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.

Stages

School

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.

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.

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.

Terafinal

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.

List of winners

Year	Winner
1997	Richard Cleveland
1998	Adam Hunt
1999	Thomas Rendle
2000	Lorin D'Costa
2001	Lorin D'Costa
2002	Lorin D'Costa
2003	Lorin D'Costa
2004	Ben Purton
2005	Stephen Gordon
2006	James Hanley
2007	Peter Poobalasingam
2008	Peter Poobalasingam
2009	Felix Ynojosa
2010	Felix Ynojosa
2011	Yang-Fan Zhou
2012	Brandon Clarke
2013	Marcus Harvey
2014	Marcus Harvey
2015	Matthew Wadsworth

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