Kent come second at the NYCA U12s

Congratulations to the KJCA U12 team who came second at the National Youth Chess Association tournament on Saturday 8th November.  

The day started early with a long journey up to Telford.  Several of the team travelled together by train and  despite delays and signal failure somewhere near Birmingham, we luckily managed to arrive at the venue with ten minutes to spare. 

Some quality chess in the first round resulted in a score of six and half points, which put us in third place behind Sussex and Cheshire & North Wales.   

Then, in the break, we all helped Bobby celebrate his 9th birthday by singing happy birthday and enjoying a piece of birthday cake. A big thanks to his mum for bringing the cake and to Bobby for choosing to play chess for Kent on his special day. 

In the second round the team achieved a very impressive score of nine points, bringing us up into second place.   

In the third round we gained another seven points.  However Sussex remained very strong throughout the competition and we were unable to catch up with them.  

The final scores were: 
Sussex 30 ½  
Kent 22 ½ 
Cheshire & North Wales 21 
South Wales 16 
Manchester  14 
Leicestershire  3 

An extra well done to Freddie Hand on board one, Mikey Watson on board three,  Aurideep Nayak on board six and Efe Shimwell on board twelve, who won all three of their games and gained a medal.  

The players in board order were Freddie Hand, Ximan Mao, Mikey Watson, Guarav Kocher, Bobby Akeya-Price, Aurideep Nayak, Nikhil Chidipothu, Aryan Narayan, Charlie Metcalfe, Mahuaa Verma, Rikin Parikh and Efe Shimwell.  Mihika Verma also played in the reserve games. 

Finally, a mention for Jacob Watson who travelled with the team and, as the only older Kent player at the tournament, played  in the U16 reserve section.  He also scored full points with three wins. 

A big thanks to all the parents and players for travelling to Telford and being part of another great result for the Kent teams.