57 Children took part in the recent Leicestershire Junior Championships which took place at Holywell School on the 22^nd of November.

In the Under 9 section, Leonardo Condron was the clear winner with a perfect 5 out of 5 taking the title and trophy as Leicestershire Under 9 champion for 2025. With an excellent 3 points Mayra Prabhu was girls Under 9 champion

In the Under 11 section, Aadharshini Amudhavel was unbeaten on 4.5 out of 5 taking the overall under 11 championship and girls championship. Harrison Condron with 4 out of 5 was the boys champion, on tie break from Divy Patelia. The under 14 section was hard fought with 4 players finishing tied of 4 points out of 5. Srijit Choudhuri was the Under 14 Boys Champion, and Zara Mehta took the Under 14 Girls title.

Full Prize Winners

Under 14

• 1^st Boy – Srijit Choudhuti – 4pts
• 2^nd Boy – Sai Nishkal Naragam – 4pts
• 3^rd Boy – Swetatk Verma – 4pts

• 1^stGirl – Zara Mehta – 4pts
• 2^nd Girls – Srija Choudhuri – 1pt

Under 11

• 1^st Girl and overall winner – Aadharshini Amudhavel – 4.5
• 2^nd Girl – Vishaka Rajagopalan – 3
• 3^rd Girl – Valerie Lai – 2.5

• 1^st Boy – Harrison Condron -4pts
• 2^nd Boy – Divy Patelia – 4
• 3^rd Boy – Reidan Minhas – 3.5

Under 9

• 1^st Leonardo Condron –  5 pts
• 2^nd Hajin Lee – 4pts
• 3^rd Samuel Karaman – 4pts
• 1^st Girl Mayra Prabhu – 3 pts

Leicestershire entered teams at Under 9, Under 11 and Under 11 girls level at the recent Midlands Team Championships held at Nottingham High School on Saturday 15^th November.

The Under 11 team finished a creditable 4^th place, With victories over Shropshire, Staffordshire and Notts B. Top scorer was Divy Patelia with a perfect  5 out of 5. Reidan Minhas and Advait Khadse scored 3 out of  5 on the top two boards

Our strong Under 9 team was hoping to do well, and after a very close competition with Warwickshire (4 – 4 draw in their match) they came out as Midlands Champions via tie break. Warwickshire and Oxfordshire Under 9’s are regular qualifiers for the national finals so this was a really pleasing performance for our team. Leonardo Condron, Jason Kapoor and Omar Yunis all finished with a perfect 4 out of 4.

The girls team were also well matched with Warwickshire, and a great 3.5 – 0.5 result in their 2^nd match with Warwickshire led to the girls also taking the title of Midlands champions! All the girls (Aadharshini, Sathya, Vishaka, Inishka and Mayra) put in a good performance on the day, and with Tara to add to this team we will hope to do well in the upcoming national finals.

You can see all the results here – https://s2.chess-results.com/tnr1295352.aspx?lan=1&art=0&SNode=S0

Please find link below to our junior schools, individual, and Leicestershire teams events for the upcoming academic year.

https://leicestershirejuniorchess.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Schedule-of-Events-2526.pdf

92 children took part in the Leicestershire EJCOA Zonal, again held at Fairfield School in Loughborough. The children competed in Under 8, Under 10, Under 12 and a combined Under 14 and 16 section for medal prizes, and to qualify for the National Youth Finals being held in Nottingham from the 11^th to 13^th July.

You can see the results of the sections below, and congratulations to our qualifiers listed below

Under 8

Top Boy – Leonardo Condron

Top Girl – Shrisha Tarihalkar

Under 10

Top Girl – Aadharshini Amudhavel

Top Boys – Kirill Prokofjevs, Edmond Du, Adam Amirthanathan, Sudarsan Prabhagar, Benedict Child

Under 12

Top Boy – Harri Singh Aujla

Top Girls – Shivani Patel, Vishaka Rajagopalan

Under 14

Top Boy – Everett Tsai

Top Girl – Nadia Prokofjeva

Under 16

Top Boy – Alex Shen

Full Results

Under 8 – https://leicestershirejuniorchess.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Under-8-Results.pdf

Under 10 – https://leicestershirejuniorchess.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Under-10-Results.pdf

Under 12 – https://leicestershirejuniorchess.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Under-12-Results.pdf

Under 14 and U16 – https://leicestershirejuniorchess.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Under-16-Results.pdf

Link to all results and final tables – https://4ncl.co.uk/j4ncl/weekend2_2425.html

The 4NCL Junior 2024-25 Team Championship took place on 7th and 8th of February featuring the Leicester Juniors teams.

