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Accommodation:

There are 65 places available at the boarding house at Walford. They are quite luxurious and are arranged in 8 blocks, separated by fire doors. There are rooms with either a single bed, two beds or three beds and all have on-suite bathrooms. Microwave available in rooms, but many places to eat within 5 minutes walk from the school. Beds can be booked for $40 per night with $10 per pillow, or people can bring their own.

Bookings for the accommodation MUST be made before the 1st December 2015 and a deposit of half the cost is required.

Contact Alan Goldsmith to discuss boarding possibilities: 0401 672 481

2016 Australian Chess Championships

Saturday 2nd - Tuesday 12th January 2016
Fitzroy Town Hall, Victoria

Players of all skill levels are invited to compete for their share in $14,000 in prize money in the 2016 Australian Chess Championships that runs from the 2-12 January 2016 and will be held at the Fitzroy Town Hall in the inner city suburb of Melbourne.

KEY INFORMATION:

Dates: 2-12 January 2016
Prizes: $14,000
Location: Fitzroy Town Hall
Entries close: 15 December 2015
Format: Championship & Reserves – 11 round Swiss, ACF/FIDE rated
Early bird entry fees: $150 – full, $110 – concession/junior
Entry fee after early bird: $170 – full, $130 – concession/junior
Early bird date: early bird entries must be paid by 31 November 2015.
Accommodation booking: accommodation must be paid by 30 September 2015.
Blitz Championship: Friday 2pm, 8th January 2016 (different venue).

2015 JETS Squad

Hosting the Jets Australian Junior Chess Squad at Somerset College, Mudgeeraba on Queensland's Gold Coast was an honour and privilege. Even more-so as the long term sponsor of the squad, Geraldine Johns-Putra, flew in from Hong Kong to be present. She was clearly very happy with what she saw. All 32 members of the squad got fully into the swing of things, and the unanimous feedback was that there was a significant transfer of knowledge over the three days. Many thanks to the coaches, GM Hrant Melkumyan (Armenia), GM Darryl Johansen, IM Max Illingworth, IM Moulthun Ly and IM Ilias Kourkounakis (Greece). Also to Mrs Karen Slater-Jones who looked after the refreshments etc. And many thanks also to GM Ian Rogers for organising the syllabus, and to Tristan Boyd for managing the selections.

Hrant and Darryl conducted simuls on the third afternoon. I think Jason Wang defeated Hrant for the only victory, with four draws.

Graeme Gardiner

2015 NSW Zonal

Many Juniors participated at the Zonal held in NSW this July. See some of the photo's on the AusJCL Flickr Album right here: https://flic.kr/s/aHskgVAce2
If you have any photo's you would like to share - please email us on chesslife@bigpond.com

Your Stories:

My names Thomas and I'm a junior from ACT, I played in the Gold Coast open u1600 division and managed to win the tournament, I started playing last August and I'm going to use the $600 to save up for a car.
Jamie Lee Guo (right) - 3rd, Henry Slater Jones (left) - 2nd, Me (middle) - 1st

Gold Coast Open

A record number of 145 players took part in the Gold Coast Open, including 32 from the Jets squad. Many juniors participated including IM Anton Smirnov, who jointly won the event with GM Hrant Melkumyan.

We have uploaded Charles Zworestines report to the AusJCL Flickr photo album for you to read here: https://flic.kr/s/aHskh9oCpi

Full results at:
Open http://gardinerchess.com.au/tournament_result/2015-gold-coast-open/
Under 1600 http://gardinerchess.com.au/tournament_result/2015-gold-coast-u1600/
Under 1000 http://gardinerchess.com.au/tournament_result/2015-gold-coast-u1000/

