Coaches

Paul McKeown IA

Paul is a well-known and highly experienced chess organiser, arbiter and teacher, with the titles of International Arbiter (IA), Associate Organiser (AO) and FIDE Instructor (FI) conferred by FIDE, the Fédération Internationale des Échecs, or World Chess Federation.

Paul took over the running of Richmond Junior Chess Club when it was at a low ebb, and is delighted that it has turned around and is once more a thriving hot-spot for the development of young chess talent.

If you have a query about the club, ask Paul.

David Okike CM

Chief Coach

Former London Junior champion and Nigerian national champion, David has been awarded the FIDE playing title of Candidate Master (CM), and has devoted the last two decades or so teaching and coaching juniors at all levels. At RJCC the Advanced Group benefits in particular from his experience on a weekly basis.

James Stevenson

Lead Coach (Intermediates)

Known to all his friends as Jim, he is a strong club and county player, who has represented Scotland at senior (S50) level. He has also published a book on Albin Planinc, the Slovenian grandmaster, although his real chess hero is the eleventh world champion, Bobby Fischer.

Jim began teaching chess with Fulham Juniors and with Chess in Schools and Communities (CSC) in 2015, after taking early retirement from a career in accounting. He now teaches chess in various schools.

At Richmond Juniors, Jim leads the Intermediate group, and is responsible for rising standards of teaching provided there.

Xavier Cowan

Lead Coach (Beginners & Novices)

Xavier was a student in a London school in which Chess for Schools and Communities gave weekly chess lessons and a club. Attracted to chess, he joined Fulham Juniors and then Richmond Juniors, which he represented with success in team and individual events. His coaches still remember with awe, how whilst only in Year 7, he composed a deep, aesthetic endgame study based on Troitsky, in which a king and knight mate a king that was smothered by its own pawn.

Now a student at the University of Kingston, Xavier is an active club and county player, who gives his Saturdays to teaching children learning the rudiments of the game at Richmond Juniors.

Richard McMichael FM

Coach (Intermediates)

A strong player of master strength (FIDE Master), known to all as Rick, he has worked with Richmond Juniors since 2017. A Qualified Teacher by trade, he now teaches chess in schools and is currently responsible for our top Intermediate Class (I1).

Sorin Atanasiu

Coach (Intermediates)

Experienced, friendly, and popular with the children, Sorin helps prepare them for those first competitive tournaments. Sorin is a Qualified Teacher and has been working with children since 2003 as a humanities teacher and chess tutor. He also runs an online video chess broadcast with several thousand viewers.

Afamia Mir Mahmoud IA

Coach (Girls)

Afamia, originally from Syria, was national women’s champion 20 times from 1994 to 2014, and drew with Anatoly Karpov, the former world champion, in an exhibition match in 2009. Not only a strong player, she is also an experienced arbiter, awarded the IA (International Arbiter) title by FIDE in 2014. She is also a FIDE Instructor (FI), a title conferred for her work teaching chess, which she does in both the Arabic and English languages.

Afamia is currently responsible for the club’s Girls classes.