UK Chess Challenge

The UK Chess Challenge is an annual four-stage chess competition for school-age children from the United Kingdom. Michael Basman is credited with creating the original challenge back in 1996 and is still closely connected with the competition. In the final 3 stages, most category winners and runners-up win prizes of a book or money, possibly with a certificate and rosette.

The first stage involves school chess clubs holding a qualifying competition to determine the strongest player for each gender-year combination, e.g. U-11 boys, U-12 girls. Each such player qualifies to enter the county Megafinal competition. For schools without chess clubs, there are alternative competitions within the county that will also enable qualification to the Megafinal.

A one-day Megafinal is held within each UK county to determine the strongest player from the county within each gender / year combination. Each such player is titled Supremo (boys) or Suprema (girls). The top player plus all those scoring 4/6 or better qualify for the Gigafinal.

There are two one-day Gigafinals - one for Northern counties; one for Southern counties. As with the Megafinal, each Gigafinal is held to determine the strongest player for the qualifying region within each gender / year combination. Each such player is titled Ultimo (boys) or Ultima (girls). The Ultimo / Ultima players from each Gigafinal qualify to enter the Terafinal Champions competition. Until 2002, the two runners-up in each category qualified to enter the Terafinal Challengers competition. From 2003, each player scoring 5/6 or better qualifies for the Terafinal Challengers competition.

There are two two-day Terafinal competitions - the Terafinal Champions competition for the Ultimo / Ultima qualifiers from the Gigafinals, and the Terafinal Challengers competition for the runners-up. Over two days, the Champions competition identifies the strongest player in each category. Such players are titled Strat (boys or girls) and usually win a substantial prize.

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