Suffolk and Essex teams join-up for half-term team battle

Yesterday evening, Suffolk Junior Chess joined a half-term team battle organised by Essex Junior Chess, comprising six teams. The one-hour event was lots of fun for all involved. Suffolk finished in 2nd place overall in the final standings:

1. Colchester Junior Chess Club – 128 points
2. Suffolk Junior Chess – 88 points
3. Wanstead & Woodford Warriors – 78 points
4. KEGS (King Edward VI Grammar School) – 74 points
5. Brentwood School – 74 points
6. CJCC Coaching (Chelmsford Junior Chess Club) – 68 points

All Suffolk juniors contributed to Suffolk’s total, and there were some excellent performances too.

Suffolk would like to congratulate Colchester Junior Chess Club for their victory in what was a very fun, fair and tight contest. Also, well done especially to FirstElephant from Colchester Junior Chess Club for their brilliant individual performance, scoring 36 points.

There was a mixed Essex and Suffolk Zoom call that ran alongside the event hosted on lichess platform for the players to share interesting games and various other chess bits and bobs. HarryOscar and ADannatt26 from SJC both shared a couple of brilliancies with everyone on the call, which are shown below. Also, well done ChessPlayer24_7  for winning twice using a lawn-mower checkmate technique!

In the following game, ADannatt26 managed to plan and execute a four-move knight manoeuvre to checkmate their opponent’s helpless King glued to the g8 square by White’s dark-squared bishop and f6-pawn:

It looked like it might be curtains for HarryOscar, but he managed to find a brilliant escape-tactic to win the game in the following position. Black to play and win: