Winning Kent U9 team - EPSCA National Champions 2017

The finals were held at Nottingham high school on Saturday 22nd April.  Everyone knew it was going to be a long day, starting before 7am and including travels by road, rail, underground and even on a tram.

There were 18 teams who had qualified for the finals and the competition was tough.

Despite the long journey, the Kent team were ready to take on all opponents. All the young players lived up to expectations and were determined to build on the high standards set last year (when the team won the title with 33/36 points).

All started very well, with the team scoring an excellent 11/12 in both the first and second rounds. This meant that Kent went into the final third round with a 2.5 point lead over nearest rivals Wey Valley.

However, to everyone's delight, the improving pattern continued and our last round was a clean sweep – 12/12 - wins on all boards!

All the rounds had some close games which could have gone either way, but the Kent players kept their nerves, maintained focused, increased concentration levels and eventually managed an overall victory.
Our strong finish gave Kent a clear first place, leading the runners-up by 6.5 points.

The final scores were:

1st – Kent 34/36
2nd – Wey Valley 27.5/36
3rd equal - Warwickshire and Richmond 24.5/36

Congratulations also to the players who were on the reserve boards, they all played some quality chess and special mention for Yifan Luo, who won the reserve tournament.

The reserves also completed a clean sweep of 4/4 wins in the last round of the tournament complementing the 100% score across the whole team.

The full team were: Shreyas Royal, James Merriman, Shlok Verma, Stakhey Sedykh, Arthur Chikovsky, Dennis Dupuis, Roxolana Chaban, Herb Balaam, Nour Ajili, Aneesh Sagar, Ismail Longia Zaidi, Artemiy Shkuratovskyi, George Allen, Yifan Luo, Max Bell, Amit Aryan Sanka

Many thanks to our team manager, John Merriman and to GM Chris Ward and GM John Emms for their coaching, guidance and support throughout this season.

We also appreciate the efforts from all the parents and carers, who brought the children along to both the zonal and the final competitions and continuously support their chess.

With another great result from our U9 team, the future for these promising young players looks bright. Well done to everyone.

The full results can be viewed at: http://www.oxfordfusion.com/epsca/#results