A Chess Journey - From beating my teacher to captaining our school team
The English Chess Federation runs seven different Inter-Schools Chess Competitions for participating schools which you can see on the web page here: https://englishchess.org.uk/Schools/ - These generally include qualifying stages and finals which take place throughout the School Year with increasing numbers of schools taking park.
This week we have another Chess Journey - this time from Filip Kaczmarek who takes us through his journey from beating his maths teacher to captaining his school team in one of the ECF schools championship events.
ECF Home Development Director Yuri Krylov introduces Filip's story - 'I first met Filip through school chess, and we’ve played many enjoyable games together. Although he is still new to the game, his enthusiasm, curiosity and determination always stand out, and I have no doubt he will beat me before he leaves school. Players like Filip remind us that chess is not just the realm of elite grandmasters but something that belongs to everyone in the community. I have been able to persuade the school to enter a team into an ECF schools rapidplay event taking place at Eton College and I’m happy to see how excited Filip is, stepping up to be the team captain and taking charge of the training.
As luck would have it, when his team travels to Eton for the national Secondary School event, I will be there too - as an arbiter and representative of the English Chess Federation. It does mean I won’t get to see Filip’s team compete directly; I’ll be caught up in the wonderful chaos of running a school tournament, racing around the halls while the brilliant Neill Cooper keeps everything on track. Still, I know I’ll rack up more steps than on my usual lazy Sunday, and I’m already looking forward to debriefing with the St Joseph’s team afterwards—once the dust settles and their very first ECF ratings are awarded.'
From beating my teacher to captaining our school team - By Filip Kaczmarek
My chess journey began in year 7 when I started playing chess by watching friends who played chess avidly at school. At first, I was clueless how to play the game, but I found inspiration from content creators that made content on chess like Chess with Akeem, Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru and Gotham chess. They helped me find chess relaxing and fun in a way that was educational. I found the game of chess a test of patience, including practicing the variety of different strategies in different games. When I started playing chess, I had no plan, no idea what piece to move, or any openings. Through practice and dedication, I understood how the game is played, how to move each piece, however I didn’t understand the variety of different openings that existed. I found that learning openings was always a challenge as many opponents would play openings that I hadn’t learnt or understood. I spent a lot of time learning the Italian opening as well as gaining some knowledge about how there are different levels in ability, and stages in a chess game. At first, I was ecstatic that I managed to memorise an opening, but this was only the beginning of the journey.
During a game that I played against Mr Stewart, a maths teacher at my school, who is a chess fanatic, I deployed my opening, whilst not completely understanding how to transition into the middle game. I was indecisive, making the next moves which led to one mistake after another. I kept trying to find moves that I thought were good, but my opponents were always a move ahead of me. At my level, Chess is about punishing an opponent's mistake and capitalising on that mistake to win, while not blundering myself. I played many games with one of my close friends on chess.com, both for fun and to improve. Because we started at a similar time, our matches were always close and full of blunders we didn’t notice during play. Using the in-game analysis helped us spot our mistakes and understand the alternative moves that could have changed each result. With this new knowledge, I felt composed while playing Mr. Stewart - there were many positions where I would find the critical move, however, he would always find a way to turn the game to his advantage. I found the games very challenging between us, but I persevered to be better. The games we played were close every time. However, experience sometimes beats a lot of practice as my teacher taught me. After a few games, I eventually was able to outplay him with every move being well thought out. Patience, practice and perseverance allowed me to improve.
Being new to chess, I was an incredible moment – beating a seasoned player who also happened to be my maths teacher. When I play against other students, I now feel more confident which allows me to find moves quicker whilst looking ahead to see their next plays. I’ve grown to find joy in the mistakes that I make in chess as they allow me to improve at the game.
At St Joseph’s Catholic School in Slough, I signed up for our chess tournament and felt nervous at first, unsure of my ability. We played against several strong teams, including Eton and Herschel Grammar, whose players were fast, confident and clearly experienced. Our opening match against Herschel’s A team was tough, and none of us managed a win, but it helped me refocus for the later rounds. As the tournament went on, our team stayed positive, fought hard in every game, and earned a mix of wins and losses. By the end, we finished 3rd overall and received bronze medals—a result I was proud of given the level of competition. Personally, I won four games and lost two, and the experience showed me how many different levels exist within chess. I also realised how much I still needed to improve my endgame, especially checkmating techniques, which I often struggled with under pressure.
There are hundreds of ways to checkmate someone, but the only checkmate I knew was the ladder checkmate. Typically of my chess level, I struggled to finish the game off without stalemating. I came across a quote that really inspired me: “If we’re not making mistakes, then we’re not making decisions.” It reminded me that both in chess and in life, progress only happens when we take action and are willing to learn from our choices.
Now I am stepping up and helping to organise our school team to compete in the ECF Secondary Schools rapidplay event at Eton College. I’ve been named team captain, and I’ve been recruiting players from across St Joseph’s who are keen to take part. We’re now working out our training schedule and hoping to get Mr Stewart to coach us so we can perform at our best on the day.
The tournament takes place on Sunday 18th January 2026 at Eton College, it’s a five-round Swiss rapidplay event with digital clocks (20 minutes + 5 seconds per move), and all games will be ECF-rated - meaning our whole team has the chance to earn their first official rating. Teams consist of six players from Years 7 - 13, and schools can enter one or two teams depending on capacity. With places capped at 80 teams and the entry deadline on 30th November 2025, we’re working hard to prepare. There will be two sections (Open and Major), organised by average team rating. For me, this tournament is the next step in my chess journey, and I’m excited to test how far I’ve come while leading my school at such a major event.
