About

Chess Classes and Club Meetups

We are a voluntary Junior Chess Club to cater for children from the North Kildare Area. Our current members come from Enfield, Kilcock, Clane, Maynooth, Leixlip and Surrounding Areas.

We’ve moved our Club Online due to COVID19 restrictions

We host all of our Club activities online through the Zoom service (presenting with Chessbase for coaching) and lichess.org for our weekly Club Fun Blitz/Rapid tournaments.

To learn more about how to join in, email:

northkildarechess@gmail.com

The current Club Schedule is as follows:

Monday evenings 7:00pm – 8:00pm

Chess Fundamentals Class.   

This class runs continuously in term cycles of 8-10 weeks, covering all of the basics of Chess. There is NO cost for attending the classes (you just need access to Zoom and an adequately fast Internet connection to support Zoom video streaming). Attendees are welcome to return to some or all of the next run of the Course for revision.

Topics covered include:

  • The Board and Pieces, how they move, attack and capture
  • The Rules 
  • Check, Checkmate, Stalemate
  • How to Win, why we lose
  • Must-know Checkmates
  • Tactics, Strategy and Opening Principles
Tuesday Evenings 7:00pm – 8:00pm

Chess Catch-up for Beginners

This class was setup to help beginners make a start in Chess and get a basic foundation to allow them to join the current group of Fundamentals Class members and Club meetup players. The pace is relaxed with the main goal being to provide a comfortable introduction to the basics of Chess.

Some resources for the topics on this course are available on:

North Kildare Chess Club Youtube Channel
www.nkchess.com/learningThe Learning page on this website
Thursday Evenings 7:00pm – 8:00pm

Chess Catch-up for ADULT Beginners

This class is for Adult beginners and improvers who are either making a start in Chess or looking to consolidate their Chess knowledge in a more organised framework.

Friday Evenings 7:00pm – 7:30pm

Weekly Club Meetup on Zoom

This is a chance to catch up and do some Chess work, such as solving puzzles on a shared screen with Chessbase.

This is followed immediately by:

Friday Evenings 7:30pm – 8:30pm

Fun Friday Blitz on lichess.org

This is a fun tournament for Club members, friends and family using the widely used free Chess web site https://lichess.org

The Ethos and Origins of North Kildare Chess Club

We aim to provide a fun and friendly venue for children, 6 to 17 years of age, to learn and play chess.

The club is the brain child of two cub scouts (Darragh from Kilcock and Darius from Maynooth) who came up with the idea as a route to their chief scout award. Both were frustrated by the distances they had to travel to play chess and they wanted to share their love of the game with others.