Llanelli White Knights Chess Club

Last night at the club we held our Presentation and Social evening. It was amazing to see more than 60 parents, juniors and adult club members attend and thank u to everyone for bringing food for the buffet which was a huge success. The club has grown significantly over the last year and the positive environment we have created is a credit to all the hard work that has been put in by everyone. Can I thank u all for your efforts and long may it continue.

During the evening we held a tactics puzzle competition and the two winners were Pranita Sree and Cynan Jones. Well done both.

The other awards given out on the night were as follows.
Player of the season 2024-25 Vismith Prabhu
New Player of the season 2024-25 Riley Fitzpatrick
Player of the season 2025-26 Matthew Billington
New player of the season 2025-26 Josh Dudley Price
Clubman of the year 2025-26 Gareth Harper
Junior club champion 2026 Cynan Jones
Recognition award for playing for Wales under 18s team in the 2026 Glorney Cup Vismith Prabhu
Recognition award for playing for Wales under 12s team in the Stokes Cup Cynan Jones
Supporter of the season 2025-26 Lee Bonifacio
Most improvements players of the season 2025-26 jointly awarded to Matteo Bonifacio and Josh Dudley Price.

Well done to all the award winners and I wish u all the best of luck for the upcoming season.

Well last week the club had the honour of S4C coming to our club to speak to many of our members and successful junior players. Over the last few weeks some of our juniors have represented Wales in international competitions in Ireland and did themselves proud. The club has grown significantly over the last 2 years and we now have a thriving junior and adult section. We are all looking forward to the new season in the West Wales Chess League with two additional beginner teams and for the first time ever the club has entered the national 4 nations chess league. Tonight on the S4C programme Heno they will be showing their article from their visit to the club.

As everyone knows we have been working hard to develop our junior section and today two of our best juniors really showed how much their developing. Firstly Vismith playing in the South Wales International competition beat current Welsh International and Candidate Master Alex Bullen. Secondly Cynan playing in the Giga final competition in Manchester won 5 games out of 7 to qualify for the next stage of the competition being The Challengers event taking place in October in Peterborough. Well done Both. We are proud of u both and its great preparation for ur upcoming matches for the Wales under 18 and 12 teams.

Today Alan and I attended Swiss Valley Primary School where the first ever Carmarthenshire Chess Academy Primary School Team Chess Championships were held. We had Bryn Teg, Old Road and Swiss Valley Primary Schools bring teams of 6 to the event. After two rounds of hard fought matches the Swiss Valley Team which included club members Paul, both Elijahs, Jacob and Oliver were successful. Congratulations guys. Everyone also enjoyed watching the chess robot Rook D2 play chess. I would like to thank all the schools for supporting the event and also Alan for helping run the event.

Tonight at the chess club we had an excellent turn up despite the hot weather. We were lucky enough to have the chess robot Rook D2 attend and our members really enjoyed playing against it. Well done to Mike, Luca and Ashton for winning their games. Our junior members also received a 30 minute coaching session which i hope was useful.

Many of our members admired the club's superb engraved Judit Polgar board and pieces which we were given as an prize for winning the British Chess Education Trust Award for 2026. Cynan and Kai certainly enjoyed playing on it. Tomorrow we are supporting the Carmarthenshire Chess Academy Primary schools championships with teams from Swiss Valley Primary School, Old Road Primary School and Bryn Teg Primary School competing. Can I wish all our junior members playing in this event the best of luck. We also have Vismith and Malcolm currently playing in the South Wales International Chess competition and Cynan is playing in the Giga Finals in Manchester this weekend. Go smash it guys.

it is with great pleasure that I can tell u all about an award the club has been given. The club has been nominated for an award from the British Chess Education Trust. They considered the nomination and have awarded the club their award for 2026 for the work we have been doing to develop the club and the junior section and also for the work we have been doing with our local schools. Our award was a stunning engraved Judit Polgar chess set and DGT clock. Well done all.

On Saturday a number of adult and junior club members took part in an Invitational event between players from both Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire Chess clubs held in Narberth. There was a hard fought 14 board match for adults which ended in a 7 all draw. Over the last year a number of new clubs have been set up in South West Wales and many of these clubs had players representing these teams. White Knights had 8 players playing in the adult Carmarthenshire team and there were wins for Matthew, Jason, Mark and Stewart. There was also a 13 board match for the juniors and 12 of the team were White Knights members. Well done all for your efforts and we would like to thank Narberth Chess Club and particularly Kevin Heady for organising this great event. We even had the chess robot Rook D2 present which the juniors loved.

What an amazing day it has been for the club. Firstly can I congratulate both the D team and B team on winning their final league games of the season. I would also like to congratulate the B team on winning the Division 1 Plate competition. Well done to all concerned.

Despite hosting two league matches tonight it was great to see another 29 players turn up for a club night. Can I thank some of our more experienced players for giving up some of their time to help some of our less experienced players.

We also held a junior competition and Bobi, Layla, Poppy and Asad qualified for the semi finals and Bobi beat Poppy in the final. Well done Bobi and to everyone else for the competitive games played.

It was also an exciting day for our Carmarthenshire Chess Academy today in that we signed up Bryngwyn Comprehensive School as our 9th school to participate in the Academy. We attended their lunchtime chess club today and they had approximately 20 pupils and even two teachers who came to listen to our demonstration. We are looking forward to working with them over the coming months.

Keep up the good work everyone as its fantastic to see such a great environment in the club.

I would also like to promote an event our friends from Fishguard chess club are hosting this Saturday. A 7 round rapid tournament will be held in Fishguard Town Hall. Anyone wanting more information about the event can contact the organisers on www.fishguardchess.co.uk/rapidplay/

it was a great honour to visit my old school today and help their chess club. We look forward to working with the chess club over the coming months.

Hi all considering it was Easter week and we had a D team match in Upper Killay it was great to see 21 members attend tonight's club night. Firstly can I thank Adam, Chris, James and John for spending time with some of our less experienced members. I'm sure they all found it really useful for their chess development. For our remaining junior players we held an Easter team based competition. We had three teams of 4 named JETA, Hey Ya and the Rooks. They played 2 rounds of games against each other and after some competitive games , the Rooks consisting of Poppy, Paul, Luca and Matteo won the competition with 6 points. Three players Paul, Poppy and Elijah won both their games and then played off against each other for player of the tournament and Paul was successful winning all 4 of his games. We then held an Easter puzzle competition and this was won by Cynan. All winners had Easter eggs as prizes. Well done to all the players for their efforts tonight.