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Area League B Team Tournament

The standings so far

			Round One			Round Two			Round Three
			Rufford Primary 11^th February			Old Basford 18^th March			NHJS Thursday 22^nd April
	B Team		Old Basford	Rufford	NGHS	Rufford	NGHS	Old Basford
	Area League
1	James Bellamy	6G	0	1	½	Abs
2	Will Banks	6G	½	0	0	Abs
3	Ajay Karwal	5C	Ab	Abs	Abs	1	1	1
4	Anish Bagalkote	5C	0	1	1	0	½	0
5	Max Briggs Goode	5C	1	1	1	Abs	Abs	Abs
6	Daniel Taylor	5C	Abs	Abs	Abs	Abs	Abs	Abs	Abs	Abs	Abs
7	George Taylor	5C	Abs	Abs	Abs	1	1
8	Andrew Cooper	5C	1	1	½	Abs	Abs	Abs
9	Tom Ward	5M	1	1	1	1		1
10	Baskar Biswas	6G	1	1	1	1		0
11	Achintya Singh	6S	1	1	1	1	1
12	Sahil Sama	5C	Abs	Abs	Abs	1	1	1
13	Jack Peirce	5M	Abs	Abs	Abs	1	1	0
14	Edward Frost	5C	Abs	Abs	Abs		1	1
15	Matthew Pickering	5C	Abs	Abs	Abs		1	1
			5 ½ -2 ½	7-1	6-2	7-1	7 ½	5-3
				12 ½	18 ½	25 ½	33	38

Area League B Team Tournament

	Round One			Round Two			Round Three
B Team	Rufford Primary 11^th February			Old Basford 18^th March			NHJS Thursday 22^nd April
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
Old Basford	2 ½	10	16 ½	23	30	33
NHJS	5 ½	13 ½	18 ½	25 ½	33	38
Rufford	5 ½	7	8	9	10	17
NGHS	2 ½	3	5	6 ½	7	8

London Junior Chess Championships 2009 by Harry Croasdale-On the 29^th December five boys from NHJS travelled down to Harrow to play in the largest tournament of the year, the London Junior Chess Championships.

The U12s (Michael Fletcher, Tobias Schroder, Saaras Mehan and myself) had all played three matches the day before with scores of: Michael 2.5 Me 2 Saaras and Tobias 1. In the U8s was John Croasdale and with £90 up for grabs John was sizing up the list showing the opposition before anybody else had turned up!

Two rounds into the U12s’ second day, as we all chowed down into a lovely chilli con carne, came the scores : Michael 3.5, Saaras and myself 2.5 and Tobias 2. John was on a roll and had beaten two unrelated boys with a surname of Elliot to score 2 out of 2!

The final round of the day produced a lower standard of chess with all the bleary eyes having stared at a chess board for at least 3 hours already! This turned out to be one of the toughest rounds so far for all of us. Michael was unlucky to be matched against the second seed and consequently lost. Saaras deserved a draw in a 3 hour long match in which he almost lost on time! I also drew and Tobias won against a top U10. Meanwhile in the U8s, John was now being matched up against leading contenders and was not found wanting. That left the scores as: Michael 3.5 Saaras Tobias and I on 3. John was on 3.5 out of four at the end of the day.

After a delicious breakfast we returned next morning to the University of Westminster. Following two stressful rounds the scores were: Myself and Saaras 5, Michael 4.5 and Tobias 4 (5 being the ‘half norm score’ to get into the England trials). John by now had beaten two of the top ranked southern juniors (one of whom was another Elliot!), and was playing for the tournament against a boy with whom he drew a year ago.

After messing about with one of my friends from Kent, it was time to play the final round. Tobias was trying to get to 5 but faced a tough challenge against a boy I had been lucky to get a draw against in a previous round. The final scores were: Michael and myself 5.5, Saaras 5 and Tobias 4 (although I’m glad to say Tobias has since qualified for the trials in a subsequent tournament in Liverpool).

Oh, in case you were wondering, John conquered his nerves to win his last game, scoring 6.5 out of 7 overall, to bring the U8 trophy and the winner’s cheque back to Nottingham. An outstanding achievement, when you consider that three previous winners in the 1990’s are now Grand Masters.