The Annual UCU Summer School took place on August 7th/8th/9th 2024
The Ulster Chess Summer School has been run for at least 14 years. It was started as a result of an afternoons coaching session at Methodist School for players going to the Delancey Chess Challenge in Manchester. It has been run in various locations, including Methodist College, Ballynafeigh Chess Club and finally at our current location in Ormeau Park in the Bowling Club hall. This little hidden gem of a location provides a perfect site for 18 players or more to enjoy chess.
We had a flexible timetable for the 3 days and with the assistance of the volunteers Michael Devine, Geoff Hindley and Chris Kelly we had a brilliant summer school of chess. A big thankyou to our volunteers. Also to the Belfast Council and the workers at the Bowling Club all of whom made the event a excellent success.
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An example timetable:
| Time | Description | Resources |
| 09:30 | Setup Room | |
| 10:00 | Intros – | setup and reg. Rules of behaviour, timetable location of toilets / fire exits etc |
| 10:10 | Teaching Chess to new players – mini-games | The min chess games |
| 10:40 | More mini games | Knight notes 206 |
| 11:00 | Reading moves | Sheet Knight Notes 18 – talk thru the first game. |
| 11:20 | Rest of sheet 18. | |
| 11:40 | Battle Chess – the rules | Practice game. |
| 12:00 | Mating Motifs A. | Knight Notes 207 |
| 12:20 | Battlechess round 1. | |
| 12:40 | Lunch - other board games | |
| 13:20 | group photo Simple pawn endings | Knight Notes 209 |
| 13:40 | Chess Round 1 | |
| 14:00 | The pin. / exercises | Knight Notes 213 |
| 14:20 | Battle Chess Rd 2 | |
| 14:40 | pair chess Rd1. | teams of 2 playing talking your thoughts. write down moves |
| 15:00 | End |
an example Worksheet : that we work thru and then have further examples set as problems for the group to work on.
The students attending the Summer school.
For the battle chess we varied the rounds by including a Knight in round 2 and in round 3 a Bishop. So we had endgames with minor pieces and 4 pawns.
Summer School Battle Chess - Round 1
Results
No Name Result Name 1 Jonah Corr 1.0:1.0 Conor Marsh 2 Darragh Marsh 0.0:2.0 Nathan Murray 3 Freddie Corr 1.5:.5 Matthew Shirley 4 Daniel Shirley 1.0:1.0 Advait Tahmankar 5 Alex McKeown 2.0:0.0 Oisín Byrne 6 Tanish Thoke 0.0:2.0 Shlok Thoke 7 Max Likhodievskiy .5:1.5 Abhiram Ganja 8 B Likhith .5:1.5 Conor Lowry
by Swiss Perfect (TM) www.swissperfect.com
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Summer School Battle Chess - Round 2
Results
No Name Result Name 1 Nathan Murray .5:1.5 Alex McKeown 2 Shlok Thoke .5:1.5 Freddie Corr 3 Conor Lowry .5:1.5 Abhiram Ganja 4 Advait Tahmankar .5:1.5 Jonah Corr 5 Conor Marsh 1.5:.5 Daniel Shirley 6 Matthew Shirley 2.0:0.0 Max Likhodievskiy 7 Darragh Marsh 1.0:1.0 B Likhith 8 Oisín Byrne 2.0:0.0 Tanish Thoke
Summer School Battle Chess - Round 3
Results
No Name Result Name 1 Abhiram Ganja 0.0:2.0 Alex McKeown 2 Freddie Corr 1.5:.5 Nathan Murray 3 Jonah Corr 1.0:1.0 Matthew Shirley 4 Conor Marsh .5:1.5 Shlok Thoke 5 Daniel Shirley 1.0:1.0 Oisín Byrne 6 B Likhith .5:1.5 Advait Tahmankar 7 Max Likhodievskiy .5:1.5 Darragh Marsh 8 Tanish Thoke 2.0:0.0 BYE
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Summer School Battle Chess - Standings
Place Name Score M-Buch. Buch. Progr.
1 McKeown, Alex 5.5 3.0 9.0 11.0
2 Corr, Freddie 4.5 3.5 10.5 9.0
3 Thoke, Shlok 4 3.0 8.5 8.5
4-5 Shirley, Matthew 3.5 3.5 9.0 6.5
Corr, Jonah 3.5 3.0 9.5 7.0
6-10 Murray, Nathan 3 4.5 12.5 7.5
Marsh, Conor 3 3.5 10.0 6.5
Ganja, Abhiram 3 3.0 9.5 7.5
Byrne, Oisín 3 2.5 9.0 5.0
Tahmankar, Advait 3 2.5 8.0 5.5
11-12 Shirley , Daniel 2.5 3.0 9.0 5.0
Marsh, Darragh 2.5 2.0 6.0 3.5
13-15 Lowry, Conor 2 5.0 5.0 3.5
Thoke, Tanish 2 3.0 10.0 2.0
Likhith, B 2 3.0 8.5 4.0
16 Likhodievskiy, Max 1 3.0 9.0 2.0
The below are the results of the individual competition we ran - with 15mins each on the clock. The photos are from the competition but dont match the rounds.
