NSW Junior Chess League

The draw for the Metropolitan Secondary Schools Competition is now available – click on "Schools" in the menu at left.

The draw for the Primary Schools Competition should appear on the website progressively over the next few days.

Luke Halpin and Methew Yan (ages 16 and 17 respectively) have jointly won the Sydney Autumn One-Day Tournament, which attracted 166 players to our new venue at North Ryde.

Dhruv Kapoor and Titus Maddern (aged 14 and 12) tied for first in the 32-player Western Riverina Autumn Tournament held in Griffith.

The Sydney Two-Day Tournament has been won by 16-year-old Thomas (Hanwen) Xuan, half a point ahead of Jack Rodgers.

Nikhil Rajesh has won the 51-player Orange Autumn Tournament ahead of Peter Dixon (with whom he had tied for first in the Orange Summer tournament) and Jingming Chow.

Full details of these tournaments may be found by clicking on "Results" in the menu at left.

The AusJCL is calling for applications for the following international junior tournaments:

   •  2013 World Youth Under 16 Olympiad – Chongqing, China – 21-31 July

   •  2013 World Junior Under 20 Championships – Hatay, Turkey – 15-20 September

   •  2013 Asian Schools and Kindergarten Championships – Colombo, Sri Lanka –1-7 December

   •  2013 World Youth Chess Championships – Al-Ain, United Arab Emirates – 17-29 December

If you are interested in competing in one of these events, please apply via www.australianjuniorchess.org.au/application.html by April 15.

Fifteen-year-old Shirley Gu has regained the NSW Girls title by winning her long-deferred playoff match against Kashish Christian, 1.5-0.5. This is Shirley's second win of the title – her previous win was in 2010

Kashish Christian won the NSW Girls Under 12 title in 2011 and is the current NSW (Open) Under 12 champion. She and Shirley tied for first place in the NSW Girls Championship tournament last October.

Fourteen-year-old Raymond Han and 17-year-old Kinto Wan have jointly won the Sydney Summer Three-Day Tournament, both scoring 8 out of 9. They were one and a half points ahead of five players who shared third place.

Kinto Wan also shared first place in the Sydney One-Day Tournament – he and 16-year-old Luke Halpin finished half a point ahead of Vincent Jiang.

The Sydney Summer Two-Day Tournament produced another tie, this time between 13-year-old Joshua Behar and 14-year-old Daniel Cheng.

Yet another tie occurred in the Orange Summer One-Day Tournament – 14-year-old Nikhil Rajesh and 15-year-old Peter Dixon shared first place.

Four players – Jonathan Ginn (aged 15), Max Liberto (12), Paul Russell (15) and Spencer Wharton (11) – tied for first in the Central Coast Summer One-Day Tournament.

Twelve-year-old Thomas Chin has won the Wollongong Summer One-Day Tournament, a full point ahead of Kingston Yeung.

For detailed scores of all the above summer tournaments click on "Results" in the menu at left

Having finished 2012 on a high note by winning the Australasian Masters tournament, Anton Smirnov has started 2013 even higher – the FIDE (World Chess Federation) ratings for January lists him as the top Under 12 player in the world – a remarkable achievement indeed. Anton's FIDE rating is 2207. He will turn 12 later in January and is currently playing in the Australian Open Championship in Sydney.

Young Australians have been making a mark for themselves on the world stage in recent years – in 2009 Bobby Cheng of Melbourne won the World Under 12 Championship.