News
First Kent GP 2012/13 season
The first GP of the season (also a London Junior Qualifier) was held on Sunday 16th September at Colfe's Prep School (Horn Park Lane, London, SE12 8AW) with 69 participants competing across five sections.
Section winners were: U8: Robert Akeya-Price (6 / 6), U10: Robert Dybowski and Danyal Warsop (5 / 6), U12: Jackson Wen (5.5 / 6), U14: Alexander Selway and Owen Messere (4.5 / 5) and U18: Rohan Bansal (5 / 5).
Details on the remaining GPs and training days will follow shortly.
William Jones and Callum Kilpatrick competing in the World Juniors in Greece....
Best of luck to William Jones and Callum Kilpatrick (two of our Kent Juniors from the not too distant past) who are both currently playing at the World Junior Chess Championships in Athens, Greece. They are part of a strong England contingent looking to gain valuable experience.Two Juniors from Kent Crowned British Junior Chess Champions 2012!
Kent Juniors Selected to Represent England in the European Youth Chess Championships in Prague!
Congratulations to some of our top juniors who have been selected to represent England at the Europeans. They are Patrick Smith (U16s), Rohan Shiatis (U14s), Conor Murphy (U14s), Arul Gupta (U12s), Girinath Haridas (U12s). The tournament runs from the 16th August until 26th August and you can follow their progress on the following link:
We wish them all the best and hopefully we can publish some of their best games here!
An exciting day at the Kent Grand Prix Final!
On Sunday July 1st, 76 brave juniors came along to do battle at the GP final in Sevenoaks. It was a very exciting day as there were overall GP prizes at stake as well as section results.
Once the dust had settled after the day of chess and GP scores were tallied, we were able to unveil our Overall Kent GP 2011-2012 Champions. They were as follow:
U9 Kent GP Champion 2011-2012 : Kiran Shiatis (123.4 points)
Detailed results on http://www.kjca.org/GPTable/view/1
U11 Kent GP Champion 2011 – 2012: Jackson Wen (130.6 points)
Detailed results on http://www.kjca.org/GPTable/view/2
U14 Kent GP Champion 2011 – 2012: Patrick Smith (152.9 points)
Detailed results on http://www.kjca.org/GPTable/view/3
U18 Kent GP Champion 2011 – 2012: Duncan Bell (176.1 points)
Detailed results on http://www.kjca.org/GPTable/view/4
All the sections were hard fought and final results for the day's tournaments being as follows:
U9: 1st
Tobias Albrecht, 2nd Mikey Watson, 3rd equal Sachin Wadhwani
and Ryan Malik
U11: 1st
Harry Houllion and Alex Sheerin, 3rd equal Ronit Nair and Nii-Akwei
Carty Bing-Pappoe
U14: 1st
Owen Messere, 2nd equal Jackson Wen, Jessica Wen and Lucy Ayliffe
U18: 1st
Duncan Bell, 2nd equal Rohan Bansal and Patrick Smith.
Congratulations to all the children who played such super chess. A big thank you to all our wonderful volunteers in particular Martha Gilbert for catering, Sue Maguire for all her work throughout the year, Michael Gilbert for running it all, our arbiters for the day Andrew Shiatis, Luca Bernardini, Anil Anilkumar and Rajadurai Haridas and to Sevenoaks School for the wonderful facilities on the day.
EPSCA Under 9 Final
Many thanks to all the Kent children and parents who came along to the EPSCA U9 final held at the Malcolm Arnold Academy in Northampton. There was a fantastic team spirit and some superb chess was played by all.
Kent finished a credible 6th in the end, having regrouped and bounced back from a groggy start leaving us in 11thplace after round 1. The children showed good fighting spirit, scoring a resounding 9 out of 12 in round 2; a promising sign for future events to come as they continue to play chess and progress up through the age groups. There were some excellent performances by all the players and a full report will follow.
A huge thank you to the team managers, Rachel Gardner and Krishna Shiatis, and to GM Chris Ward our coach, all of whom put in a lot of hard work for this event and did an excellent job in bringing the team together and encouraging them on the day.
A big thank you also to Northamptonshire, who as always provided a fantastic venue and put on a well organised and slick event.
In the end it was Barnet's day and many congratulations
to them for winning the final, having led all the way from start to finish. Sussex
were second with Wey Valley just a further 2 pts behind in
third.
Final placings and scores were:
1 Barnet 30 points
2 Sussex
28.5 pts
3 Wey Valley
26.5 pts
4
Nottinghamshire 24 pts
5 Wiltshire
21.5 pts
6 Kent 19
pts
7=
Buckinghamshire 18.5 pts
7= Berkshire
18.5 pts
9=
Manchester 16.5 pts
9= Yorkshire
16.5 pts
11
Hertfordshire 16 pts
12
Northamptonshire 15.5 pts
13=
Oxfordshire 15 pts
13= Richmond
15 pts
15 Oldham
12.5 pts
16 Essex
11.5 pts
17 Cheshire
& North Wales 11 pts
18
Lancashire 8 pts
Kent U14 win the SCCU Open event (report by Rohan Shiatis)
Team members: Rohan Shiatis, Girinath Haridas, Alexander Selway, Jackson Wen, Michael Gilbert, James Meredith, Anantha Anilkumar and Francesco Bernardini.There is always that special story to tell with every hard fought victory. Every county and virtually every player will talk about that elusive half point that evaded them or that they managed to grind out through sheer obstinacy, or that victory which somehow turned to defeat or that win from a completely lost position. This tournament had it all and more.
