New chess season is up and running

After a summer break, the Suffolk Junior Online Chess Club is back up and running. Suffolk Junior Chess welcomes back juniors from last season plus some new faces. The club night commences every Wednesday evening from around 7:15pm, usually with some breaks around the the school holidays. For those who wish to join, please get in touch via email.

As usual, this season will be packed with fun events such as:

• In-house blitz and rapid tournaments.
• Team puzzle racing (solving as many puzzles as possible in a short amount of time).
• Coaching, training and game analysis.

New members are welcome to join anytime, no matter what your ability is. Even if you have no knowledge about chess at all, you can still pick the basics up pretty quickly from sites such as lichess.org or chess.com.

As in previous years, SJC will continue to take part in various other events like:

• Online simultaneous displays (where each member gets a chance to play against a top chess player/master).
• County battles – monthly inter-county blitz events run by the English Chess Federation (ECF).

We are also looking into joining the online Junior Four Nations Chess League (J4NCL) this year as well.

After two years of almost exclusively online chess, over-the-board chess has finally back to normal. There are different clubs in Suffolk that have now got back to normal schedules, including Ipswich Junior Chess Club and the Bury Knights Chess Club. Many junior events have taken place over the summer, including big ones like the British Chess Championships and more local events such as the Martlesham Junior Chess tournament, organised by International Master, Dagne Ciuksyte. This event was particularly interesting due to the fruity prizes handed out to the winners at the end of the tournament.

Juniors are also encouraged to enter adult events as well, once they reach a decent enough standard. It’s great to see that some of the more experienced Suffolk Juniors will be challenging themselves at this year’s Bury St Edmunds Chess Congress, which is a five-round long-play chess event scheduled to run from Saturday 15th to Sunday 16th October.