Colchester Junior Chess Tournament

Last Sunday four of Suffolk’s finest young chess players took part in the Colchester Junior Chess tournament at Prettygate Junior School. Three of the players were fairly inexperienced at tournament level, so this was a big challenge for them, especially given the strength of the opposition at this event.

Otto was playing in his very first tournament and was playing in the under 11 section. Having only recently started playing chess recently he has become a very good player in a short time while studying chess at Woodbridge School under Adam Hunt IM and playing with Suffolk Junior Chess. He had a very good day winning 3 or his 6 games and won the rating prize for his efforts.

Lenny is also fairly new to tournament chess and was playing in only his third tournament at Under 14 level. He had his best performance to date winning no less then 4 out of 6 games, only narrowly missing out on the rating prize for his section. He played fantastically well and we were delighted that he did so well, especially impressive to come back from losing his first two games to win his final four. He also caused much amusement by successfully convincing everyone, myself included, that he had lost all his games up until when he went in for his fifth game – highly amusing!

Oliver continued the run of success for Suffolk players with 3 wins in the Under 14 section. He got off to a very good start and played extremely well against 6 tough players. Another great performance.

Rowan was playing in the Under 18 Major section and got off to a great start with an impressive win against a strong player against whom he has had a number of tussles over the years. While he was disappointed not to win the next three games, he showed what he was made of by coming back to win his last two games.

Full Results: https://chess-results.com/tnr723586.aspx?lan=1

Meanwhile, Oliver & Otto showed us a beautiful – and fast – way to win for black. It is a lovely game and is shown below. Earlier this week, Otto showed this game to Ed Player, coach for Suffolk Junior Chess, on the regular Wednesday night online club night on Lichess.  Even Ed was impressed by this beautiful line and was able to identify it as the Blackburn Shilling Gambit.  If you are lucky enough to be playing Oliver or Otto, be very wary of this line!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackburne_Shilling_Gambit