GP Final at Newstead Wood School and Summary for the Year!

Our GP 8 was held on Sunday 28 June 2015 at Newstead Wood School. This was one of the closest and most thrilling finales to a GP season we at the KJCA have witnessed for a very long time, with the U9, U11 and also the primary schools section finely balanced and many trophies and medals still to be decided.  

 

In the U9s there have been five different leaders throughout the season (Navieinaah Haridas, Max Wilkinson, Jai Singh Chaturvedi, Ciaran Brightley-Davies and Yong Gui Wang KCM) and going into the final just 5.5 GP points separated the top five with Yong Gui Wang KCM narrowly leading the way from Sasmit Neogi, with Max Wilkinson, Saahil Bansal and Ciaran Brightly-Davies very close behind.

The U11s has seen an immense see-saw battle between the top two throughout the season with little between them going into the final, Ximan Mao KCM narrowly leading from Kiran Shiatis KCM, with an equally mighty battle taking place behind them for third between Nikhil Chidipothu, Mikey Watson and Viktor Jamroz.

 

Congratulations to all 100 who attended this final, making it our third highest participated tournament of the season.


The top three in each section on the day were:

U9: First Eoin Moore (6/6), second equal Alexander Hodgson and Misha Lello (5/6) with Alexander taking the second place trophy and Misha the third place trophy on the performance tie breaker.

U11: First Shahjahon Saidmurodov (6/6), second equal Dominic Coates, Mason Graves-Brown, Alexander Levin and Yong Gui Wang KCM (4.5/6) with Yong Gui winning the second place trophy and Dominic the third place trophy on the performance tie breaker.

U14: First Aurideep Nayak (5/5), second Charlie Metcalfe KCM (4/5) and third equal Orla Dorman, Annalise Hansen, Aditya Jain and Alex Thompson (3/5) with Aditya winning the third place trophy on the performance tie breaker.

U18: First Rohan Shiatis KCM (4.5/5), second equal Anantha Anilkumar KCM and Haolin Zhao (4/5).


 


Top Primary School: Claremont Primary School

Top Secondary School: St. Olave’s Grammar School

Full cross tables can be found on: http://www.kjca.org/result/101

 

Overall GP results for the 2014/15 season

 

This event also concluded the GP championships for the 2014/15 season which is made up of eight GPs which started back in September of last year. We have been round to some fantastic venues across the year, Rosemead School, Gravesend Grammar, Dulwich College, Sutton Valence, Schools at Somerhill, Sandhurst Primary, Sevenoaks Primary, Barming and Newstead Woods, together with three impressive and exciting new venues to our GP calendar, Bullers Wood, The Judd School and The Skinner’s School. We are extremely thankful to each and every one of these schools for accommodating us.

 

To qualify for a seasonal prize, a player must have played in at least four of the seven previous KJCA GP events throughout this year and also played at this GP final. In the event of a tie on overall GP points, players are separated based on the average GP points scored over the season, the GP Points scored in the GP Final and finally the total GP points scored across the whole season.


It was fantastic seeing not only so many new faces but also so many regulars, with the largest number of loyalty awards being given out to players who have managed to come to every single KJCA GP event this season. We have also had record numbers of participants this year with an average of just over 96 players per tournament, compared to an average of 83 last year and 63 the year before that.


 


There were many new schools taking part this year, making this a particularly strong season, with a special mention to Elmhurst, Bishop Challoner, Caterham Preparatory, St. James Roman Catholic, Ashgrove, Steephill, Farnborough, Judith Kerr Primary, The Lady Eleanor Holles, Redhill, Blackheath Preparatory and Selling Church of England.


Thank you to all the excellent coaches who are working so hard at all these schools, feeding their children into our events and providing the talented youngsters which go on to represent Kent in the county championships and also in some cases their country. 

 

The winners of the overall U9, U11, U14 and U18 sections are awarded with our Kent Candidate Master title (“KCM”) and have been added to the Roll of Honour List which can be found on the following link: http://www.kjca.org/site/page?view=about. These are as follows:


U9: First was Yong Gui Wang KCM with Neogi Sasmit second, Max Wilkinson third and Mihika Verma top overall girl. Max Wilkinson was top U9 with Saahil Bansal second, Yong Gui Wang KCM was top U8 with Neogi Sasmit second and James Merriman was top U7 with Stakhey Sedykh second.



