Kent U11 team crowned EPSCA National Champions 2018

Congratulations to all the Kent U11 team for winning the 2018 EPSCA U11 Finals and becoming the National Champions.

The finals were held in Birmingham on Saturday 21st April. Most of the team travelled up on the train in the morning. 

There were 15 teams from across the country who had qualified for the finals and the competition was tough. The U11 team had finished second in the semi final to Richmond and we expected it to be a very close event throughout the day.

The day started well with Kent scoring 15.5 points from 20 in the first round ending a point behind Richmond on 16.5 with Cambridge third on 14.5 points.

The second round followed a similar pattern with both Kent and Richmond scoring 15 points Going into the last round Richmond were leading Kent in second place by one point.

The last round was a tense affair with Kent players winning their first twelve games before dropping two and half points in the next seven games. The Richmond players had finished scoring 16.5 which meant Kent needed to win the last game to win the event on a tie break.  
The last game was a very complicated but a determined effort from Radha Ratnesan who managed to turn it into a win for Kent in the last minute of allocated time. Radha showed great courage and resilience having been behind earlier in the game.

Final Scores:
1) Kent 48/60 2) Richmond 48/60 3) Cambridgeshire 41/60
Kent won the event on tie break as they had more decisive results (less draws more wins)

The reserve team also played alongside the main event. Our four Kent players demonstrated some great chess to also win the reserve tournament with a score of 11/12.  A fantastic performance.

The full team were Shreyas Royal, James Merriman, Shlok Verma, Eoin Moore, Stakhey Sedykh Rahda Ratnesan, Martin Camacho Tupper, Artemiy Shkuratovskyi, Lev Mann, Roxolana Chaban, Yong Gui Wang ,Nour Ajili ,Shaurya Mehta ,Xirui Mao, Mateus Bazan, Aneesh Sagar, Ismail Longia- Zaidi Danny Oprea, Dmitry  Belousov, Stefania Iosub, Evan Veitch ,Harry Chauhan Edward Ellam and Tom Heard

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 U11 team, the future for these promising young players looks bright. 
Well done to everyone.

The full results are available at:  http://www.oxfordfusion.com/epsca/TeamsOverall.cfm?EventID=121