Team Lineups

– Team A (Saturday): Sathsara, Ted, Alex, Tara

– Team B (Saturday): Madhav , Yvon, Aadharshini,  Zayn

– Team A (Sunday): Ted, Oscar, Alex, Tara

– Team B (Sunday): Yvon, Zara, Aadharshini, Zayn

Championship Results

In an impressive display of skill and teamwork, the Leicester Juniors Team A emerged as the clear champions, scoring a perfect 5/5 wins. Top scorers were Tara with 5 out of 5 and Alex with 4.5 out of 5.

Congratulations to Leicester Juniors Team A!

The team’s outstanding performance earned them the top spot in the championship. Well done to Ted, Oscar, Alex, Tara, and Sathsara!

Team B’s Valiant Effort

Although Team B didn’t quite match Team A’s success, they still demonstrated great determination and sportsmanship throughout the tournament. Keep up the good work, Madhav , Yvon, Aadharshini,  Zayn and Zara!

We’re proud of all our players for their participation and enthusiasm. Bring on the next tournament!”

57 children took part in the new Leicestershire Junior Championships at Holywell School in Loughborough on Saturday 7^th December, playing 5 rounds of 20 + 5 rapid chess to determine the Leicestershire Champions at Under 9, Under 11, Under 14 and Under 18

The venue was excellent for this event, and many thanks to the support from Holywell School to let us use their school for this event. I am hopeful that with such an excellent turnout this competition can become a regular event in the calendar.

In the Under 9 section, Omswaroop Kotti crowned an excellent return to chess with 5 wins out of 5 taking the title of Under 9 Overall and Boys champion. Konstantinos took clear 2^nd place and Mason clear 3^rd place. The best placed girl was Wing Ying Lai, taking the title of Leicestershire Girls Under 9 champion

The Under 11 section had an excellent 28 competitors, and was very hard fought with tie breaks being required to separate some of the competitors. Aadharshini and Zara were clear leaders going into the last round, with Aadharshini eventually coming out on top In a hard fought last round battle to take the title of overall under 11 and girls champion. Zara was runner up in the girls and Vishaka took the 3^rd place medal. In the boys section tie breaks we required with three boys finishing on 4 points. Zayn Patel took the title of Boys Under 11 champion on the tie break (Sum of Opponents Scores). Reidan Minhas and Tilak Patel (also both on 4) took Silver medals and Srijit took bronze medal.

In the Under 14 section, Tara Tamilselvan continued her excellent form from the World Cadets tournament to take clear first place with 5 out of 5, taking the title of Leicestershire Under 14 overall and girls champion. Yvon van Neerven took the silver medal and Dayani the bronze medal in the girls section. In the boys section rising star Ted Ronald took the title of Leicestershire Under 14 Boys champion with 4 points, Swetark took the silver medal on tie break from Bobby Sun (both 3.5 points)

The Under 18 tournament was very hard fought with time scrambles taking place in nearly every round. At the end Alex Shen took the title of Under 18 overall and boys champion with 4.5 points, on tie break from Sathsara. Arav and Gauthier shared the bronze medal (both with 3 points)

Under 9 Results – https://leicestershirejuniorchess.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/U9-Results.pdf

Under 11 Results – https://leicestershirejuniorchess.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/U11-Results.pdf

Under 14 Results – https://leicestershirejuniorchess.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/U14-Results.pdf

Under 18 Results – https://leicestershirejuniorchess.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/U18-Results.pdf

45 children from 7 schools were represented in the inaugural Market Bosworth Primary Schools chess tournament that took place on Friday 15^th of November. The children played 5 games against children from other schools over the course of the morning, competing for Bronze, Silver and Gold medals for their schools.

The schools represented were Scalford Primary, Church Hill Primary, Congerstone Primary, Desford Primary, Leicester Grammar School, Fairfield Preparatory School and Leicester Preparatory School.

After a morning of hard fought chess, Scalford Primary finished in 3^rd place with 10.5 points, Church Hill Primary in 2^nd place with 11 points, and Leicester Grammar and Fairfield shared the gold medals both with 13 points.

Many thanks to Market Bosworth School for offering to host this event.

