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

THE SUMMER  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 – 6.15 PM) – Online on Zoom 

TERM DATES (6 WEEKS): 11th/ 18th/ 25th May & 1st/ 8th/ 15th June 2026

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

COURSE THEME:

Focus on semi-open openings, Middlegames and endgame structures arising from Queen’s Pawn Openings.

Most students neglect to study what to do against white’s queen’s Pawn (1. d4) and focus almost exclusively on King’s Pawn Openings.  In this course, students will be introduced to important opening set-ups (Nimzo-Indian/ Bogo-Indian/ Queen’s Indian/ King’s Indian/ Catalan & Queen’s Gambit Declined.  The focus of this course is to help students work out the best opening for them to play as black but also to get an idea whether they should consider switching to Queen’s Pawn Openings as White. 

Course materials include weekly Puzzle Worksheets, access to Annotated Queen’s Pawn Games in Lichess Studies and a weekly class tournament including analysis and/or 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 Queen’s Pawn Openings under discussion.

Students can play through Annotated Games and puzzle solutions in a dedicated Lichess Study until the 31st August, so they will have enough content to help them build and master their own Queen’s Pawn repertoire over the summer.

COURSE FEES:
60 Euros (10 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 75 minutes on Monday afternoons from  5 – 6.15pm  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.