Both
the Middlesex U14 chess teams finished in third place in the Southern
Counties Chess Championships held in Guildford yesterday.
U14 Open
The
A team played in the U14 Open section and came third with a score of
10.5/18. The winners were Sussex A on 13 with Surrey second on 12.
The other county teams were from Oxfordshire (9), Essex (8.5), Berkshire (5.5) and Sussex B (4.5).
The A team in Board Order was:
Gautam Jain, Pranay Chauhan, Federico Rocco, Luke Remus Elliot, Oren Levene, Gabriel Balouka-Myers and Reuben Balouka-Myers.
We had seven players for six boards and so Oren, Gabriel and Reuben played two matches each on Boards 5 and 6.
Luke and Federico did particularly well. Luke won all his three matches. Federico was also undefeated with two wins and a draw.
Overall
it was a good team performance especially when you take into account
the chess strength of the juniors our players faced.
U18 Minor
The
B team played in the U18 Minor section. The grading rule meant the team
was too strong for the U14 Minor section and I didn't want to have two
teams in the same section.
The U18 Minor section was open to teams with players graded less than 130 (both standard and rapidplay grades).
This
team did very well too and finished third with a score of 11/18. We
missed second place by just one point. The winners were Surrey A on 14
with second place going to Sussex on 12.
The other counties taking part were Surrey B (8), Oxfordshire A (6.5), Essex (6) and Oxfordshire B 5.5.
The B team in Board Order was:
Harrison Willmoth, Devin Karia, Dylan Hung, Adam Rosenthal, Toby Balouka-Myers and Raphael Balouka-Myers.
Harrison, Devin and Dylan were undefeated with scores of 2.5, 2.5 and 3 - a very good effort on the top three boards.
The team was close to a very good finish and on another day a couple of games could have gone our way.
Kamlesh Karia
Middlesex U14 Team Manager