Sunshine Chess Academy

06/12/2025

Come on all current and past ChessStars and Friends of Fernvale… get into it!

BULLWINKLE'S 2025 CHRISTMAS ARENA BATTLE!

Bullwinkle's annual Christmas arena battle has been scheduled for Saturday 20th December, running for 2 hours from 7pm on Lichess:

https://lichess.org/tournament/6BoRjSUd

Time control = 7+5
Top 7 scores count per team
Unrated
Arena Streaks on

All the clubs that participated last year have been added to the start list. Other clubs who have played against Bullwinkle in the past, and would like to take part, please drop a note in the comments.

Players who are online members of participating clubs can join at any time leading up to the event (and even once it starts) - just click the big green JOIN button. If you're a member of more than one club, you'll be asked to nominate which one you're representing.

Those who have joined will be automatically paired at 7pm. Once each game finishes, players will be re-paired unless they hit the PAUSE button. (You can then rejoin at any time.)

Draws shorter than 30 moves will receive 0 points.

Game on!

02/12/2025

The 2025 Christmas Special will be held at Grace Lutheran College in Rothwell on the 6th and 7th of December. The time control for this event is 60 + 30 and will be QJ, ACF and FIDE rated. The players entry fee is $100.

The total prize fund for this event is $4000. All participating players must be current members of the CAQ. A yearly membership can be found here:

caq.org.au

All the details can be found in the following flyer.

22/11/2025

Looks like great fun if you’d like a trip up the range. Ted runs great events!

Thank you to Bakers Delight for generously preparing and gifting this yummy chess board for tomorrow’s chess tournament 🙏

We have fewer than five spaces remaining for the fun DJ Chess event. See comments for registration …

17/11/2025

*** Attention***

Chess Club at Fernvale tomorrow (Tuesday 18th) will not be on. The Chess Club will resume next week for the last time in 2026 with a Lightning tournament.
Sorry for any inconvenience.
Geoff Butler

16/11/2025

It's a busy end to the year with one day events and holiday programs all being held in the next month!

These events are perfect for working towards, or improving a QJ rating and provide a great end of year event for all who take part.

28/10/2025

Thanks to Dr David McKinnon for this service and to GardinerChess for this post.
Well done to those ChessStars who improved their rating! 👏

Ratings, Ratings, Ratings! The latest November Queensland Junior Ratings have just been sent through to us by the legend Dr. McKinnon who works tirelessly on these every couple of month.

4200 players on the list, a record 447 events submitted for this list, 227 new players added to the list.

3 players went up by over 200 points!!

1. Maksim Pluzhnikov +234
2. Joshua Wan +231
3. Peter Kininmonth +210

In total, 10 players went up over 150 points which is absolutely massive.

The 'top lists' can be access via https://gardinerchess.com.au/queensland-junior-ratings-november-2025/. From there you can click through to the main rating page.

16/09/2025

The end of term is nearly here and that means there are a bunch of upcoming events, starting this weekend with the Nell Van de Graaff Classic (NVDG)!

The NVDG is a classical event (60+10) which is not only an individual event, but features a teams twist! Split across two divisions (Junior only division and Open) this is a great fun event which always gets a great turnout.

Weekend of 20 and 21 September at William Duncan State School, Highland Park.

During the holidays, we have three holiday programs to keep the kids entertained! - Brisbane South (Week 1), Brisbane North and Gold Coast (both Week 2). Each holiday program features lessons, tournament games and the ever popular Cup tournament days!

Check the link in the comments to register for these events! We look forward to seeing everyone there!

31/08/2025

Yesterday we held our August Sunset One-day event at Fernvale SS. It was a great afternoon of junior Chess! Probably the strongest one-dayer we have run at Fernvale, featuring players from Toowoomba, Ipswich, Springfield, Brisbane and of course Fernvale and surrounds. Congratulations and thank you to all the fine young players that made my job of running the event so easy… it never ceases to amaze me how you can put 40 plus children, from Years 2 to 12 and from such diverse backgrounds, into a room for 5 hours and you don’t hear a single complaint, no arguments or even a cross word. The power of Chess! 👌
Thank you to Ted for his assistance during the event and also to Alex for his assistance. Also, as it was the final weekend event we will run at Fernvale, thank you to Ted Carter from Ascend Learning, Les Lord from Toowoomba, Andrew FitzPatrick from GardinerChess and Nigel Greave from IGS for their support of our events over the past 7 years. Most appreciated gentlemen! 🙏

The results were as follows:
1st Trophy - Harrison M 6/7TB
2nd Trophy - Isaac C 6/7TB
3rd Trophy - Oliver S 5.5/7

1st Most Improved Medal - Louie Z +23
2nd Most Improved Medal - Isla M +22
3rd Most Improved Medal - Judyanna W +19

Congratulations to all those players!
Please find below some pictures from the event and also the final results and rating changes.
Kind regards to all, Geoff Butler

29/08/2025

Thank you to GardinerChess and to Dr McKinnon for his tireless service to QLD junior chess.
Yes, tomorrow’s event will be using these new QJ ratings.

Dr. David McKinnon has released the latest Queensland Junior ratings for September and we have put them up on the website ready for investigation!

This is the first time that the whole top 10 of the list are 1900+!

Biggest Improver: Evan Xia (+171)
Most Games: Julian Hsu (93 games)

Full lists (and link to main ratings page) can be found at https://gardinerchess.com.au/queensland-junior-ratings-september-2025/

27/08/2025

Hi all,
The upcoming August Sunset Weekender has been cancelled. Entered players will be contacted and offered a full refund or part refund and entry to the Saturday One-day event. The One Day event is definitely going ahead with a large and strong field… and we have room for more!
Sorry for any inconvenience.
Kind regards to all, Geoff Butler

24/08/2025

⭐️ Just one week to go until our August Sunset junior chess events ⭐️

All registration details below.

We look forward to seeing your child(ren) at quiet, safe, child-friendly Fernvale next weekend.
Any queries, please do not hesitate to contact me through this page or privately.
Kind regards to all, Geoff Butler

For our final ever Chess adventure at Fernvale, we are running two events on the weekend of the 30th/31st of August. A full weekend of Chess! Your child(ren) may choose to play in one or the other, but it is possible to play both… a $50 entry applies and registration must be made for both…any ch...

16/08/2025

⭐️⭐️ That’s right… only 2 weekends to go until our next (and last) events at Fernvale! ⭐️⭐️

We look forward to seeing your keen chess-playing child(ren) at quiet, safe, child-friendly Fernvale SS in a fortnight. A great Saturday afternoon? A full weekend of slow Chess? Or both? 😉

We have some strong players (as well as some just starting) already entered in both events… going to be some great Chess.

Registration below… any queries, please feel free to ask… Geoff Butler

For our final ever Chess adventure at Fernvale, we are running two events on the weekend of the 30th/31st of August. A full weekend of Chess! Your child(ren) may choose to play in one or the other, but it is possible to play both… a $50 entry applies and registration must be made for both…any ch...