Kent Under 11 Team Wins EPSCA Zonal
Congratulations to the Kent Under-11 team who won the EPSCA U11 Zone East, which took place on 18th March at Mount Grace School, Potters Bar.
Kent fielded a very young team that included many players who will still be eligible to play in future years. The tournament was played with an excellent spirit throughout and contained lots of high-quality and fighting chess.
The team started positively and seized an early lead by scoring an excellent 16½ points in the first round. The second round also went very well, with Kent scoring 16 points to increase their lead over their nearest rivals. The final round proved to be much closer between all the teams, but Kent’s tally of 13½ points was still the highest score of the round and it secured an overall victory.
Kent’s winning score was 46 points (from 60 games), Barnet came second with 41 points, and Cambridge came third with 36½ points. At the end a double success was celebrated, as Kent’s board 21-24 players also won the reserve section.
Kent’s winning team were: Shreyas Royal, Shlok Verma, James Merriman, Saahil Bansal, Lakshya Lokwani, Eoin Moore, Ciaran Brightley-Davies, Stakhey Sedykh, Arthur Chikovsky, Navieinaah Haridas, Dennis Dupuis, Dominic Coates, Theodore Panchev, Suriya Velayudham, Jai Chaturvedi Singh, Danny Oprea, Tyler Roberts, Aaron Dhillon, Iris Davies, Harry Chauhan, Dmitry Belousov, Evan Veitch, Roxolana Chaban and Geremia Gover.
Congratulations to all the Kent players for their success, a deserved reward for their hard work, focus, fighting spirit and positive attitude throughout.
Special thanks go to team manager, Robin Davies, for his organisation of the team before and during the event, to GM John Emms for his training and encouragement, and also to all the parents for their wonderful support.