Last week was a quiet week in the Intermediate and Advanced groups without any play affecting the Spring Competition results in those groups. In the beginners group, on the other hand, we played 2 full rounds with great passion.

First of all we welcome Saga de Souter as our new member … and she is making a great start!

Round 2: Kaya – Gauri 1-0, Kaiden – Saga 0-1, Kian – James 0.5-0.5, Chris: bye

Round 3: Saga – Kian 0.5-0.5, Chris – Kaya 0-1, Gauri – James 0-1, Kaiden: bye

Saga and James are leading the group now, with Kaya strongly following. As for Kian, in both rounds he played towards an endgame with considerable material advantage, at least a queen up in both rounds, but it can be hard to remember how to exactly check mate again in such positions under pressure of the game being a match: and 3 times same position is a -convenient- draw. This kind of draws, including stalemates with overwhelming material advantage, happen to all youth players. It is our aim to let this happen just once or twice: queen and rook endgames back on the agenda next week!

Gauri and Chris, still ocassionally somewhat unsure, are learning fast now about illegal moves and once those get down to the minimum, they will surely quickly be in pursuit.