Saturday 8 June 2013

Juniors v Adults

Some of the promising juniors are perhaps ready to play against adults.  A 'friendly' was arranged between the bright kids and game adults.  The kids pictured below were Arlan, Harry, Dylan and Joe.

Adults were Boye, Brian, James (Junior coach) and Phil.
Board 4 was Phil - Dylan.
Board 3 Harry - James
Board 2 Brian - Arlan
Board 1 Joe - Boye
The games were 60 minutes all in and all players had to record moves except Dylan who's still in the infants and needs to improve his writing a little first.

The games were played seriously, but in a relaxed atmosphere.

On this occasion the adults triumphed 4-0.  The games have been analysed and advice given to the kids.  We can use the games to help coach the kids and hopefully the children will start thinking about their own play too.
This is the start for these juniors of their playing careers.  The plan is to ease them into the adult team while still playing in junior competitions given them a balanced playing environment.

Below are three of the games, board 4 was unfortunately undecipherable (Phil is also a new player and just started recording the moves).  The comments are aimed for the junior playing the game and should help them to improve.  I would encourage any player young or old to analyse their own games adding some comments is a great way to do this.  Add some variations at key points and try and decide where the game turned (Note this isn't that blunder we all know loses the game, but often the self inflicted pressure that caused the blunder!!)