Ikeda, Junta (2395) – Smirnov, Anton (2452), Gold Coast Open Round 7, Board 2 28/06/15
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 c5 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 Ne7 7.Qg4 cxd4 8.Qxg7 Rg8 9.Qxh7 Qc7 10.Ne2 Nbc6 11.f4 dxc3 12.Qd3 d4 13.Ng3 Bd7 14.Ne4 0–0–0 15.Nd6+ Kb8 16.Rb1 Bc8 17.Nxf7 Rdf8 18.Nd6 Nf5 19.Nxf5 Rxf5 20.g3 b6 21.Bg2 Bb7 22.0–0 Rgf8 23.a4 Nxe5 24.fxe5 Rxf1+ 25.Bxf1 Qc6 26.Bf4 Qh1+ 27.Kf2 Rxf4+ 28.gxf4 Qxh2+ 29.Ke1 Qh4+ 30.Ke2 Qxf4 31.Bh3 Qh2+ 32.Ke1 Qh1+ 33.Qf1 Qe4+ 34.Kd1 Qxe5 35.Rb5 Qh2 36.Kc1 Be4 37.Qd1 Qxh3 38.Qxd4 Qf1+ 39.Qd1 Qf4+ 40.Kb1 Bd5 41.Qe2 Qxa4 42.Qe5+ Kb7 43.Rxd5 Qb4+ 44.Kc1 Qb2+ 45.Kd1 Qb1+ 46.Ke2 Qxc2+ 47.Ke3 exd5 48.Qxd5+ Ka6 49.Qc4+ Ka5 50.Kf3 a6 and Black went on to win 1-0

Slater-Jones, H (1478) - Stokes, M (1558), Gold Coast U1600 Round 7, Board 2 28/06/2015
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e5 3.dxe5 Ng4 4.Nf3 Bc5 5.e3 Nc6 6.a3 a5 7.Bd2 0–0 8.Bc3 Re8 9.Nbd2 Ncxe5 10.Nxe5 Nxe5 11.Nf3 Nxf3+ 12.Qxf3 Qg5 13.h4 Qh6 14.0–0–0 a4 15.Rd5 Bf8 16.g4 Rb8 17.Bd3 Qc6 18.h5 d6 19.h6 Be6. White wins with 20.Bxh7+ (if 20…Kxh7, 21.hxg7+ Kg6 22.Qf6 mate or 21…Kh8, 22.Rh8 mate), 20…Kh8, 21.hxg7+ Bxg7 22.Qf6! and mate next move. Henry missed this but went on to win the game anyway after a lengthy battle.

The Mt Alexander Schools Chess Challenge

$20,000 in Seed Funding & Prize money
Held at the 'Old Castlemaine Jail' on May 20th-21st 2015

This unique Australian event was sponsored by the 'Old Jail Consortium', Maldon & District Community Bank, the Mt Alexander Shire Council and a huge amount of volunteerism by members of the local chess community and supporters. The winners of the prize money can be found on the tournament website https://castlemainechess.wordpress.com/

The '$1000 ENCOURAGEMENT AWARDS' to build grass roots chess programs in schools went to:

$1,000 Olivet Christian College
$1,000 St Marys Primary School
$1,000 St Augustines Primary School
$1,000 Camp Hill Primary School
$1,000 Mt Alexander College- Flemington
$1,000 Eaglehawk North Primary School
$1,000 St Josephs College Echuca
$1,000 Shared: $500 Kurunjang Secondary College, and $500 Melton Secondary College

This event grew out of the Chess Squared program (CSP). Members of the CSP attended CISCCON Conference in Aberdeen Scotland in 2007. This conference was about building community based school chess programs and the CSP program gave the keynote address. The best chess minds in this field were gathered there to work out how to bring schools into the community and the chess community into schools, and how to convince educators of the pedagogical value of chess.

Winters Flat Primary School (WFPS), under the auspices of then principal Mr. Kevin Brown, augmented an innovative curriculum based chess program and began research into the pedagogical benefits of chess. Kevin's initiative has become the template for 12-14 schools in the Mt Alexander region.

The WFPS model, the CSP program bringing volunteers and community representatives into schools to teach chess, the relationship with the I & E Office, and dovetailing of chess thinking processes with the national benchmarks in mathematics were cutting edge initiatives in the field of chess pedagogy in curriculum time.

