Juniors20072008

Boards 1 to 8 played through unchanged. Numbers 9 to 12 played in the first round and then we used our four reserves. Sophie and Asha only played in the reserve tournament which we won.

Splendid performances by boards 1 to 5 and board 7 who dropped just one points. A good number of these players will still be under 9s next year!

Al Hunter reports:-

Firstly, thank you all very much for playing in the County Finals on Saturday. It really is a tremendous effort for a small county like ours to not only get a team of girls out, but also to get a team that competed really well.

Our final position does not do your efforts any justice. Only a disastrous last round prevented us from fulfilling a best ever placing. As you can see from the table, only one more point would have moved us up to 9^th position. As it is, we equaled last year’s effort of 11 points. Considering we had only 4 survivors from last year’s squad of 16, much encouragement can be taken from this performance.

Round 1 – 4/12

Amy (board 2), Victoria (4), and Emma (12) all won their games, and Tandra (9) and Eleanor (10) both got draws, if slightly fortuitously! Many of the other girls had chances in their games, none more so than Eili (1) who fell into a trap when she was winning.

Round 2 – 5/12

A fantastic round with Eili (1), Amy (2), and Bella (11) all winning. Pooja (6) also won by default, and Esha (3), and Victoria (4) both drew. Once again, we had chances on some other boards but failed to capitalize.

Round 3 – 2/12

A desperately disappointing final round where we seemed to get a really rough draw, with most of the girls playing against girls from the top teams. Wins from Sophie H (7) and Tandra (10) were well merited, but we just couldn’t get any more points on the board despite a fantastic effort from Eili on top board against a very strong player.

In summary, we competed really well on the top boards where we scored 5/12 on the top 4 boards. But we just don’t have the strength in depth that some of the other counties have. At this level, you just can’t afford to make many mistakes, as the opposition is so unforgiving, that you don’t often get chance to rectify such errors. I’m sure all the girls have learnt lots from their experiences, and if this makes them better chess players, then all the better.

I wanted to create an environment where the girls enjoyed themselves, and not have a pressurized situation with tears flowing as often occurs at these events. I’m proud to say that we achieved this. The highlight of the day for me was when one girl said that she had enjoyed the day as she’d made a new friend (from her own team).

Finally, I’d like to thank the parents who transported, supported and helped with the day, and all the girls for their cheerfulness and team spirit.

Final placings were:-

1 Oxfordshire 28

2 Sussex 27.5

3 Wey Valley 26.5

4 Nottinghamshire 25.5

5 Barnet 24

6 Essex 21.5

7 Kent 21

8 Oldham 16

9 Liverpool 12

10= Berkshire 11.5

10= Northamptonshire 11.5

10= Manchester 11.5

13 Hertfordshire 11

14 Hampshire 4.5

We took part in a five team event at Stansted with three teams from Essex and one team that flew in from Munster. The eight player teams were made up of five under 14s and three under 9s.