U9s win EPSCA Zonal - Report by GM Chris Ward
On Saturday 8th March Kent, hosted the EPSCA U9
East Zonal and it was the first opportunity to see how our talented young
players would fair against the best of some of the other counties. Well, they
certainly didn’t let us down as Kent led from the front and ultimately
accelerated away to victory, giving us qualification to the finals and gold
medals all round.
The Kent committee and supporting parents were complimented
on the day’s excellent organisation and as the event was being held at Eltham
School, we were able to give 24 juniors a taste of competition chess at county
level. Each and every one of them did our county proud and the main team of 12 ultimately
finished with a score of 25/36. This was comprised of a reasonable round 1
score of 8, followed by a slight dip with 7 in round 2 before showing our true
colours with an excellent 10 in the final round.
Although the coach (that would be me!) was content with the
final placing, it was also noted that a few unnecessary points were conceded
through not looking out for checks (that both you and your opponent can do) and
on occasion, moving too quickly. Although we must continue writing our moves
down (except when short on time) so that it becomes second nature (helping us
to remain calm and avoid becoming over-excited), I was extremely pleased to see
techniques learnt at our coaching days, being employed to great success.
The KJCA has worked very hard to try to improve both the
numbers and the standard of young players in Kent and this is was a clear
indication that we are going in the right direction. The only sad element is
that we will have to whittle the squad down to 16 for the EPSCA U9 final on
April 26th and that is a decision that will be made straight after
GP6 at Sommerhill. As always we are looking for a good attendance for that
tournament and if you are available, myself and the team managers would
particularly like to see in attendance all who are in contention for team
places.
Congratulations then to the Kent U9 squad for Saturday’s
excellent result:
Haolin Zhao, Ranesh Ratnesan, Robert Akeye-Price, Navieinaah
Haridas, Thomas Gardner, Charlie Metcalfe, Alexander Levin, Huseyin Gueriane,
Saahil Bansal, Abishaik Gnanenthiran, David Dallakyan, Dennis Ivin, Moad
Shamekh, Charlotte Bruce, Anika Roy, Shaun Pasari, Kimball Catling, Oliver
Dobson, Efe Shimwell, Mason Graves-Brown, Yong Gui Wang, Jai Singh Chaturvedi, Ishaan
Yewale, Radha Ratnesan
My conclusion: Pretty good and with definite room for improvement too. We can move on to the final with confidence and further tussles with Barnet as well as the likes of Wey Valley, Sussex and Nottinghamshire in their own back yard. Exciting times!
GM Chris Ward
Well done, we are so proud of you all, from the KJCA.
Full results can be found on the following link:
http://oxfordfusion.com/epsca/TeamsOverall.cfm?EventID=44
