U11 4 Counties Friendly: 30th January 2005

21 players aged an average “under 9½” formed our unusual trial u11 selection for the four counties Sussex-Berks-Hants-Bucks friendly held in Maidenhead on 30 January. The team comprised 3 under 8’s, 6 under 9’s, 6 under 10’s and 6 under 11’s forming our test U11 team. This was a very young team, and was also missing 5 top boards and so overall we did extremely well to win against Hants 11-9, draw against Berks 10-10 and lose against Bucks 10.5-9.5.

Oskar Schortz from Hartfield played outstandingly well on Board 4, all his games going up to the last few minutes, and Jude Lenier from Hastings did fantastically on Board 3, taking a draw in round 1 when he was in a winning position but was under severe time pressure, and made a claim under the 2 minute rule. A special mention goes to the under 8 twins also from Hastings, Shyam and Ramm, who each scored an amazing 100%, Shyam experiencing his first 50 move rule pressure, delivering an exciting checkmate on move 39. Joseph Quinn did extremely well on Board 1, only losing to an England player in round 2, and Matthew Payne gave a sterling 100%. Alex Galliano on Board 2 played very solidly, as did his brother George with a very good 2 out of 3. Barnaby Paul and Christopher Khoo also played extremely well on Boards 7 and 15. Sam Amis delivered the exciting final result in round 3, and did very well on his first county board 11 position.

An extremely special mention goes to the new county players who played at a county event for the first time, being Ian Harland, Sam Amis, Guy Davis, David Ball, Alex Sullivan and Bennie Ramm.