Special Events

It’s only 43 days till the start of the 2026 Australian Junior Chess Championship and we’re starting to get excited about this upcoming celebration of chess.

We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve organised a number of special events to coincide with the championship.

GM Anton Smirnov Simultaneous Exhibition - 17 January, National Portrait Gallery

Australia’s highest rated chess player (and former Australian Junior Champion) GM Anton Smirnov will be visiting Canberra during the Junior Chess Championship to play a simul against 30 lucky players at the NPG.

IM Junta Ikeda Simultaneous Exhibition - 18 January, East Hotel

Local Canberran (and former Australian Junior Champion) IM Junta Ikeda will be playing a simul against 15 lucky players at East Hotel during the Junior Chess Championship.

Searching for Bobby Fischer Movie Screening - 20 January, National Portrait Gallery

If you’d like a break from playing chess then why not watch a movie about chess?Join us at the Liangis Theatre at the NPG for a screening of the Searching for Bobby Fischer and enjoy the portraits while you’re there.

Events for everyone

We’d like everyone who is coming to Canberra for the championship to have a great time, so we hope many visiting players can also come to these special events. We also realise different people are participating in games in different sections at a variety of times so not everyone will be able to come to all the events. We’ve scheduled the special events at different times and at different venues, so hopefully there’s one or two that interest you.

We’d also like to take this opportunity to share our love of chess with the wider community, so whilst we hope to see many juniors at these events, they’re also open to the general public.