WFM Sabrina Chevannes	Lloyd Chevannes	Devina Rishi	IM Chris Beaumont
IM Lorin D'Costa	Ferris Lyndsay	Robert Chandler	Peter Saunders
David Smith	John Foley	Sarah Kett	Geoff Gammon
Sean Marsh	Philip Armstrong	Tim Kett	Clive Hill
David Hardy	Alan Bright	Deborah Evans	WFM Maria Yurenok
Dominic Allen	John Gorman	Andy Baruch

 

Lorin playing for Barbican 4NCL 1.

IM Lorin D'Costa graduated from University College London in June 2007 with a BA in Dutch and Management Studies.

He has been a very active and successful player for a number of years now both in the UK and on the continent. He plays for Barbican I in Division One of the Four Nations Chess League, Royston CC in Division One of the Hertfordshire Chess League, Hendon CC in Division One of the Middlesex Chess League as well as playing in leagues in France and Holland!

A very notable result of his was when he scored 6½/10 in the 2008 EU Championship in Liverpool. Lorin has scored two GM results and is one away from achieving the Grandmaster title.

Lorin coaches some of the top schools in the country and some of England’s very strongest juniors. He also coaches England Internationals at World and European Youth Championships.

 

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Ferris Lyndsay was born in 1959 and first got into chess in the wake of the 1972 Fischer-Spassky matches. From that time he has never forgotten that Reykjavik is the capital of Iceland.

 

It was in his forties that he took up chess more regularly. Ferris has been teaching in Primary and Secondary Schools and as a private tutor for the past 25 years in the London borough of Newham.

 

Teaching is his passion and he has been delighted to be able to combine this with chess. It is his experience and expertise in working with children and adults aged four to forty that he brings to the table.

 

He enjoys making the cross curricular links between chess and academic subjects and is able to help teachers, parents and children to see how this great game can make a big contribution to children's learning.

 

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John Foley first started coaching in a primary school in 2000 and continues to teach in schools in the London boroughs of Merton and Kingston. John first learned to play chess when he was aged 10 in hospital from the boy in the next bed. He enjoyed the game and went on to become London U-14 Champion. At Oxford, he won the university championship.

 

He is the Chairman of Kingston Chess Club where as webmaster he has recently won the award for English Chess Federation website of the year.

 

John has qualifications in philosophy, mathematics, psychology and law and an accredited trainer. He has had a diverse career. He was a corporate planner for an oil company, the founder of a commodity trading software house in the USA, head of the decision modelling group of a corporate advisory firm, advisor to the European Commission on broadcasting policy and as a barrister managed legal aid in the criminal courts.

 

He has always pursued jobs involving too much thinking which he puts down to having been exposed to chess at an impressionable age.

 

Philip Armstrong was born in Oldham in 1983. He learned to play chess at an early age, but didn’t study the game seriously until joining Oldham Chess Club in 2003, where he is now the first team’s captain.

 

He also plays for the Greater Manchester open county team and has scored many individual tournament victories across the North-West over the past few years.

 

Phil won the Liverpool Open in 2006 and qualified for the main event of the British Chess Championships in 2007. In 2009 he won the annual Huddersfield Blitz Open, and retained the title by winning again in 2010.

 

Formerly a student nurse, Philip has changed career paths and now dedicates his time to chess full-time.

 

He is currently one of the coaches at Ashton Community Chess Club, and also teaches the game in primary schools in the Tameside area.

 

Away from chess Philip enjoys watching sport on TV, and likes to play poker and badminton, as well as table tennis, in which he competes in the Oldham league.

 

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Alan Bright learnt chess as a seven year old with the help of Bott and Morrison's 'Chess for Children'.

 

He still recalls defending badly against his School teacher's 2.Qh5 (Q-R5, as it was known then) at age eight, but despite that, he rose to county level whilst at secondary school.

 

Alan has lived in East London since 1983; started coaching chess in schools in 2009; and has run chess programmes as part of the London Borough of Newham's summer school.

 

Alan spent 25 years working in the City in training, sales and corporate communications but now works as an administrator for St Helen's, Bishopsgate - a City church.

 

Alan has a wife and six children, against whom he has lost two games of chess - and rather more games of table tennis - in 27 years.

 

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John Gorman was inspired to take up chess when he was 13 years old after his father took him to watch a simultaneous display by the Yugoslav grandmaster, Svetozar Gligoric.