U11: First was Ximan Mao KCM with Kiran Shiatis KCM second, Nikhil Chidipothu third - equal on points with Mikey Watson and Victor Jamroz, but third on tie break. Our website is not showing the correct result for positions 3, 4 and 5 at the moment, but we hope to fix this in due course. Mahuaa Verma was the top overall girl. Ximan Mao KCM was top U11 with Kiran Shiatis KCM second and Viktor Jamroz was top U10 with Charlie Metcalfe KCM second.


 

U14: First was Anantha Anilkumar KCM with Alejandro Ito-Aramendia second and Francesco Bernardini third. Anantha Anilkumar KCM was top U13 with Francesco Bernardini second and Alejandro Ito-Aramendia was top U12 with Aurideep Nayak second. (Picture included with the U18s below)

 

U18: First was Rohan Shiatis KCM with Mary Scott second on points and Alexander Selway KCM third.


 

Primary School: Claremont Primary School were champions for a second year in a row, with the Home Edders (Primary) and Warren Road very close behind in second and third respectively.


 

Secondary School: St Olave's Grammar were dominant winners and champions for the eighth year in a row, with Home Edders (Secondary) a superb second.

 

Full GP tables can be found on: http://www.kjca.org/site/page?view=GPTables.

 

Seasonal summary

 

This was a good season for our primary age group Kent Teams and all three produced some very strong performances.

 

Our young U9 mixed team came a valiant fourth in the EPSCA county finals back in April this year narrowly missing out on third place (full report can be found on: http://www.kjca.org/article/198).


Our young girls' U11 team came a fantastic second in their EPSCA event also in April this year (full report can be found on: http://www.kjca.org/article/196).


 

Our U11 mixed team came a superb first equal with Barnet in May this year after an intense, hard fought battle with them and Wey-Valley, two teams which significantly out graded our players on the day (full report can be found on http://www.kjca.org/article/202). Our winning U11 team has been recognised on our Roll of Honour list.


 

With these results the KJCA came a fantastic second in the overall EPSCA seasonal grand prix.

Our U12 came a fantastic second at the NYCA county event held in Telford in November 2014. (No picture available)

Our U13 Open team came a credible 3rd in the ECF County Championships in June 2015 against some very tough opposition from both Middlesex and Sussex.

Our U14 Open Team also came third at the NYCA county event in Northampton back in September 2014.

We had three winners of the ECF run English Youth Chess Championship this year; Giranth Haridas became the U14 Champion, Haolin Zhao the U9 champion and Radha Ratnesan the U8 Girl’s Champion. All three have been added to our Roll of Honour list.


Dates for our GPs and coaching days are already on the KJCA and ECF websites. GP 1 will be held at The Judd on Sunday 20 September 2015 and we look forward to seeing you all there. To register please follow the following link: http://www.kjca.org/event/115

We also look forward to seeing many of you at the British Championships which start on 25 July 2015.


Thank you’s

 

We could not manage without the help and support of our volunteers, who work so hard at our events and behind the scenes. In particular, a special thank must go to the following:

 

All our committee members for providing direction and support to the KJCA.

Chris Ward GM, our Head Coach and John Emms GM for their coaching expertise and support throughout the year and also to Rohan Shiatis KCM for his coaching support at the U11 EPSCA Zonal.

Anil Anilkumar, our President.

Samantha Metcalfe, for all her hard, hard work with venue bookings and KJCA T-Shirts and together with Sarah Garfield for running our excellent catering service.

Simon Metcalfe, our secretary and committee coordinator.

Andrew Shiatis, our treasurer, tournament director and website and facebook updater.

Krishna Shiatis, our communications manager, trophy manager and tournament registration administrator.

Luca Bernardini in charge of our KJCA internet club (Chesskid) and our fantastic new flyer.

Lewis Cartwright for his help as new treasurer.

James Mao and Tarun Nayak for their web expertise and technical support.

Kris Jamroz for our KJCA scorebooks and with Gary Dorman for their assistance with running tournament director

Vijay Rupnath for his superb photographs.

Chris Ward, Anil Anilkumar, Luca Bernardini, John Merriman, Andrew Bruce, Michael Wistow, Krishna Shiatis, Andrew Shiatis and Jo Wildman, our team mangers and coordinators throughout what has been a solid season.

Richard Dobson and Paul Catling, our outgoing equipment managers and to our new equipment managers Piers Lello and Richard Wilkinson

There have been so many helpers throughout the year making it very difficult to mention everyone by name, but all the help you give to this volunteer organisation is truly appreciated.

Thank you to all the parents and children without whom we would not have such a great county chess organisation.

We hope you had fun at our events this season, that you have a relaxing summer break and look forward to seeing you all back in September!

 

See you all soon!

Best wishes from all at the KJCA.