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England's Under 11 Chess Team These pages are here to help promote some of the chess events organised by EPSCA (The English Primary Schools' Chess Association).
An important part of EPSCA's work is "Selecting and running the England Under 11 chess team."
Naturally you cannot simply turn up and play chess for England, you have to be selected.
This page explains the basics of selection, and what you need to do if you think you might be good enough to play chess for England.
Introduction
EPSCA’s England U11 chess team is for players in the under 10 or under 11 age groups.
Before you can be selected for the England team, you have to show that you are good enough to take part in the trials.
There are two ways to show you are good enough:
- If you play well in one or two of the qualifying events, you can be invited to play in the trials,
- If you play board 1 for your EPSCA U11 Inter-Association chess team, you can be nominated to play in the trials.
If you are invited to those trials and you play well, you become part of the Junior Squad.
For each match, the England junior chess team is selected from that squad.
In more detail
Age
The EPSCA team trials are held in April.
To take part in April 2009, you must be 9 or 10 on 1st September 2007, and for the April 2010 trials, you must be 9 or 10 on 1st September 2008.
Qualifier tournaments
There are a number of qualifying chess tournaments.
To show that you are good enough to play in the trials, you have to compete in one or more of the qualifying chess tournaments, and achieve what is called a full norm.
- If you achieve a good performance in a qualifying chess tournament, you should be awarded a half norm, and you are part qualified.
If you do the same in a second tournament, you become fully qualified and will be invited to the trials.
The exact number of points needed for a good performance varies and will be announced during each tournament.
It will often mean scoring more points in a competition than you give away.
- If you achieve an excellent performance in just one tournament, you will be awarded a full norm and will be invited to the trials.
An excellent performance means finishing first, or in some cases second.
Even if you have already been nominated, you are strongly advised to play in at least two events.
The seven qualifying tournaments you can chose from are:
The links take you to other pages that tell you more about each event – where it is held, how its organised and who to contact for more details or an entry form etc.
(The menu in the top left corner also has links to these tournament pages.).
Inter-Association players
If you are 9 or 10 and play board 1 for your EPSCA under 11 Inter-Association chess team in the interassociation championships, you can be nominated to play in the team trials.
If the board 1 player is under 9, they are too young to play for England, so board 2 may be nominated instead.
If the board 1 player was part of last year's England team, they are automatically invited to a separate competition, and again board 2 may be nominated instead.
NOTE:
If you play board 1 for you EPSCA Inter-Association team, and then qualify again through the qualifying tournaments, your EPSCA association does not get a second nomination.
Trials for the England under 11 chess team The England U11 chess team trials are held in April each year.
You have to be invited to take part, you cannot ask for an entry form.
As explained above, invitations are sent to players who were either nominated by their EPSCA association or were successful in the qualifying events.
Players from last year’s England team who are still young enough to play, are invited to a separate competition.
The trials involve 6 games, played over Saturday and Sunday.
In each game you have to make 30 moves in 45 minutes, followed by a 15 minute quickplay finish.
There are no byes, so you have to play every game.
There are only a set number of places available in the Junior Squad each year.
The exact score you need to reach at the trials in order to be offered a place on the team will vary each year.
It will depend on factors such as how many players go to the trials, how many finish with a particular score, the number of places available, and your performance in the qualifying tournaments.
The players who are selected will join the Junior Squad.
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