Junior title holder

[Roger de Coverly]

The latest article on the chessbase site is from Malcolm.
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7903

The first paragraph :-

It was the closing dinner of the London Chess Classic 2011, where it is tradition for the tournament GMs to play a sequential simul against the individual tables. At one there was the Shadow Secretary to the Treasury Rachel Reeves, together with other notables. With some minimum assistance Rachel found a nice bishop sac to win the game. No wonder: she was a UK U14 girls champion.

It wasn't one of the better known ones and the article is careful to say a not the. Does anyone recall where and when? It would have been mid nineties presumably.

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

She was certainly never the British U14 Champion, either girls or open.

My first thought was that perhaps she won an U14 girls Gigafinal in 1993, but the UK Chess Challenge didn't start until 1996.

The only thing I could find was an under 100 (grade, not age) tournament in which she was =1st in 1993:
http://surreychesscongress.co.uk/2007_PD/winners.html

[Christopher Kreuzer]

She was certainly never the British U14 Champion, either girls or open.

My first thought was that perhaps she won an U14 girls Gigafinal in 1993, but the UK Chess Challenge didn't start until 1996.

The only thing I could find was an under 100 (grade, not age) tournament in which she was =1st in 1993:
http://surreychesscongress.co.uk/2007_PD/winners.html

[John McKenna]

I recall - from visits to play matches - a young Rachel Reeves at Hayes (nr. Bromley, Kent) club and seem to remember an older brother who was strong player for the club (and county?)

[Alan Walton]

It may have been the old junior squad tournaments held at Oakham

I know that my younger brother (Paul) won the U12s in 1990, it was normally regarded as the next best junior tournament to win after the British Champs

It could be likely she may have won this in 1992 or 1993, I remember Rachel being at the British in Dundee for a few days in 1993

[Paul Dargan]

Rachel Reeves who used to be at the Bank Of England?

Paul

[David Shepherd]

Could it be a BWCA title?

[Roger de Coverly]

Rachel Reeves who used to be at the Bank Of England?

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Reeves, then yes.

This contains the U-14 title comment based on an interview with Stephen Moss of the Guardian.

[John Upham]

Interestingly Rachel

enjoys wedding cakes

I'm not clear if this means the production, observation, collecting of or consumption of said cakes. Anyone able to shed light on this hobby?

The latin name for this hobby is unknown to me.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Rachel was a decent if not brilliant player - as her data on the ECF grading website confirms.

Her younger sister, Ellie, also played a bit (didn't know previously she also had a brother chessist, though)

Put it this way - she has more genuine claims than many "chess playing celebrities"

[Roger de Coverly]

Put it this way - she has more genuine claims than many "chess playing celebrities"

Undoubtedly.

If it's an exaggeration to say Girl's U14 champion and more accurate to say championship standard at the age of 13 or 14, it's best that it be corrected, for this forum anyway. It doesn't help that neither the BCF Junior Squad (now the NYCS) or the BWCA have made their archives of past champions available on-line.

[David Shepherd]

According to chess magazine November 2011 it was a BWCA title http://www.ukgamesshop.com/Merchant2/do ... 1_MIVA.pdf

PS Thanks to another past BWCA champion for pointing this out

[Roger de Coverly]

According to chess magazine November 2011 it was a BWCA title

The article describes the visit of CSC and Kasparov to Westminster.

I think that clears that up. The Guardian piece (and wiki) could have had (BWCA) in it. It's probably only important to chess players and the forum as a repository of little known history.

[Sabrina Chevannes]

The BWCA is still a British title and a good one at that. The BWCA was a great organisation that helped encourage and inspire many girls and women in chess. I do hope it can make a comeback. These BWCA titles were more popular than the British Girls' titles at the time because they didn't require you to spend a week in the summer somewhere in England, which was rather expensive and most families wanted to go abroad. It was just a weekend somewhere, which was easier and affordable with time and money.

Congrats to Rachel. I saw her playing at the CSC Houses of Parliament event and I was impressed with her standard of play considering she hasn't played competitively for so long! After her activity in all these chess events, she is probably one of England's more active females

Any chance of having her for the Olympiad Loz? :p

[LawrenceCooper]

The BWCA is still a British title and a good one at that. The BWCA was a great organisation that helped encourage and inspire many girls and women in chess. I do hope it can make a comeback. These BWCA titles were more popular than the British Girls' titles at the time because they didn't require you to spend a week in the summer somewhere in England, which was rather expensive and most families wanted to go abroad. It was just a weekend somewhere, which was easier and affordable with time and money.

Congrats to Rachel. I saw her playing at the CSC Houses of Parliament event and I was impressed with her standard of play considering she hasn't played competitively for so long! After her activity in all these chess events, she is probably one of England's more active females

Any chance of having her for the Olympiad Loz? :p

If she's in the top five available players then yes. She seems somewhat short on games and graded a long way below recent team members albeit I'm not sure how many of the four grading records below belong to her.

http://www.ecfgrading.org.uk/?ref=267651F
http://www.ecfgrading.org.uk/?ref=132314D
http://www.ecfgrading.org.uk/?ref=151088F
http://www.ecfgrading.org.uk/?ref=157228D

It's nice to see she retains an interest in the game.