For 10 years the Mt Alexander School Cluster, Castlemaine chess community, and its community partnerships including Rotary have held an annual schools chess festival at CSC in September where over 300 rural Victorian kids from 14 schools play in the Mt Alexander School Cluster Regional Chess Championships. Rotary provides the students with a free B-B-Q. It is a free event for regional schools. The CSP program has never charged them a cent.

It is the intention of the sponsors of the Mt Alexander Schools Nation-wide Chess Challenge, with seed funding grants for schools, to become an annual event.

Many volunteers have commented on all the students, who may not have been suited to mainstream learning, mainly boys, who have hung their primary school careers on their school chess programs, and who left school with some success they would never have otherwise known.

Harry Poulton
Teacher & Chess Tutor
Castlemaine Victoria

WHIP AROUND THE COUNTRY

Queensland Junior Championships

Tom Maguire won the Queensland Junior title for the second year in a row with 7.5/8. This was a very convincing performance by Tom, and we can expect him to go on to bigger and better things.
Jaden Teow confirmed his rapid improvement by winning both the under 10 and under 12 titles. There was a record attendance of 119 over the four days.

Other titles:
Under 16 Leon Lee
Under 14 Alexander Au
Under 12 Jaden Teow
Under 10 Jaden Teow
Under 8 Daniel Tseng

Full results at:
http://gardinerchess.com.au/event_result/2015-qld-juniors-u18/
http://gardinerchess.com.au/event_result/2015-qld-jnrs-u12/
http://gardinerchess.com.au/event_result/2015-qld-champs-u10/
http://gardinerchess.com.au/event_result/2015-qld-juniors-u8/

South Australian Junior Championships

The State Under 18 - State Under 12 Tournaments took place on the first Thursday and Friday of the school holidays July 9th and July 10th and a special July Junior Tournament was run alongside for those Under 10.

The 2015 State Junior U18 Championship was won by Qi Le Kong-Lim, ahead of Peter Gregoric and, tying for third, Loel Lee and Aaron Hammat.

The U16 was won by Denny Han with second, Axel Heinrich and third Oscar Herrmann.
The U15 was won by Arseny Galliamov and Kee-An Seet.
The U14 was won by Preshaan Thavarajah and, equal second were Riley Karayiannis and Ethan Low.
The U13 was won by Dongwoo Shin with Isabel Huynh in second place.
The U12 title was won by Sisi Wang; equal second were Ognie Starkovic, Danial Zelensky and Boris Glushkov.

The U11 section of this tournament was won by Remy Casse and Sam Lim, with Gabriel Cregan third.
The July Junior for players under 11 was won by Anthony Huynh, second was Luca Paull and third was Ethan Liu. The State Under 11, 10 and 9 titles will be held in the term 3 holidays.

Victorian Junior Championships

The Arbiter (by Peter Tsai, Vice President AusJCL)

The tournament was held at Kingswood College in Box Hill over 3 days. From an administrative point of view the tournament ran smoothly and on time. Because we were accepting entries on the first day, round 1 was a bit behind schedule. I would like the thank the administrative team of IA N. Y. Wong , IA Elsa Yuen, Reg Chong, Peter Morris, Roger Croft and Jacki Wong.

We only had 3 days available so the tournaments were scheduled concurrently compared with previous year of up to 8 days as we didn’t have the luxury of Rochester Road in Canterbury. This year we had a separate tournament for girls and open divisions. Due to the small number of girls, most of the girl tournaments were round robin instead of Swiss. Hopefully more girls will enter in future years.
One of the improvements that will be made is the publishing of pairings and results during the tournament. The parents were not allowed in the playing due to the size of the class rooms although this meant that the players had the best possible playing conditions with minimum noise & disturbance. Live games from 4 boards were posted on the Box Hill Chess Club website during the 3 days. We had players from interstate and well as from country Victoria. There were a total of 144 junior players

A well run event (by Clare Mendes)

