On the weekend of January 6th – 7th, the ECF Chess Academy welcomed the new 2018 cohort of students. The ECF Chess Academy has now reached its targeted enrolment of over 100 students and has, amongst its students in the International and Elite programs, the strongest chess talent in England.

There was some fantastic news over the Christmas period for the Academy Elite group —

Alex Golding won the London Christmas Congress Open, including the LJCC U18 and U21 titles, with a score of 6/6. This will gain him a further 44 rating points. Alex also won the CCF Christmas Congress.

Adam C Taylor got his first IM Norm at the Hastings International Chess Congress 2017/18. Adam scored 5½/9 in the Masters, with a TPR 2452 In his final round he was drawn against GM Bogdan Lalic, and duly achieved the draw he required.

Ravi Haria played in some good events, and is playing in many more in the next few months. Tournaments planned are – Gibraltar, Portugal, Northumbria and Reykjavik. He is also hoping to play in the European Individual event in March in Georgia, and Dubai in April.

Alan Merry reached the last 16 at the LCC Super Blitz (10th December) out of a starting line-up of 464 players, won the Shropshire Congress (5th – 7th January) with 5/5, and came joint second at the 17th 4NCL Congress which ran 19th – 21st January 2018.

9-year-old Shreyas Royal has been enjoying great success recently. He achieved joint 2nd in the U170 section in the Bury Congress and took the U16 best junior prize. At the London Junior Chess Championships, he came 3rd in the U14 major section, and in the Hastings Christmas Morning event he won a well-deserved grading prize, as well as coming equal second in the Christmas Afternoon tournament.

There were also some strong performances recently in the International group of the Academy —

Well done to Niamh Bridgeman for a strong performance in the 2018 Prague Open B. She scored 5/9 and added 154 rating points! She also received the U1400 Grading Prize.

At the 16th Open International de Menton (France) from 22nd to 29th October, in the open section, Christopher Tombolis scored 5.5/9, with a performance rating of 1905, and Giulio Sahinoz scored 4.5/9 in the same section, gaining 118 points. Christopher also came 3rd overall in the U14 and U12 London Junior Championship 2017 and won £100 in the London Chess Classics Superblitz.

Aarnavh Trivedi won the Saturday U11 Junior Rapidplay in Leeds (see also below, J4NCL)

Nilomi Desai is the London U14 Girls Champion 2017.

Roshan Gurjar came equal second in the London Junior Chess Championship U10.

Abigail Weersing is the Champion of the Minor Section of the Bury St Edmund’s Chess Congress with a perfect 5 out 5 in a field of 59 participants – the only player in any section to achieve a perfect score! She also was the joint winner of the junior and grading prizes at Cambridge Closed Chess Championships, where her grading performance was 25 points above her grade!

The Cambridge Knights scored an impressive 9/10 against strong opposition to retain the J4NCL Division 1 title, after their success in October 2017. ECF Chess Academy and England Junior player Aarnavh Trivedi was joined by fellow Cantabrigians Arnav Srivastava and Julia Volovich, and brothers Gavith and Kian Dharmasena, who joined the ECF Chess Academy in January …