The UK Chess Challenge is the largest and sternest test in British junior chess. It attracts over 60,000 children each year from over 2,000 schools. We are now at the Megafinal stage, which sees the county's best players fighting it out within their age groups for a place in July's Southern Gigafinal. The winners from the Southern and Northern Gigafinals will qualify for the Terafinal in August, which has a top prize of £2,000. So while tomorrow's event will be a litmus test for many in terms of county team inclusion, some will have bigger ideas. Among the latter group will be Aylesbury's William Claridge-Hansen who finished in a tie for 8th in the 2011 Terafinal; a very impressive achievement for an Under 11 in an Under 18 competition. 8 year old Waqub Saeed of Hamilton School also enjoyed success last year by finishing 2nd= in the Southern Gigafinal.

There have been a number of recent successes by Bucks Juniors in local and national tournaments. Chief amongst these was Jamie Tilston's first place at the English Under 16 championship in Kingston Upon Thames, which he shared with Yorkshire's Oskar Hackner. Jamie is still only Under 15 so will have an opportunity next year to do the double in this event.

Bucks players also conducted a clean sweep of the podium places in the Maidenhead Under 9 Congress. Boris Pastukhov won with 6/7, while Waqub Saeed and Douglas Claridge-Hansen finished in clear 2nd and 3rd respectively. Stepan Kenonko wasn't far behind in a tie for 4th on 4½/7. Impressively, and against convention, Kenonko did however manage to tie for 3rd in the Under 10 section.

You can follow me on Twitter @buckschess. I realise I haven't been at all prolific on that account yet, but I'll be making an effort to do so, particularly during the World Championship which started today.

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