Kent Penguins at the Junior 4NCL

The first J4NCL weekend of the season was held at 1-2 October 2016 at Wokefield Park near Reading.  The J4NCL is a team event, with five rounds of standard play chess over the weekend.
 
This time, a very young team of players from Kent joined together to play as the 'Kent Penguins', consisting of Ciaran Brightley-Davies, Shlok Verma, Stakhey Sedykh and Arthur Chikovsky. Given the choice between Divisions 1 and 2, the boys insisted on playing  in the stronger Division 1.
 
The Penguins knew that it would be a challenging competition with average rating difference with opponents in some cases being as high as 40 points. Nevertheless, the team proved to be resilient under pressure, had great battles and managed to finish ninth with 4 match points which is just one match point lower than the middle of the table.
 
The boys had a really enjoyable competition and gained some invaluable experience of playing against stronger and more experienced opposition. They are already keen to come back to the second J4NCL weekend to compete head-to-head with some of the best junior teams in Britain.