 

Three months later, he won his first tournament at the Liverpool Junior Easter Congress, the world’s largest chess congress at the time.

 

He returned to the city 43 years later to win a prize at the 2006 European Union Individual Championship. In the intervening years he won many other tournaments including two County Championship titles.

 

After retiring from his career in accountancy and tax, John began teaching chess in schools 5 years ago, after his daughter became interested in the game.

 

His pupils have won many County Junior titles. Apart from chess, he plays bridge, and cricket in the North Wales League.

 

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Devina Rishi fell in love with chess later in life, after her 6 year old son discovered a ‘Battle Chess’ game on the family’s first home computer. Over the next few years she saw the influence it had on his approach to school-work as well as life in general. She campaigned to set up a club at her children’s primary school and enlisted the help of a local chess tutor whom she assisted at first and later took over from.

 

The combination of the club’s growing popularity and seeing benefits to the children, including those with SEN, inspired her to take the next step. Following an unexpected illness, she had retired from her profession as an osteopath & lecturer. In 2004 she set up an independent project, operating on a not-for-profit basis, to introduce chess and other social & cultural activities to the wider Enfield community. Since then, her innovative and fun-filled teaching style has made her project & activities sought-after across North London.

 

She currently teaches chess at various schools in Enfield & Barnet, via her Start Chess in Schools programme and also runs beginners’ workshops at her own club at Millfield Arts Centre, Edmonton, as well as in various community projects.

 

Specialties: Chess Tuition, Hindi Language Tuition, Dance Choreography; Stage presentation and performances.

 

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Robert Chandler first started playing chess with his Mum at the age of 8 and he still remembers well the day he eventually beat her. Back then in Auckland New Zealand, there was not much of a chess scene so chess slipped until it was time to teach his children, all of whom regularly beat him now.

 

For the last three years Robert has been teaching the Westbury on Trym Primary Chess Club and brought about a more structured and teaching base style to the Chess Club.

 

Now the club has 30 active members (with more wanting to join on the waiting list!) and recently won the South Gloucestershire Primary Schools Championship 2011 of which eleven of the players went to the UK Chess Challenge Mega Finals, with six players making it to the Giga Finals.

 

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Sarah Kett is a recent convert to chess teaching. After watching husband Tim in action - both playing and coaching - for so many years and then seeing her own children learn the game, she has belatedly realised just how enjoyable the game is - and how beneficial it is to young people to learn and play the game!

 

She works with Tim in running Cardiff School Chess Clubs and specialises in teaching beginners. Not being a strong player herself she understands more clearly than expert players how newcomers see the game and has built a strong rapport with many young pupils.

 

Aside from actively teaching Sarah has also had much wider roles in chess administration in recent years. She has held several posts within the WCU (Welsh Chess Union) and is currently Director of Junior Development. She has had great success in recent years persuading Cardiff headteachers just how many benefits chess can bring their pupils and helping them to establish and continue to run clubs in schools with no previous history of chess.

Tim Kett has played since the age of 4 when he first set eyes on a chess set and begged his parents to show him how it worked! He won various schoolboy events and reached his peak rating(s) - around 2250 FIDE, 204 ECF - while in his early 20's.

 

After that work (in software for a large corporation) set in and for the next 20-odd years chess was mostly limited to local league matches. A move to Cardiff ten years ago rejuvenated his chess career and since then he has played regularly for Wales at Olympiads and European Championships. In the Welsh national Championship he's finished second and third on various occasions - but to his great frustration - not yet managed to win it!

 

A year ago Tim retired from routine office work in search of something more meaningful and has been taking on more and more chess teaching ever since. He runs two after-school Junior chess clubs in Cardiff, helps out at several schools and is a regular coach for the Welsh Junior squad.

Deborah Evans born Bangor North Wales, now living in Swansea South Wales, is Director of Chess Academy Wales www.chessacademywales.com (online from this September) helping to develop Chess in Wales. An International Chess player since childhood; Olympiad Medallist, Women’s Champion several times and Director of Publicity for Welsh Chess Union.

 

As a mother with a background in teaching practice over several years she believes in the benefits of Chess in its capacity to harness diverse skills and abilities whilst encouraging individuals to excel through fun and play.

 

Chess has also helped develop her own creativity as a practicing Fine Artist.

