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About the League

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Each team fields six players ranked from board 1 (the strongest player) to board 6. A match between two teams involves each child being paired up in a game against their counterpart (i.e. board 1 from one school plays board 1 from another etc.) If a school has enough players, they cab field a B-team , in which case their six strongest players must comprise the A-team with the 7th to 12th ranked players making up the B-team. Similarly, the 13th to 18th players would play a C-team, etc.

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Each child scores one point for their team by winning their game and half a point for drawing. This gives the following seven possible match results: 6-0, 5.5-0.5, 5-1, 4.5-1.5, 4-2, 3.5-2.5, 3-3.

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Matches are played using chess clocks with both players having 15 minutes plus a 5-second increment per move.

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Alumni are allowed to continue representing their school after leaving to balance the mix of primary and secondary schools. If they move to another school in the league, they can choose which team they play for. If a player is a member of a club which takes part in the league as well as a school, they must prioritise their school, to guard against the advantage clubs have in being able to hand-pick the strongest players from every school in the county.

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The competition is divided into two divisions: Carlsen and Kasparov, with the top three teams from Kasparov promoted to Carlsen and the bottom three from Carlsen relegated to Kasparov. The league is played using a round robin system if there are 16 teams in a division, and a Swiss system if there are more than 16.​

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