A “Yorkshire Junior Chess Day” was held on Saturday 20th October 2018, at Upperthong Junior School Holmfirth. It was organised by White Rose Junior Chess Academy. The local MP, Thelma Walker, kindly opened the event. She is an ex headmistress and keen chess-player.

The well-known chess teacher from London, Lateefah Messam-Sparks, led the chess tuition and held a session where children were told how she developed her chess career. A good game by Harriet Hunt v Richard Bates was shown on the display board.

We had two Swiss-system competitions: Section A- for beginners and those playing for only a short time, and Section B for more‑advanced players, results being as follows.

Section A, with 22 players
	1st	Siddarth Babu (Wakefield)
	2nd =	Joseph Shepherd (Sheffield), Thomas Goodrum (Nettherton), Charlie Baldwin (Wakefield)
	5th =	Daniel Weir (Netherton), Shreeyash Dash (Wakefield)
Merit awards		Patrick Emeny (Netherton), Eva Donegan (Leeds) and Alexander Ross (York)

Section B, with 22 players
	1st	Dylan Whitney (Stoke-on-Trent)
	2nd	Oliver Tate (Sheffield)
	3rd =	Ben Wood (Sheffield), Krish Daru (Wakefield), Bradley Triffitt (York), Sean Kiddie (Holmfirth)
Merit awards		Natasha Pointon (Thirsk), Zorava Sandhill (Wakefield), Jude Daniel Smith (Sheffield)

All players received a certificate and chess badge.

Thanks for support from Chess and Bridge and the School, also helpers on the day: Steve Westmoreland, Nicky Thompson and Noel Stewart from York.

An enjoyable day had by all.

Peter Cloudsdale, York, 21.10.2018