West of England Championships, Swindon (21-22 Feb 2004)Fifteen Sussex players took part in the West of England Championships in Swindon. - apologies in advance if I have any details wrong! Please let me know. In the U18 Major tournament, 5 Sussex players took part in a field of only 28 players. This meant that the draw had to be constantly altered as the Sussex players kept getting drawn against each other. In the end Adam Prescott, Joe Fraser and Andrew Tucker all finished on 3 points from 5 games. Joe Richardson finished on 2.5 and Grant Bucher on 2. Adam Prescott ended up as joint winner of the U16 prize, shared with Peter Robinson. The U14 prize was shared between Andrew Tucker, Joe Fraser, James Peet and Daniel Hall. Andrew also took the U120 grading prize, sharing it with Tai Chang. (Adam and Joe, your money is in Ruth's safe hands!) 7 players took part in the U12 Championship, which was also an England Trial qualifier. They were David Grant, Farris Ziyada, Christopher Linnett, Rhys Cumming, Nick Fraser and Tristan and Ben Blundell. There were some extremely strong performances throughout. In fact, the final round looked like a Sussex vs England match with a number of Sussex players (some sporting the blue sweatshirts) were lined up in a row on one side of the tables, whilst the other side was predominantly yellow sweatshirts, worn by the England squad. IN the final scores, Farris and Chris both ended on 4.5 from 6, David and Ben on 4 and Tristan and Rhys on 3.5. Parallel to the U12 Championship was the U12 challengers, which was one in impressive style by George Perez Trunin, who won his first 5 games to secure a win, and drew in the final round to his nearest competitor, who was a whole point behind him. In the Intermediate category, Rebecca Grant played in tournaments on both days. She scored 2.5 of the first day, but scored well on the second day to win the 'best girl' prize. In the beginners, Yasmin Ziyada played extremely well in her first competition to score 2.5 from 6 on her 7th birthday! |