Today, three new members joined us, helping to increase our total number to an impressive 24, which is the highest we have ever reached so far.

So welcome Henry, Taha, and Renato! We truly hope you enjoyed your very first day with us and that you found it both exciting and rewarding. We look forward to seeing you again soon and hope you will return for many more great experiences ahead.

Only Jon Catchpole and myself today as other tutors were otherwise engaged, but valuable help from Camilla eased the workload, thank you both.

Pawn Play

Today’s topic on the large demo board, highlighted the crucial role of pawns in chess, covering key concepts such as pawn chains, isolated pawns, doubled pawns, en passant, rook pawns, backward pawns, pawn islands and pawn storms. There’s a lot to absorb, but understanding these elements is essential for mastering the game.

a2 + b3 + c4 = a pawn chain, a2 being the ‘backward’ and weakest pawn.

f2 is an isolated pawn, whilst h2 + h3 are doubled isolated pawns.

All resulting in 3 pawn islands.

A rook pawn can be stopped from queening if the opposing King can get into the corner, as shown.

En passant can be executed when a pawn on the 5th rank (such as the white pawn on f5) is adjacent to an opposing pawn that moves two squares forward from its starting position (for example, the black pawn moving from g7 to g5). Now, if it wants to, f5 x g5 by moving to g6.

Climb the Rigging K’out competition

Significant progress was made during this event, highlighted by impressive wins from Michal, Lewis, and Eden.

As a result, the ship’s current status and formation of the semi-final now look like this;-

Ladder Tables

Since the advanced players were recently separated from the main group, I made the decision to combine all their results from this term. This way, we can present a fair and comprehensive table that accurately reflects their performance. By amalgamating these results, we ensure a balanced comparison that takes into account all relevant results from these members throughout the entire term.

Here are the modified tables for the three ladder groups, based on all the game results I received today and some sent to me after my initial posting.

NB. It is important you report your results to me so I can update the charts.

Kieran now leads the Advanced group with Wyatt and Miles a close second.

Lewis and Oscar T tie for top spot, Michal and Eden not far behind.

Zayd having played the most games heads the table, Fin with fewer games played sits in 2nd place.

Remember, the ladder tournament only allows a maximum of 15 games to be played.

Game of the Day

A game played today between Uzzaer and Kieran with inserted comments

Puzzle Corner

Removing the guard tactics - 2 puzzles to solve, Black to move in each example

Puzzle 1

Puzzle 2

See you all next week!