ACTJCL Open Invitational Results, Eastern Asia Youth Championships and ACTJCL Holiday Events

[Kate Woodley]

ACTJCL Open Invitational - Results

Following on from the Girls Invitational, ten junior players contested the ACTJCL Open Invitational on Monday 27th September.

Congratulations to Charles Huang who won the event with a perfect score (6/6) and to our second and third placegetters Eshaan Extross (4.5/6) and Masaki Horikawa (4/6) . Thanks to arbiter Shaun Press and to Grandmaster Ian Rogers who led a lunchtime group coaching session, drawing on positions related to his forthcoming book Oops! I Resigned Again!

Last week, I received an email from a parent asking how juniors are selected for invitationals. Initially, we draft a list of juniors by over-the-board ratings, then consider activity in our online ACTJCL and/or ACT Chess Association online events. If juniors don't play in any of our (or ACTCA) online events, then we assume that they are not interested in invitationals. 

Besides free coaching and prizes, the advantage of playing in invitational events is that they help us determine which juniors have the maturity necessary to compete in international online events, since players are required to listen to and follow arbiters' instructions, as well as to adhere to often unfamiliar international online chess regulations. 

Eastern Asia Youth Chess Championship - Girls Division

The girls division of the Eastern Asia Youth Chess Championship was held last week. It proved to be tough going for our ACT juniors, with the highest scorer being Shriya Karthik on 4/9. 

With the open division coming up this weekend, we wish our ACT participants the best of luck: Jerry Cheng (u8), Dev Raichura (u8), Minchen Yang (u12), Charles Huang (u12), Larry Cheng (u12), Joshua Liang (u14) and Lachlan Ho (u16).

The value of playing in tournaments like these is that facing stronger opponents helps you to become a better player. Why? Because stronger opponents will often relentlessly punish you for mistakes (e.g. inaccurate endgame play, tactical oversights, dubious opening play) which you may otherwise get away with in ACT junior events. 

ACTJCL Online Holiday Events (Lichess)

Recently, we've seen a drop in numbers, with the girls rapid event cancelled on Saturday due to low numbers. This is a shame, as we are running a leaderboard competition for our online holiday events, with a small trophy being available to the top open and girls scorers across our holiday series (note: the top girl scorer incorporates results from both open and girls events). 

Please remember that you cannot receive or use outside assistance during games, including help from chess engines, other players/parents, chess books, databases etc. If you are banned by Lichess for fair play violations, you cannot open another account which means that you will be unable to play in our online junior events. In my opinion, Lichess uses one of the strongest fair play detection systems of all the major chess sites, so what players may get away with on other sites is unlikely to pass by unnoticed on Lichess.

If you are interested in playing in our online junior events, please see the ACTJCL home page for instructions (you may need to scroll down the page): https://actjcl.org.au/actjcl/index.php

Thanks,

Kate

Secretary, ACT Junior Chess League

secr...@actjcl.org.au