The UK Chess Challenge 2003

The UK Chess Challenge began in 1996 and was an immediate success, with 700 schools entering, involving approximately 23,000 children. The structure of the tournament is simple, allowing the most inexperienced players to compete in the early stages, yet testing the mettle of the finest at the end. The tournament begins every Spring Term in Schools. The winners earn the right to compete in regional Megafinals, from which they may qualify for the Gigafinal, or even the ultimate stage, the National Terafinal.

Sussex Megafinal - May 2003

Gigafinal - July 2003

National Terafinal - Aug 2003

The Sussex Megafinal 2003, 3rd May at Oakmeeds School, Burgess Hill.

The Sussex Megafinal of the largest chess tournament in the country was held at Oakmeeds School, Burgess Hill. A fanitastic day for all - especially for Andrew Tucker who managed a win against David Howell in the under 12-18 Boys section.

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Gigafinal - 12/13 July 2003, Keele University

Sussex Girls scored well at the Giga Finals with Katherine Rattle winning the U14 Girls, gaining £100 and qualifying for the Tera Final for the second year running. Deborah Margolis and Rhiannon Williams came 3rd in their respective age groups to qualify for the Challengers. These are terrific achievements given 67,000 initial entries to the competition only 44 players qualified for the Tera Final and about 100 for the Challengers.

Congratulations to all the players who made it to the Giga Final a great achievement in itself. All the scores of Sussex girls;

U15 Girls Deborah Margolis 5

U14 Girls Katherine Rattle 5½

U12 Girls Abi Fryer 4

U11 Girls Sarah Margolis 3

U10 Girls Anna Hargrave 4

U10 Girls Rebecca Grant 2

U9 Girls Rhiannon Williams 5

U8 Girls Polly Lambert 3½ 

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Terafinal - 23/24 Aug 2003

Report from Deborah Margolis

Out of the 67 000 who entered the UK chess challenge, what seems like months ago, six keen Sussex players had qualified to the last round of the largest chess tournament in the world, to be one of the top 147 players, who also qualified to the prestigious TeraFinal.

We had a long journey up to Sheffield, where we met people from all over the United Kingdom. We all knew that the weekend ahead of us was going to be tough!

The games were long; lasting up to three hours, but fortunately the venue was situated right next door to Meadowhall shopping centre – the biggest shopping centre in the UK, with over 270 shops! This definitely provided enough pre-match entertainment for the girls!

Scoring for this stage of the tournament is 3 for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss, with a maximum of 18 point for 6 games, in order to cut down on pre-arranged draws, and to encourage us to go for a win. Apparently the scoring is the same as for football, but I wouldn’t got know, because I’m a girl.

We had two players in the main section, the Champions, David Grant and Christopher Linnett, and four in the minor section, the Challengers. These were Tristan Blundell, Deborah Margolis, Ben Blundell and Patrick R-Dienes. It was especially hard for the young players because they could be playing anyone up to the section of U18!

Every player in the champions went away with a guaranteed £30 prize money, but despite that Christopher and David did exceptionally, both beating people with grades much higher than their own. I was really pleased when I won top girl in my champions section, proving that Sussex have the best trainers!

Although the competition was very tough, with very daunting grades, over 200! But showing that we came from Sussex, none of us came away without any points! Well done Sussex!

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