Welcome back to a brand new season of the Junior Four Nations Chess League (J4NCL). We are so delighted that our teams A and B have been promoted to Division 1 and 2. Woot, woot! Well done to everyone, and it promises to be an exciting season! Our juniors will play some of the toughest teams in the four nations (and beyond) every other week. The teams will play two Rapid games for each round, with the 10+5 time control. The tournament runs from 20 Jan-14 April. Now let's hear from Coach Catabay, who gives us his notes from the game...
(a note from Coach Catabay)
Commendation to Teams B and C for winning their matches Thursday night, and to all the players who played greatly in the A team. And I must say, players in the B team deserve the results they've worked hard to outplay higher rated opponents.
Since our discussion this month is about the end games, I want to particularly point out the importance of the 2nd game Rezin has played, where after a big blunder in the first game, he bounced back in game two by skilfully playing a tactical end game, manoeuvring and getting his opponent in a Zugzwang to create an unstoppable passed pawn.
Here's Rezin's excellent game
Now that's an ending to be proud of, Rezin!
Here are the results of Thursday's game:
Young Dragons A 6.5 vs. 1.5 Colchester Junior A
Edgware Gambits C 3 vs. 5 Colchester Junior B
Manchester Junior F 0 vs. 8 Colchester Junior C
So, what is Zugzwang anyway? Here is a short video by FM Mike Kline from ChessKid that explains this chess term.
Well done to Rezin, and of course to the rest of the Colchester Juniors participating in the league for Season 5. A big welcome to Drummer Ross (radicalepicdude) and Gabriel Zurek (GabrielZ2011) who have joined us in this season. Looking forward to all the beautiful games you have yet to play! Have a great week everyone, and see you next week with the 4NCL results :)