06/07/2026
It was great to see everyone at the Coventry Chess Academy’s 1️⃣3️⃣th Anniversary Celebrations🎂 on Saturday! Current members, returning legends, parents, coaches and special guests converged on Cheylesmore Community Centre, Library & C3 Coffee for the occasion which we celebrated in style with a big chess party!🥳♟️ The CCA is proud of the fact that our club has produced not just many strong chess players but also upstanding, well-rounded and high-achieving young people.☺️ The one-and-only Willliam Morris, who recently graduated with a 1st class degree from the University of Oxford and already has secured his first job, was back and delighted to catch up with his former clubmate and fellow 1st class graduate, Coach David Phillips. ‘Incredible’ Imogen Dicen was also in attendance having recently completed her degree, with a 1st already confirmed! Also making a very welcome return was Sahith Nallameni and no prizes for guessing what he is averaging after two years of studying architecture.🧠😁 It was great too to see Sahith’s brother and fellow CCA legend Siddharth as well as Aayush Chitre, both having finished important A level and GCSE exams, as well as returning superstars such as Rohan ‘The Man’ Pal, Dhairya ‘The Real Deal’ Pandya and, briefly, Vincent Xia before he heads off to university.
FIDE Master Jude ‘The Juggernaut’ was back in town, but he wasn’t the only titled CCA star as his long-time friend Woman FIDE Master ‘Extraordinary’ Elis Dicen was also in attendance. FIDE Master Nick ‘The Dean of Warwickshire Chess’ Thomas made a guest appearance too. But the biggest surprise of the day, making his first ever appearance at the CCA party, was the presence of arbiter extraordinaire and the English Chess Federation's Events Director, a man who has done more for English chess than most, Alex Holowczak. He himself was in for an even bigger surprise as upon arrival he was informed that he would be PLAYING in the 13th Birthday Bullet tournament. Moreover, his protégé ‘King/Coach/Curator/Arbiter/Legend’ Gregory Kornilovich was the official in charge! As always, Gregory ran the tournament with supreme professionalism and competence, though he should definitely have been harsher with Alex’s decision to outrageously flaunt a pair of jeans!🤫👖👖👖👖👖🤫😂😂😂😂😂😂
Alex did however show that he can play a bit, as despite the CCA Director’s outrageous ambush, he managed to finish on 4/5, finishing joint-second with Dhairya🥈 behind Elis and Jude🥇, though he certainly benefited from an, ahem, favourable draw! Handuo ‘The Hitman’ Cao (who assassinated the CCA Director in bullet before the tournament started) and James ‘Goldfinger’ Palmer-Brown shared third place🥉.
As happens each year, the food and drink🥪🍕🥤 went down a treat and a special mention must be made for Mrs Dicen’s special banana cake and homemade cookies😃🍪🤤, as well as a special mention for all our members for putting their stomachs on the line and saving the CCA Director from guaranteed obesity.😂
The winner of Paul’s Puzzle (White to play and mate in 3, featured below and containing a most unsubtle reference to our 13th Anniversary) was Rohan and Anna Cormode-Islam won the Openings Quiz with an impressive 11/12. The end-of-year prize winners were Aayush and Aishu Mithun (Newcomers of the Year), Ansh Anand (Conduct), Riyaan Garnsworthy (Improvement – current number 1 nationally for rapidplay in his age group!), Anuj Chitre (Services) and Anish Bijibilla (Player of the Year)🏆. Anish has had an outstanding 25/26 which saw him occupy top of the rankings for his national age group in both standardplay and rapidplay, represent Warwickshire in EPSCA and the J4NCL, finish 2nd in the English Youth Chess Championships, win the LJCC U7 title, become the youngest CCA member to ever win a prize in the Birmingham Rapidplay, become the youngest player to ever play and win a game in the Leamington & District Chess League and become the youngest CCA member to ever play for England, scoring a fine 5.5/11 in his debut in the World Junior Chess Championships in Batumi, Georgia.
It’s been another memorable season for the CCA and its members and we’d like to extent huge thanks to all our coaches, friends, supporters, parents and Cheylesmore Community Centre, without whom none of the success achieved would have been possible. Above all, a huge thank you and a big WELL DONE is extended to our marvellous members, who make our club what it is. We are so proud of each and every one of you!👏👏👏
There were some notable absentees from the party, but as much as we missed them, they had a very good reason since they were competing in the EJCOA National Youth Finals and some excellent results were achieved. In the U10 section, ‘Super’ Shrisha Tarihalkar finished in joint-second place with 4/5. In the U12 section, there was an absolute tour-de-force performance from ‘Awesome’ Anvi Prabhakaran. She won the section outright with a PERFECT 5/5 score finishing ahead of all the boys, beating the number 1 seed, 1939-rated Maksym Kryshtafor, and earning another England call-up!🏴♟️ Talk about CCA chess girl power! What a player, what a performance!👏👏👏
The chess season is not quite at an end though. Some big events are coming up over the next couple of weeks, culminating in the 2026 British Chess Championships🇬🇧♟️ which are coming back to Coventry this year! Our titled trio of FIDE Master Jude ‘The Juggernaut’ Shearsby, Woman FIDE Master ‘Extraordinary’ Elis Dicen and Candidate Master Billy ‘The Kid’ Fellowes will all be flying the flag for the CCA in the Main Championship😮, belonging to a select group who have earned the right to take on Britain’s best. We will also have many members also competing in the various junior and rated section. We’d like to wish everyone the very best for their Championship endeavours and looking forward to a fabulous celebration of chess, our club and our city! Bring on the summer!😃
