An aspiring chess grandmaster from Ukraine has been helping Macclesfield youngsters develop their skills.

At the age of 18, Artem Lutsko is already ranked in the top 1500 chess players in the world and is probably just months away from earning a grandmaster ranking.

He recently paid a visit to King's School, where he took on 10 of their best senior players at the same time.

Artem came to live in Rainow in 2022, escaping the war that has terrorised his home in Kyiv.

He says he would love to see his grandfather who is still in the Ukrainian capital and who loved chess and taught him how to play.

 "It's a very sad situation and I am worried for my family," Artem said.

"Of course, I 'd like to see peace and have the opportunity to go back home to visit, but it doesn't look very good at the moment."

 King's chess coach Andrew Ireland described Artem as 'chess royalty', adding that he is 'easily the best player ever to step inside this building'.

"It's just fantastic to have him playing with the King's chess squad," Mr Ireland continued.

Artem took on 10 of King's School's best players at the same time

Artem has been rebuilding his life with the help of Tytherington School.

Teacher, data analyst and chess coordinator, Adam Brown taught Artem GCSE maths, helping him to get a grade seven with limited time to grasp the UK curriculum.

This ensured Artem could go on to study maths, economics and business studies in Tytherington's Sixth Form and he already has offers from Manchester Metropolitan and Salford universities to study Accounting and Finance next year.

"Artem is very popular and much liked at school," Mr Brown said.

On Artem's chess abilities, he added: "He's simply a different level.

"He's always thinking 10 moves ahead.

"When I play him, I sometimes think I am doing reasonably well, but then I'll move a piece and he'll say 'no, no, no' you might gain in the short term but in 10 moves time you will lose. 

"Then he plays out that scenario, shows me where I am going wrong and puts the pieces back in exactly the same position.

"He's happy to help all our players develop their games and we've been to schools and clubs across Macclesfield where he plays a number of players at the same."

Artem needs to get to 2500 ranking points from his current 2400 rating to earn a grandmaster ranking.

It will take at least another three tournaments to achieve this.

He says one of the ways he improves is to analyse every game he plays and work out what he could have done better.

"Every game is different."