EYCC Slovakia Round Up and WCRB Belarus Preview

The European Youth Chess Championships are over and Jude is already back home from Slovakia, where he finished with 5/9 (+3, -2, =4) for 45th= in a field of 149, having started as the number 63 seed. (And amongst the West Europeans, he finished 15th.) Jude gained a phenomenal 93.6 ELO points (did he have to declare them at Customs on the way back, I wonder?), which takes some doing when you are playing against a seemingly endless supply of under-graded opponents. (And in view of this, massive kudos to young Lukas Dotzer of Austria, who managed to gain 211 points from his low starting rating of 1070. In a single tournament! Mind you, it can go the other way, as Bosnia's Borna Pehar unfortunately discovered, losing 188 points!)

That was a really great effort from Jude, who is, of course, technically an Under 9, so was giving away a whole year to most of the field. Kenilworth is massively proud of your achievements, Jude! As before, even more details of the event, complete with action shots of Jude, can be found on the Coventry Chess Academy news page.  (But be careful, as otherwise you might inadvertently read some positive reports about Roy, which could come as a massive shock to the unwary!)


The attention now switches to Billy who is jetting off to Minsk this week to play in what is bound to be an enormously strong World Cadets Rapid and Blitz (August 16-18) where around 170 players are due to start in the Under-8 tournaments - including more than 80 Russians!

(I don't suppose there will be much/any time for sight-seeing, as the action looks set to be fast and furious - so Charlotte is excused from being sent off around the cemeteries of Minsk as official KCC photographer to search for the grave of almost-World Champion, David Bronstein. Which would be a bit unnecessary, anyway, as there is a perfectly good photo on Bronstein's Wikipedia entry!)

The top seed in both tournaments (which are 9 rounds each) is from Ukraine, and boasts a Rapid ELO of 1696 and a Blitz ELO of an astonishing 1825 (equivalent to an ECF grade of 153). At the age of 8! But I have no doubt that Billy is going to put in a great effort and notch quite a few scalps along the way. And Billy is technically an Under-7 so like Jude he will also be giving away a year to most of the field. Good luck from everyone at KCC to Billy, and I hope he has an amazing time on this fantastic adventure.