SJC Awards 2025 - Suffolk Junior Chess

The new chess season is back and as per tradition, the SJC online club presents awards for the previous season; the period from September 2024 to August 2025. This season’s awards remain the same as the previous year:

Best Newcomer
Club Player of the Year
Performance of the Year
Most Improved Player
J4NCL Player of the Year
Player of the Year

Winners have been awarded one of a range of books for different abilities.

Best Newcomer

📚 How To Win At Chess – by Daniel King

Abhiram Panse

Joined the SJC online club just under 1 year ago
Quickly improved their level of play and chess knowledge.
Attended OTB tournaments.

Club Player of the Year

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

Alyssa Nirola

Super-lively and keen since joining the online club
Always happy to share chess news and info.
Regular attendee in all online club events
Played some over-the-board chess too.

Performance of the Year

A few performances stood out by Lenny and Kalp in rapid games with longer time controls, plus a blitz game by Angus.

Angus McFarland

📚 Discovering Chess Openings: Building Opening Skills from Basic Principles – by John Emms

Biggest giant slay – beat Firefang081 in one of the East Anglian Team Battles where the rating difference was 537 points.
One of SJC’s most improved players.

J4NCL Player of the Year

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

Kalp Vyas

Last season in division 1 was a challenge.
On the top boards we faced strong opponents.
In the two matches we won either Kalp or Mackenzie scored 1.5, without which we’d have been relegated.
Overall Kalp played above expectations, often against much higher rated players.

Most Improved Player

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

Sidney Horn

Everyone has improved over the past year.
Sid has gained a significant number of Elo points.
Keen to attend some of the coaching events over the summer.

Player of the Year

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

Lenny Horn

Lenny won this award last year despite not being the strongest player at the club.
However, this year, Lenny is one of the strongest juniors at the online club and in the county.
Played a lot of online and OTB chess for both junior and adult clubs.
Attended various tournaments including the Bury St Edmunds Congress.