My Students Shine at the Lebanese Youth Chess Championship

Few things make a coach prouder than watching students walk up to collect their medals. At the Lebanese Youth Chess Championship, my students didn't just participate — they fought on the top boards and came home with podium finishes. Here's a look at their achievements and the work behind them.

The Honor Roll

These young players put in months of serious preparation, and it showed over the board. Here are the results, year after year:

2026

• Jad El Akl — U16 Champion. Jad's journey from 1220 FIDE to over 2000 culminated in the national title.
• Mohammad Jawad Kaafarani — U8 Champion with a perfect 7/7 score. Seven rounds, seven wins.

2025

• Sebastien Girard — 2nd place U16, plus a first-place finish at the AEFE chess tournament. His rating climbed more than 300 points in just a couple of months on the back of a sharper opening repertoire and stronger endgame technique.
• Peter Haddad — 3rd place U16. Just five months earlier, Peter was a 1300-rated online player learning from YouTube videos. Today he plays at 2000 strength.
• Anthony Mouawad — 3rd place U14, adding to his 2nd-place finishes in 2023 and 2024. Three consecutive years on the podium.

2024

• Sally Hamadeh — U14 Champion with a perfect 7/7 score. Sally was also selected among the top 5 girls in Lebanon to represent the country at the Chess Olympiad.
• Louay and Qusay El Jawich — brothers finishing 1st and 2nd in the U8 category with 7/7 and 6/7. A family podium sweep.
• Michel Atayan — 2nd place after tying for 1st, with the title decided only in blitz tie-break games. Championship pressure at its most intense.

2023

• Sergio Mouawad — U8 Champion.
• Anthony Mouawad — 2nd place, the first of his three consecutive podium years.

Top Boards, Familiar Faces

One of my favorite moments of the championship: looking across the top boards and seeing my students facing each other. When your students are competing among themselves for the podium, you know the training environment is working. Each of them brought their own personal opening repertoire — no two played the same way, because no two were taught the same way.

"Honestly I feel like Coach Nicholas's students are always on top boards fighting against each other and each one has their own opening repertoire."

— Peter Haddad, 3rd place U16

What Made the Difference

Championship results don't come from talent alone. Here's what these students did differently in the months before the event:

• A personal opening repertoire: Each student built openings suited to their style — not generic lines copied from videos.
• Endgame technique: Youth games are decided in the endgame more often than people think. We drilled the essential patterns until converting winning positions became automatic.
• Game analysis: Every tournament and training game was reviewed. Finding and fixing recurring mistakes is the fastest path to rating gains.
• Competitive practice: Regular play against strong opposition — including each other — so championship pressure felt familiar, not frightening.

What Young Players Can Take From This

If your child is preparing for a youth championship, the lesson from these results is simple: structured preparation beats raw hours. Five months of focused training took Peter from casual online player to national podium finisher. The ingredients — a tailored repertoire, endgame fundamentals, and honest game review — are available to any motivated young player.