The counties entered were Kent, Essex, Surrey, Berkshire and Sussex and excitement mounted as all counties were still within a shout of winning going into the last round.
Kent were equal first with Berkshire. Surrey were just a point behind and Essex a seemingly distant fourth. Then for Kent, three early losses in the last round started the heart racing. Perhaps it was not to be our day after all. Berkshire were out in front, but Essex were churning out win after win and were soon leading the way. Surrey were quietly creeping up in the background. Kent finally rallied with three successive wins and nosed themselves in front once more.
It came down to the last five boards playing. I watched anxiously as each game practically went the distance; with Kent locked in a must win game against a talented Berkshire player.
In order to lift the trophy, we needed the following to happen in 3 of the remaining 4 games: Essex to beat Berkshire, Surrey to beat Berkshire and Sussex to at least avoid a defeat against Essex. Gradually, gradually the results started filtering through. Sussex got the draw we needed, Essex got the win we needed, Surrey the win against Berkshire and finally Kent the win which ensured we came out as Champions; based on number of wins after a three way tie on points with Surrey and Essex.
A thrilling and exciting finale!
All players played exceptionally well and for a team which were all under 12 playing in a under 14 tournament this was truly commendable. We were very proud to lift the trophies. A big well done to all the players and a thank you to the parents. Thank you to Sussex for hosting the event. A special thank you to Anil Anilkumar for organising the team and bringing everyone together.
Final points were:
Kent 13.5
(12 wins), Essex and
Surrey 13.5 (10 wins), Berkshire 12 and Sussex 7.5.
Another Grandmaster joining the Team
We are very proud to announce that in addition to Chris Ward GM (one of the best and most highly regarded junior chess coaches in the country), John Emms GM is coming on board to help train and coach the Kent Juniors! A very big welcome to John who has coached British teams in the Chess Olympiads as well as having tied for first place at the 1997 British Chess Championships. He is a prolific author of chessbooks as well as being a local boy!
John will be on hand at Coaching Event 1 at Amherst School and looks forward to meeting all!
Record Win for KJCA U11 EPSCA team (team report by Rohan Shiatis)
Congratulations to our U11 Team for scoring an unprecedented 51.5 out of 60 to take the National EPSCA title in style. This is the highest score achieved by any team in recorded history, since the competition began in 1967.The triumphant team was:
Rohan Shiatis (Team Captain), James Meredith (Dulwich College Prep School), Alexander Selway (Eltham Junior School), Arul Gupta (Eltham Junior School), Michael Gilbert (Mersham Primary School), Girinath Haridas (Dulwich College Junior School), Zara Hussain (The Granville School), Anantha Anilkumar (Cumnor House School), Jackson Wen (Bickley Park Prep School), Zakary Warsop (Dulwich College Prep School), Rohan Datta (Fosse Bank School), Peter Mant (Townsend Primary School), Francesco Bernardini (Bishop Challoner School), Sachin Balaji (Eltham College Junior School), Adam Fidler (Amherst School), James Elgar (Amherst School), Ryan Cherian (Dulwich College Junior School), Daniel Carstairs (Southborough Primary School), Hasan Rahij (Home Educated), Ammar Kisat (Amherst School), Ethan Staunton (Dulwich College Junior School), Zeeshan Kisat (Amherst School), Jesse Creasey (Dulwich College Prep School), Kiran Shiatis (Home Educated). A special mention for our team mates from the zonal, Harry Chathli and Danyal Warsop who also helped the team to reach the finals.
It was a very exciting day with everyone in the team playing superb chess and contributing to the overall win. We arrived in Northampton on time and raring to go. The inspirational talks from Chris Ward GM and Krishna Shiatis helped to set the tone for the day and motivate us. Round 1 saw a solid and respectable start by many of the counties. Wey Valley and Barnet led the way with a score of 16 out of 20 with Kent ominously poised in third place just half a point behind.
After having missed out on the title for the last two years by just half a point, the team were galvanised into fighting mode and we put all our training and discipline into practice to secure an even better second round performance with a score of 17.5 out of 20. At this stage, Wey Valley still led the way with 33.5 out of a possible 40, with Kent advancing into second place, although still that elusive half a point behind on 33. Barnet and Sussex shared third spot, both on 30.5.
Going into the third and final round, as a team, we knew that we would have to do something special. All expectations were exceeded! It was a truly exceptional third round scoring an excellent 18.5 points out of 20.
This final round secured our well deserved victory by a 2.5 point margin over Wey Valley. With this awesome result, the Kent Juniors have cemented their reputation for being one of the most consistent and formidable teams in the country.
Many thanks to all the children, their parents, Chris Ward GM, Michael Gilbert and Krishna Shiatis (team managers), all the most excellent volunteers at KJCA who have loyally supported the GPs and children throughout and finally the hard-working training team at ACES.
Final scores were as follows:
1st Kent 51.5
2nd WeyValley 49
3rd Sussex 45.5
4th Barnet 44.5
5th Berkshire 36.5
6th Nottinghamshire 36.5
7th Hertfordshire 34.5
8th Richmond 33.5
9th Essex 30
10th Birmingham 29
11th Cheshire and NW 23.5
12th Northamptonshire 23
13th Yorkshire 22.5
14th Oldham 20
15th Lancashire 18
16th Manchester 17
17th Lincolnshire 14
18th Staffordshire 11.5