 

Deborah is also Presenter of The Arts Show Swansea Community Radio 106.5fm www.radiotircoed.com.

 

Keep in touch: deb@beehappenings.com. 

Andy Baruch was born in 1952 and spent most of his childhood in various parts of Scotland. In 1966 he arrived in Dundee where the indefatigable Nancy Elder ran various junior chess schemes. Andy learned to play and was soon in his school team.

 

Successes for Andy have often been as part of a team; his Dundee High School team won the ‘Sunday Times’ tournament in 1969, the first Scottish school to do so. He has won the Dundee League with Dundee Chess Club; the Manchester League with Sale Chess Club; and the Coventry League many times with Whoberley Chess Club.

 

Individually he has won any number of prizes in weekend Swiss tournaments, starting with winning the Dundee Easter Congress in ‘71 and more recently sharing second place at the Wrekin 2011.

 

Andy has served a couple of stints as Warwickshire 1st team captain, and now manages and plays for Warwickshire Select in the Four Nations Chess League.

 

Andy is an ECF Regional Master, his ECF grade peaking somewhere north of 200 for a few years from the early 80’s.

 

Andy’s non chess career has been in IT, and he now works as a freelancer specialising in IT Audit and information security management.

 

When he’s not working, playing chess or tearing what remains of his hair out trying to raise a chess team, he is normally to be found playing his ‘cello in a string quartet or some other chamber music ensemble.

 

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Peter first learnt to play chess at school in the fifties. On leaving school he joined the armed forces and during his time in the Far East he developed his chess and even started up a club for ex patriots in Hong Kong.

 

On returning to the UK he played County chess at both correspondence and over the board. His best BCF rating was 192 in 1977. At this point Peter took a break from chess, returning in 2001 to play for a club in Bristol and later joined Clifton Chess Club in 2003. He captained and played for Clifton D team for 5 years.

 

Looking to help develop chess players of the future, Peter then took the role as Junior Officer in the Bristol & District League and took over the Clifton College Chess Club and setup Pete's Potentials Junior Chess Club.

 

Pete's Potentials is a Junior Chess club open to any children from the Bristol area that wants to develop their chess further. Peter's recent claim to fame is that one of his pupils, who qualified as the ECF’s youngest arbiter at 14, has just won the Welsh Under 20 Title at the ripe old age of 15.

Geoff learned the moves of the pieces from the inside of the lid of the box Father Christmas brought him in back in 1956. No one at home could play so he use to take his board and set to school and sometimes get a game by stopping off at a friend’s house on the way home. He played for Speedwell U13s in the Bristol & District Junior League in the early 60s and at Downend Chess Club in the mid 60s.

 

In the early to mid 70s Geoff played for several other Bristol clubs and also served as Match Secretary and later Secretary for the Bristol & District Junior League.

 

A change of job meant that evening chess was not possible but for the first half of the 80s Geoff ran an after school club at a local junior school, raising money for equipment by playing sponsored simultaneous matches and coaching a handful of players to represent Avon and Gloucester to play for the West of England.

 

Other commitments took Geoff away from chess again but the ‘bug’ bit once more during the Kasparov – Short world title match and Geoff rejoined Downend in 1993 as a team captain and latterly Tournament Organiser as well.

 

Geoff passed the ECF Arbiter’s Exam earlier this year and will be assisting with the arbiting at the London Chess Classic side events.

 

Clive is an internet correspondence player and former university champion at over-the-board chess. To his great regret he gave up the game for nearly twenty years (1989 to 2007) in order to concentrate on his career in education, but he has really enjoyed his comeback. Fortunately, most of the lessons he learnt about the game between the ages of 9 and 29 seem to have stuck somewhere in his brain, even though he would be the first to admit that his current results are a little uneven.

 

As a chess coach, Clive has found that the children he teaches gain a great deal of enjoyment and self-confidence from learning chess in a structured way and he is on record as saying that "chess is a game that provides the possibility of friendly competition for young people of all characters, backgrounds and abilities (including those who do not excel at physical sport)" and that he particularly enjoys the aspects of chess coaching that foster good manners, sportsmanship and concentration.

 

As a chess player, Clive is famous for his unusual and unorthodox opening moves, which he defends on the grounds that you have to understand how to play the game in the orthodox manner, before you can really start to play unorthodoxly; a good tip for his students!