It was a pleasure to attend the 2015 Victorian Junior Championships held at Kingswood College, Box Hill, on 4th - 6th July 2015. Having been to a number of Vic Juniors over the years, I don't say that lightly. I can recall championships in which young players fought for elbow space at their tables, the very young ran round the playing room playing tiggy between rounds and players of all ages struggled to concentrate on their endgames as crowds of competitors and their parents gathered around the board. Noise levels at some of the previous Vic Juniors have also been very high, with steady and diplomatic crowd control required by the dedicated arbiters who work at these events.
By contrast, this year's Victorian Junior Championships were orderly and peaceful, enabling an environment in which competitors could play chess that was calm, focussed and free of disruption. With parents relegated to a spacious and comfortable (if rather chilly) waiting room, the players were also free to play chess by themselves and for themselves. One young player was heard to admit to his opponent that sometimes, when his parents were watching, he would make a hasty move simply to impress them; that particular player must surely have enjoyed the quiet atmosphere of his playing room on the weekend, and all players would have enjoyed the opportunity to relax and have a kick of the footy in Kingswood College's expansive recreation areas between rounds.

Parents were also well catered for, with tea and coffee - making facilities provided and helpful staff on hand to provide practical (and emotional) support, and a replacement kettle, when the hot water service packed it in early in the tournament. I think many parents would also have been pleased to see the tournament's age groupings so clearly delineated, with Under 10s all playing in one comp, Under 12s playing in a separate one, etc. This did result in a smaller field than normal in most categories, in some cases smaller than desirable. But it meant that players did not have the situation, experienced in previous years when age groups have been combined, of being, say, an Under - 16 player who finishes 2nd or 3rd because an Under - 14 player, placed in the Under - 16 category to boost numbers, finishes a game ahead of the older player and must therefore be awarded 1st place.

Thank you to the arbiters, organizers and Chess Victoria staff for running this event!

More Parent Comments (by James Lim)

The Victorian Junior Chess Championships were held at Kingswood College from 4 - 6 July 2015,
attracting 144 players who endured the cold, wet conditions and on - site renovations to make the
tournament a success. There are always challenges that result from a change in venue and competition format, but the organizing committee is to be commended on their hard work. With such a broad range of age groups to cater for, including the diversity of backgrounds, playing levels, opinions, and interests – it is not always possible to satisfy everyone.

Generally speaking, this being a junior event, most participants enjoyed the fact that the playing
rooms were off limits to spectators. The only issue reported by some was that the tables were a little
small (not much room to record moves or place captured pieces). Temperature control and noise
levels were fine within the playing rooms. The central waiting area was spacious and adequately
furnished; the adjacent soccer field provided an opportunity for the restless to expend some nervous
energy in between rounds!

Special congratulations to the Chew Lee family for taking out the Girls’ and Open titles on the day!
Thank you to Peter Tsai, N.Y. Wong, Elsa Yuen, Reg Chong, Peter Morris, Roger Croft and Jacki Wong for organizing the tournament.

Tournament Results

2015 Victorian Junior Girls Champion:                   Alanna Chew Lee
2015 Victorian Junior Open Champion:                  Max Chew Lee

Girls U8: 1st Cheng, Chao Xin, 2nd Choemuku-Huang, Ellie
Open U8: 1st Li, Oliver, 2nd Ding, Rey
Girls U10: 1st Wang, Yifan Eva, 2nd Teo, Shalese
Open U10: 1st Chen, Lachlan, 2nd Soetanto, Brandon
Girls U12: 1st Chen, Paula, 2nd Powell, Shalana
Open U12: 1st Chan, Luis, 2nd Zou, Brendan
Girls U14: 1st Mendes, Amelia, 2nd Mangalaganesh, Kanimozhi
Open U14: 1st Cannon, David, 2nd Chan, Kris
Girls U16: 1st Lim, Denise, 2nd Lim, Cassandra
Open U16: 1st Jiang, Bill, 2nd Yao, Licia
Girls U18: 1st Chew Lee, Alanna
Open U18: 1st Chew Lee, Max, 2nd Ni, John