.

All-in-all terrific performances all round.

PAUL KEMP

Fourteen Academy players participated in the regional heats of the UK Chess
Challenge for junior players, held in Cambridge on 8 June, and eleven qualified
for the national gigafinals. Not only that, but they won two gold medals, two
silver and two bronze across five tournaments, as shown below.

• Under 8 First place and gold medal: Minh Nguyen 6/6
• Under 10 First place and gold medal: Leeladharahas Kanchi 5.5/6
• Girls’ bronze medal: Moer Sha
• Also qualified: Ivan Yu and Antonio Di Fruscia
• Under 12 Second place and silver medal: Guy Parsons 5/6
• Also qualified: Jonathan Guo and Pratyush Reddy
• Under 14 Second place and silver medal: Thomas Sha 5/6
• Also qualified: Neel Mishra and Gabriel Varea
• Under 18 Third place and bronze medal: Ben Varea 4.5/6

Congratulations to all the qualifiers.

Under 10 winner Lee (centre) and under 8 winner Minh (right) are pictured with their trophies alongside coach Paul Kemp.

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

Bury League

I am pleased to report that this has been a successful, if unusually long, season for the club, winning a record 7 leagues and tournaments in all.

Our main activity, of course, is the Bury League. The Linton Leopards retained their Division 1 title, surprisingly comfortably in the end. Cambridge Examiners had a healthy lead at Christmas but in the second half of the season Leopards won all their matches whilst Examiners failed to win any of their last six. Our other first division team, Linton Lions, finished mid-table, which was a considerable achievement by captain Paul McMahon bearing in mind how much they suffered from the non-availability of their nominated players.

In division 2 there was a season-long tussle between Linton Lynxes and Linton Llamas with other teams occasionally intruding. Lynxes eventually ran out winners, a fitting finale for captain Alan Wadsworth after almost 50 years at the club (though he is continuing as a player). The Lynxes, led by Oded Pilowsky-Bankirer, narrowly missed out on making it a hat-trick of division 2 titles.

In division 3 Linton Lemurs, captained by Michael Osborn, finished mid-table. In division 1 of the Roger Goldsmith tournament Nate Weersing led the Linton Larks unbeaten through the season for a convincing victory. In the Bury League Jamboree at the start of the season Linton retained the Heron trophy, our teams coming first and third.

EACU Patrick Ribbands Team Championships

This is one competition the club has always taken very seriously, named as it is after Patrick, its founder and former Linton member. The result was the same as last year, a tie between Linton Tigers and Norfolk rivals Broadland for the Open title. This is the sixth consecutive year the club has either won outright or tied for East Anglia’s premier club competition.

In the two supporting rating-limited events Linton finished mid-table in the U7200 tournament, and the ALCA Foxes (our junior side) shared first place with Bury B in the U6400 tournament. This was a remarkable success, playing against seasoned club players to a standard time limit (rather than rapidplay) often for the first time.

Cambridgeshire Competitions

Although we are a Cambridgeshire club Linton has not played in Cambs competitions (other than the Jamboree) because of the distance to Peterborough and the northern fens. However this year we entered a team in the Fenland Knockout as Cambridge kindly offered to host our home matches. In the event we played all of our three matches away, to Cambridge, St Neots and St Ives. The final was really tough but eventually we won 2.5-1.5 with Simeon Bott playing well into the night to eke out a win in a R+P ending.

Linton also won the Cambridgeshire Jamboree, held on 20 May, with a joint club/academy team of Paul Kemp, Paolo Di Fruscia, Ethen Liu and Antonio Di Fruscia. Ten teams competed with Linton scoring 9.5/12, closely followed by Peterborough on 9 points.

Internal Competition

Last summer Konrad Scheffler organised and ran our summer programme which usually involved two rapidplay (25+10) games a night, or sometimes one game and a presentation or puzzles. We invited the stronger Chess Academy players to join in, and the winner was Thomas Sha who received the Patrick Ribbands trophy to hold for a year. We shall do the same this year, starting on 27 May.

The club championship was efficiently organised by Simon Marsden, helped by some gentle prodding to stick to the timetable. Konrad Scheffler was the deserved winner scoring 5/5 and will hold the Jim Carr trophy, whilst Nate Weersing was the best placed player from the lower half of the draw, receiving the John Dawson trophy.

Looking Ahead

Firstly my thanks to all of you who have played this season, and particular thanks to the captains, some of whom have struggled to raise teams on occasion. I’m thinking especially of Paul M (Lions) who has suffered for most of the season, and Oded (Llamas) toward the end of the season as exams restricted juniors’ availability. But we have all been affected to some extent and many players will welcome the summer break after a lengthy season.

Two of our captains are standing down: Chris Davison, who is taking a sabbatical from chess, and Alan Wadsworth. Both have been members of the club and have served it admirably over a long period. We thank them for their service and expect to see them again: Alan next season and Chris perhaps the season after.

Our playing resources have been stretched this season, sometimes beyond that which can be sensibly managed. The changes in personnel and captains will need a careful review of the team squads so some switching of players around teams will be inevitable. I will be discussing this with captains and senior players and report more fully to the AGM, but at this stage I am expecting to maintain two first division, two second division and one third division team in the Bury League.

Finally, the most pleasing aspect for me has been the progress of our Academy players (see separate report). Part of my role is to introduce them to local external tournaments when they are ready, and an increasing number are playing in rapidplays and some standard play tournaments. Thomas has played regularly this season for the Llamas and I hope and expect to see a few more appearing regularly in the Bury League next season.

PAUL KEMP

The Anglian Learning Chess Academy’s A team completed a highly successful season by winning the Cambridgeshire Schools League, contested by 34 teams in two divisions.

The first division was an all-play-all, 15 round event played over five Sundays.  ALCA A won all their matches, securing 78 points from 90 games in total, just 3.5 points ahead of second-placed Cambourne Village College.  Thomas Sha and Ethan Liu led the way on the two top boards with 13/15 and 14/15 respectively, backed up by Guy Parsons 13/14, Neel Mishra 10/10, Ivan Yu 9/12, Gabriel Varea 8/12 and Minh Nguyen 5/5.  Neel and Minh each spent one Sunday playing on top board for the B team and winning all their three games for aggregate personal scores of 13/13 and 8/8. 

ALCA B, also playing in the first division, came mid-table with 48 points, a highly creditable result.  Ray Lee was their highest scorer with 5.5/10, plus two wins for the A team.

ALCA is indebted to Mauricio Varea who was the organiser, manager and selector of the teams, and to the parents who gave up their Sunday afternoons.

Players from the winning ALCA team with coaches Mauricio Varea (left) and Paul Kemp.  From left to right they are Thomas Sha (holding trophy), Ethan Liu, Minh Nguyen, Kyal Vijay, Ray Lee, Guy Parsons, Gabriel Varea, and Ivan Yu.  Neel Mishra (not shown) was also a vital  player.