2010 Players of the month

2009 has been fantastic year for 15-year old University High School student

James recorded many excellent results.

In December he won the title Victorian Master 2009 being top Victorian performer in Australasian Masters 2009(and coming second overall behind current Australian Champion Stephen Solomon).

Amongst his other notable results:

Second in Victorian Championship 2009

Second in Freytag weekender in Adelaide 2009

Equal second in Oceania Zonal 2009 (this result earned him International Master Title).

James increased his FIDE rating in one year by whopping 235 points (from 2089 till current 2305).

We hope that James will go one step further and will be winning tournaments very soon!

Erik moved to Australia in 1996 and became proud resident of Melbourne in 1997.

He had very successful last year (winning Ballarat Begonia weekender, Victorian Open and Melbourne Cup weekender).

Last month he won tournament in Ballarat once again.

He was the top scoring Victorian in Premier division of Doeberl Cup 2010 scoring his 4th International master norm( the last three he make in nineteen eighties)

His current FIDE rating is around 2380 and no doubt he will lift his rating to required 2400 mark very soon.

Erik is highly original player who very often starts game with Sokolsky opening (1.b4).

Erik will turn 49 April 11th and we wish him very Happy Birthday!

10 year old Karl Zelesco is a Grade 5 student at Deepdene Primary School. He became a member of the Box Hill and Canterbury Junior Chess Clubs in 2009 and currently plays for "Canterbury Raiderz" in Division 2 of the Victorian Teams Tournament.

Karl played his first 'long game' at the Box Hill Club Championship in May, 2009 and obtained a classic rating of 487 in September of that year. Since then he has been Australia's Top Improver twice and the only person ever to achieve this honour, back to back. The June 2010 ratings saw Karl improve a massive 594 points - the highest quarterly improvement ever recorded from a reliable rating. He was awarded the CJCC Trophy for the most improved player in 2009. He is a very active player on the chess circuit and is currently rated 1604.

Acceptance speeches

Joint Vic Open winners seen here at the prize giving with CV president Leonid Sandler

finished with 6/7 half point clear of a star studded field that included a grand master plus four international masters

FM Bobby Cheng