Kent Gold in U18 NYCA Competition, Bronze in the U14!
National Youth Chess Association Under 18 Championship, held at the Matthew Arnold Academy, Northampton on Sunday 23rd September 2012.
An early start to the day did not deter the determination and enthusiasm of our 8 player squad, with a 07.30 start from Eltham College on a cold September morning.
With team spirit welded and a resolute spirit, the first round saw the team take an early lead of 2.5 points after Round 1, with a score of 7/8. The second round proved to be tougher, with a team score of 5.5/8 and now 1.5 points ahead of South Wales. A final push in the last round and another consistent 5.5/8 saw our team cruise to victory, ahead of second place Sussex and Manchester by 3.5 points, a margin rarely seen at this level of competitive chess.
Congratulations to the whole team on a well-deserved victory. Kent have been close to first place in previous years, but not won this tournament since 2005, so a fitting end to the NYCA Under 18 chess ‘careers’ of both Victor Jones and Conrad Allison. Special mention also goes to Rohan Shiatis, the youngest player in the squad and playing on board 2, which is no mean achievement.
Team members in alphabetical order were KJCA U18s: Conrad Allison, Rohan Bansal, Alexei Davies, Victor Jones, Simon Leung, Raunak Rao, Rohan Shiatis and Patrick Smith.
Perfect scores of 3/3 were recorded for Victor Jones (Beths Grammar and Lewisham Chess Club), Conrad Allison (St Olave’s Grammar School and Petts Wood Chess Club), Rohan Bansal (Dulwich College and Lewisham Chess Club) and Simon Leung (Harrow School).
Tony Rao
Under 18 Team Manager
National Youth Chess Association under 14 Championship
On the same day, in the U14 competition, our young team came a solid third with 25.5 points. Most of our players were under 12 but that did not deter our players from scoring 8.5 points out of a maximum of 12 in the first round. After the first round we were in second place 1.5 points behind Sussex. We consistently scored 8.5 points in the next two rounds as well but South Wales surged ahead with scores of 11.5 and 9.5 in those two rounds to finish first with 29.5 points. Sussex came second with 28.5 points
Congratulations to all the players.
The team in board order were Arul Gupta, Girinath Haridas, Alex Selway, Jackson Wen , Francesco Bernardini, Jessica Wen, Zakary Warsop, Michael Gilbert, Michael Green, , Joelle Hakim, Emily Green, and Isabelle Gilbert.
Jackson Wen (Sevenoaks), Jessica Wen (Sevenoaks), Michael Green(Simon Langton Boys Grammar) and Emily Green ( Goodnestone Primary )scored 3/3
Anantha P P Anilkumar
KJCA Teams Manager