Brentwood chess train and play
I am really grateful for the day out at Brentwood School, and it was an amazing turnout of 90 people! We were very fortunate to have two exceptionally strong Grandmasters with us: Nick Pert and Matthew Sadler. We could not have had this day without Richard Pert and Robin Slade, so they get a HUGE thank you for making it possible.
How the day worked
We had 3 games and 3 training sessions (two from Nick Pert and one from Matthew Sadler). The games were in groups (A, B, C and D) for a Swiss-style tournament. If you won all three games, you got a book prize; also, players were picked to get prizes from various people for doing something out of the ordinary.
The coaching sessions were really helpful. With Matthew, we were talking about really complicated things like hanging pawns, and Nick took us through his games to see what he played. What was great was the amount of people contributing, and what I really liked was that when all of this was happening, either Nick or Matthew would go through the games people had just played and tell them of improvements in the moves they played.
Thank you
Thanks again to Nick and Matthew for helping out, and for Richard and Robin for organising such a brilliant event. And thanks as well to the headmaster of Brentwood Prep for letting us use the school.
Looking forward to the next one!
Chris Willoughby
