WIN for Kent U14 Major team at the NYCA

Congratulations to all the players in the Kent U14 Major team for their fantastic result of 1st place at the National Youth Chess Association county tournament.

This keenly fought national contest was held at the Malcolm Arnold Academy, Northampton on Sunday 27th September. There were six other counties competing, South Wales, Berkshire, Cheshire, Leicestershire, Richmond and our close rivals and previous winners, Sussex.

The tournament consisted of three rounds of rapidplay chess and there were 12 board plus a reserve game in each round.

Kent started the competition with a great score of 9½ out of 12 in the first round, which put us in equal first place with Sussex. In the second round Kent gained another 9 points, however the Sussex team played equally well and finished the second round one point ahead of us.

So, with all to play for in the last round, our Kent juniors pulled out all the stops and scored a fantastic 10 out of 12, bringing our overall total to 28½ points.

As the last few game results came in the tensions grew and fingers were crossed to see who had secured the top place. A win and a draw in the games that were head-to-head against Sussex helped to push Kent just ahead.

So, the final scores were:

First Place - Kent on 28½ points.

Second Place - Sussex on 27½ points

Third Place - Berkshire on 23 points

All the Kent players were delighted with their well deserved win. 

The team were: Anantha Anilkumar, Aditya Verma, Francesco Bernardini, Ximan Mao, Mikey Watson, Jacob Watson, Alejando Ito-Aramendia, Aurideep Nayak, Charlie Metcalfe, Nikhil Chidipothu, Mahuaa Verma, Alex Thompson and Huseyin Gueriane.

A big thank you to all the parents and carers who travelled to Northampton and supported our victorious team.