Monday After-School Kids Club – Advanced (1400 – 2000)

THE SEPTEMBER  2026 TERM IS NOW ENROLLING: If you miss the beginning of term, don’t worry, there is continuous enrolment! Sign up anytime and only pay for the remaining classes!

MONDAY AFTERNOONS: (5 – 6.30 PM) – Online on Zoom 

TERM DATES (6 WEEKS): 7th/ 14th/ 21st September & 4th/ 11th/18th October 2026

COURSE LEVEL:
Primary & Secondary School Kids; Rated 1400 – 2000 ELO

COURSE THEME:

Beating the Sicilians: Exploring dangerous set-ups for white to try in the Open Sicilian.  

As King’s Pawn players rise through the ranks, they invariably face more Sicilians.  Players who play 1. e4 are drawn towards open, tactical games.  Yet, to play the Open Sicilian as white means having to prepare for over 20 major systems and 60 or so sub-lines.  Many players play the Alapin and Closed Sicilians or Grand-Prix Attack but sooner or later the law of dimishing returns kicks in and players realise that these anti-Sicilians are sidelines for a reason.  Something sharper, something more tactical is required to really put the Sicilian under pressure. 

From September to December, the goal of the Advanced Class will be to help each student to find the right Ant-Sicilian repertoire to suit their playing style.   

Course materials include weekly Puzzle Worksheets, access to Mark’s Annotated Games in Anti-Sicilian set-ups, as well as a weekly class tournament including analysis/ immediate feedback on student games. 

COURSE DETAIL:

Group analysis, strategic thinking and calculating accurately is the core of this course.  Students will be given a set of difficult puzzles and tricky middlegame challenges to mull over in advance of each class.  The positions that students will be challenged to solve will come from specific Sicilian variations under discussion.

Students can play through Annotated Games and puzzle solutions in a dedicated Lichess Study for two months following the end of the course.

COURSE FEES:
90 Euros (15 Euro per student per class)
This course will run with a minimum of 6 students.  If cancelled, a full refund will be issued.

If joining a few classes into the term, just email mark@chessbud.ie to find out the correct amount based on the remaining classes in the term.

MORE INFORMATION ABOUT COURSE
The group meets once a week on Zoom for 90 minutes on Monday afternoons from  5 – 6.30pm  The course is reserved for primary and secondary school kids who  have an online or over-the-board rating of 1400 – 2000 Elo.  The weekly tournament is played on lichess.org so students must have a free lichess account to take part in class tournaments.