Summer School 2024 - Round 1
Results
No Name Total Result Name Total 1 Jonah Corr [0] 1:0 Conor Lowry [0] 2 Darragh Marsh [0] 0:1 Nathan Murray [0] 3 Freddie Corr [0] 1:0 Conor Marsh [0] 4 Matthew Shirley [0] .5:.5 Advait Tahmankar [0] 5 Alex McKeown [0] 1:0 Daniel Shirley [0] 6 Oisín Byrne [0] 0:1 Shlok Thoke [0] 7 Max Likhodievskiy [0] 1:0 Tanish Thoke [0] 8 Abhiram Ganja [0] 1:0 BYE
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Summer School 2024 - Round 2
Results
No Name Total Result Name Total 1 Shlok Thoke [1] 0:1 Jonah Corr [1] 2 Nathan Murray [1] 1:0 Alex McKeown [1] 3 Abhiram Ganja [1] 0:1 Freddie Corr [1] 4 Advait Tahmankar [.5] 1:0 Max Likhodievskiy [1] 5 Conor Lowry [0] 0:1 Matthew Shirley [.5] 6 Ageesh [0] 0:1 Darragh Marsh [0] 7 Conor Marsh [0] 0:1 Oisín Byrne [0] 8 Daniel Shirley [0] 1:0 Agaana [0] 9 Tanish Thoke [0] 1:0 BYE
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Summer School 2024 - Round 3
Results
No Name Total Result Name Total 1 Jonah Corr [2] 0:1 Nathan Murray [2] 2 Freddie Corr [2] 1:0 Advait Tahmankar [1.5] 3 Matthew Shirley [1.5] 0:1 Alex McKeown [1] 4 Tanish Thoke [1] 0:1 Shlok Thoke [1] 5 Max Likhodievskiy [1] .5:.5 Daniel Shirley [1] 6 Darragh Marsh [1] .5:.5 Abhiram Ganja [1] 7 Oisín Byrne [1] 1:0 Conor Lowry [0] 8 B Likhith [0] 0:1 Conor Marsh [0]
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Summer School 2024 - Round 4
Results
No Name Total Result Name Total 1 Nathan Murray [3] 0:1 Freddie Corr [3] 2 Oisín Byrne [2] 0:1 Jonah Corr [2] 3 Alex McKeown [2] 1:0 Shlok Thoke [2] 4 Advait Tahmankar [1.5] 1:0 Darragh Marsh [1.5] 5 Abhiram Ganja [1.5] 1:0 Max Likhodievskiy [1.5] 6 Daniel Shirley [1.5] 0:1 Matthew Shirley [1.5] 7 Conor Marsh [1] 1:0 Tanish Thoke [1] 8 Conor Lowry [0] 0:1 B Likhith [0]
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Summer School 2024 - Round 5
Results
No Name Total Result Name Total 1 Freddie Corr [4] 0:1 Alex McKeown [3] 2 Jonah Corr [3] 1:0 Abhiram Ganja [2.5] 3 Matthew Shirley [2.5] 0:1 Nathan Murray [3] 4 Advait Tahmankar [2.5] 1:0 Oisín Byrne [2] 5 Shlok Thoke [2] .5:.5 Conor Marsh [2] 6 Max Likhodievskiy [1.5] 0:1 Darragh Marsh [1.5] 7 Tanish Thoke [1] 0:1 B Likhith [1] 8 Daniel Shirley [1.5] 1:0 BYE
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Summer School 2024 - Standings
Place Name Score M-Buch. Buch. Progr.
1-4 Murray, Nathan 4 10.5 17.0 13.0
Corr, Freddie 4 10.0 16.0 14.0
McKeown, Alex 4 9.0 15.0 11.0
Corr, Jonah 4 6.5 11.0 12.0
5 Tahmankar, Advait 3.5 7.0 12.5 9.5
6-11 Shirley, Matthew 2.5 9.5 14.0 8.5
Ganja, Abhiram 2.5 9.0 14.5 8.5
Thoke, Shlok 2.5 8.5 13.0 8.5
Marsh, Darragh 2.5 7.0 12.5 6.5
Shirley , Daniel 2.5 6.5 12.0 6.5
Marsh, Conor 2.5 6.5 11.0 5.5
12-13 Byrne, Oisín 2 8.5 13.0 7.0
Likhith, B 2 5.5 8.5 3.0
14 Likhodievskiy, Max 1.5 6.5 10.5 6.5
15 Thoke, Tanish 1 7.0 11.0 4.0
16-19 Lowry, Conor 0 4.5 10.5 0.0
With the team chess we had paired players by age, a younger student with an older student. With the idea that they would assist each other and work as a team to solve problems. The team chess was played with the rule that a team of 2 players play a team of 2 players with one board/game and they must discuss their move during their move openly so that the other team can hear, and then agree on the move. This means hopefully a higher quality game and plenty of chat. We did this as one of the last activities of each day - some photos of the teams:
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At the end of the 3 days - we had an award ceremony. Students were all given certifates of attendance with the group photo and small photos of the day on the back of the certificate. They also took folders full of sheets and problems to do at home and continue their training.