Each year we are planning to hold similar tournaments in the Autumn and Spring terms!

24 children from around the county represented Leicestershire in the inaugural Midlands County Team Championships which were held at Nottingham High School on Saturday 16^th November.

The children all acquitted themselves brilliantly over the day, competing against children from Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, Nottinghamshire, Shropshire and Northamptonshire. Due to their efforts the Under 9 team won bronze medals for finishing in 3^rd place overall. The Girls went one step better finishing in 2^nd place overall winning silver medals and a team trophy!

Under 11 Team

The team started brilliantly with an excellent 4 – 4 draw with the highest rated team Oxfordshire (top board rated 1950!) and then a strong 8-0 against Worcestershire. We were perhaps unlucky to them be paired against the strong Warwickshire teams meaning that we played the Gold, Silver and Bronze winning teams during the day.

Special mentions for Zara Mehta for transferring from the girls team to take on the daunting top board job (including opponents with ratings of 1917 and 1762).  Our top joint top scorers were Chris Rufus Pons (1200 performance) and Finbar Millen (1100 performance) with 3 wins each

Under 9 Team

With 7 members of the team unrated before the start I was unable to predict how we would do, and the team but in a brilliant performance to finished in 3^rd place overall. This included a 4.5 – 3.5 win over the strong Oxfordshire side and a 4-4 draw with the Warwickshire Under 9 team

Our top scorers were Advait (top board and a 1032 rating performance), Dillon with 3 out of 4 and Oskar with a perfect 3 out of 3! The team all showed great team spirit throughout and I am very confident all the children who played for this team will go onto represent Leicestershire for many years to come.

Girls Team

I was a bit nervous that transferring Zara over to the Under 11 team would cause the girls team to struggle, but they performed brilliantly to finish in 2^nd place overall and take the 2^nd place trophy! Again the girls showed brilliant team spirit throughout, and I was really impressed about how they showed maturity in selecting the team for the last round themselves with Rayshali very unselfishly offering to take the reserve spot for the last game.

All the girls finished with positive scores over the day, and special mention for Aadharshini who finished with a perfect 5 out of 5 and a 1789 rating performance!

You can see detailed results here

Girls teams – https://chess-results.com/tnr1061189.aspx?lan=1&art=83

Under 9 team – https://chess-results.com/tnr1061190.aspx?lan=1&turdet=YES

Under 11 team – https://chess-results.com/tnr1061192.aspx?lan=1&art=0&rd=5&turdet=YES

73 Children took part in the 2^nd Leicestershire qualification tournament for the EJCOA National Youth Championships held on the 17^th February at Fairfield school in Loughborough. The children played in three sections, under 8 and under 10 combined, under 12, and finally under 14, 16, 18 and 20 combined.

Detailed Results: U20/U18/U16/U14 , U12, U10/U8

The following children all qualified for the finals which are being held at Nottingham High School in July

Under 8

Under 10

Under 12

Under 14

Under 16

Under 18

Kirk Harrision

Under 20

John Moughtin-Leay

Many thanks to the arbiter team of Shaun, Richard, Paul Mottram, Ben, Sooraj and Jyothika who helped make the event run smoothly for all the children, and to Michael for providing the popular coaching sessions.

May 2023 Rapidplay

44 children took part in the May Rapidplay competition on May 20^th at the Oak Centre in Braunstone.

In the Kings section first place was taken by Alex with a perfect 4 wins out of 4. Laurence took clear seconds place with three wins and Aman took the bronze medal with 2.5 out of 4. Thanks again to Mr Gadhia for the help in running this section, and to Mr Boccetti for helping to register the players.

The Rooks and Bishops groups played in a combined section containing 22 players! Oscar came out on top with a perfect 4 wins out of 4. Six children were in a tie for 2^nd place with 3 points, with Srijit taking the silver and Reidan the bronze medal on tie break. Within this section three Bishops tied on two points. Jeeth took the gold, Zachary the silver and Dilan the bronze.

Twelve knights took part, with many of the children playing in their first competition! Ethan was the clear winner with 3.5 points out of 4. Aadya and Srija tied on 3 points, with Aadya taking the silver medal on tie break and Srija the bronze.

https://leicestershirejuniorchess.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Kings-Results.pdf

https://leicestershirejuniorchess.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Rooks-and-Bishops.pdf

https://leicestershirejuniorchess.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Knights-Results.pdf