26 July 2023

The session this week again merged Pete’s group together with mine.

We looked at what we called the evolution of the chess player, to do this we set up a position and asked the group to work out who was winning, which pieces were badly placed and could have been improved and after showing them White’s move to then work out what they thought was the best reply for black. The position had numerous issues to solve, and the response demonstrated which of these issues had been considered and which hadn’t.

Mr Hardy had a go and passed with flying colours!

19 July 2023

A remarkable game from Sunday's competition. White well on top but Black took full advantage as White did not punish the wide open, non castled king. White backed off unnecessarily allowing Black back into the game. 

Remember f7 (and f2) can be weak spots as shown twice in this game. Always look for opportunities to sacrifice on these squares!

You can watch the game below or download the notation HERE

16 November 2022

Tonight there was no group as Paul was playing in the Manchester League - for you doubters, yes, he won....

2 November 2022

We started the evening with some quick puzzles, concentrating on whether certain positions were legal. One of the questions caught the whole group out!

We then reviewed a couple of the games notated in last week’s session.

This covered such things as not moving the same piece in the opening (unless you have to or you can win material), not trying cheap tricks that can be easily defended and the power of the Knight Outpost.

26 October 2022

This week we concentrated on chess notation. We talked about why and how we do this, the kids were given a game to go through to make sure they could follow it. The lesson concluded with them notating their own games. These were taken away and will form the basis of the next lessons. 

19 October 2022

First week commenced with some two move checkmate puzzles which they did very well with and then some games to try get to know the standard of the group. A good start!