SJC Awards 2024 – Suffolk Junior Chess

The new chess season is underway and it’s time again for the yearly awards. For 2024, there’s a new category for the best player in the junior national online league.

The notable achievements throughout the past chess season (September 2023 – July 2024) are as follows.

Best Newcomer
Club Player of the Year
Performance of the Year
Most Improved Player
J4NCL Player of the Year (new)
Player of the Year

It was tough as usual to decide upon each award winner. Game etiquette, team camaraderie, and sharing various bits of chess info over the course of the season, helped all players grow in stature.

Once again, this year winners have been awarded one of a range of books for different abilities.

Best Newcomer

📚 How To Win At Chess: The Ultimate Guide for Beginners and Beyond – by Levy Rozman

DanielJamesW and AngMc are two excellent new members worth giving a mention to. However, the award goes to:

LunaMoonCat

Joined the club during the middle of last season and excelled immediately – a steady player with a lot of potential.
Takes their time over each key decision they make – something unusual for newcomers to the game.
With more games under their belt, in both online and over-the-board chess, they’d no doubt carry on improving rapidly.

Club Player of the Year

📚 Build up your Chess, The Fundamentals: 1 – by Artur Yusopov

There’s just one junior award this year for Club Player. Having said that, shouts go out to all regular Suffolk Junior Chess Online Club attendees, and especially those who have been playing since the beginnings, such as Koliyfl0w37, RowanKent, MaximRalph, OliverRichards., and AbleLopsidedGiraffe.

Scribble09

Always helpful and keen to contribute his thoughts and a regular player throughout this season.

📚 100 Headachingly Hard Mate in Two Chess Puzzles Composed by Sam Loyd: Improve Your Ability to Calculate Variations and Finding Checkmate – by Martin B. Justesen

There’s another (non-junior) player at the club, who’s made some incredible contributions over the years, and that’s TimKent.

TimKent

SJC Organiser and coach/mentor for many years.
Established the online club during the pandemic to give kids in Suffolk something alternative to do.
Set up teams on ChessKid and Lichess platforms. On Lichess we now have 80 members, and counting!
Writes some cracking articles to help others in the club, like the one on Chess Notation.
Always up for a game with anybody, no matter how much lower or higher-rated they are.

Thanks Tim for making the chess club fun!

Performance of the Year

📚 Chess Openings: Traps And Zaps: Traps And Zaps – by Bruce Pandolfini

Oganesson123Nitrogen

Beat someone more than 600 points higher in an East Anglian Team Battle (see game below).
Also, “Oganesson” has got an extraordinarily high Puzzle Rating on Lichess showing signs of excellent progress with their calculation.

Most Improved Player

📚 Chess Player’s Bible – by James Eade

This year there are no improvements that stand out. It is worth mentioning that RowanKent and AbleLopsidedGiraffe, and HarryOscar, who have all stepped up one notch playing regularly in the adult national league. However, the most improved player award goes to:

CinderAceSeb

Has improved their rating on Lichess as much as anyone – over 100 points in both blitz and rapid.
A regular on the Wednesday Zoom calls.

J4nCL Player of the Year

📚 Opening Repertoire: The Iron English – by R Palliser & S Williams

First of all, a big thanks to Jon Ferris for managing two teams (in divisions 2 and 4) last season in the online J4nCL. The team manager wrote the following to help with awarding this prize:

“talllennyh1 was keen and got into more promising positions than his results show, cinderaceseb performed well, as did CallumChess02. ADannatt26 was outstanding in a team full of strong performances, including kenzood who scored a point playing up in Div 2. I think RowanKent suggested HarryOscar as the unluckiest player, with opponents not turning up, arriving late and not knowing what to do… I’d maybe say the calmest, for the way he dealt with it.”

ADannatt26

A class act, who performed exceptionally in the online J4NCL on top board in division 2.

Player of the Year

📚 Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations and Games – by B Pandolfini & L Polgar

This award doesn’t necessarily equate to the ‘best player’ in the club. This year it goes to a member who was keen to play in both online and over-the-board (OTB) events, and was a regular on the Zoom calls for both Suffolk and Essex events. MaximRalph and CoolHandL1 both came close for their all-round performances, but this year’s award goes to:

talllennyh1

As a chess player they have matured a lot over the course of the season, especially at longer time controls.
A curious player, who asks sensible chess questions and provides sensible chess answers.