BCF U18 Finals: 18th June 2005, Leicester

On a boiling hot day, the Under 18 Sussex team made its way up to Leicester to play in the BCF annual jamboree. The timing of the tournament was not ideal, as many of our older players were still involved in exams, but we still managed to put together a strong team. Many thanks to Alex and George Galliano for stepping in at very short notice, and to Maurice for coming along and sharing the driving.

In a 2 round jamboree, the first round went fairly well, with room for improvement, even though we took 1.5 points off Kent through Grant Bucher and Neil Carter. Kent took a narrow lead into the 2nd round on 9 points , with a strong Warwickshire side on 8.5, Cheshire and Sussex were 3rd equal on 7. Essex were hampered by only having 10 players, even though they had a very stong side with Li Wu (BCF grade 210) and Dana Hawrami on boards 1 and 2.

After a rousing team talk with the added help of Mars and Snickers the team went into the 2nd round knowing that they needed to get 10 points to stand any chance of winning the title, including winning both matches against Kent. We got off to a very strong start taking 6.5 out of 7. George Galliano delivered his 2nd win of the day, a brilliant performance from a 9 year old. Nick Fraser turned a lost position into a draw, George Perez-Trunin, David Grant, Roshal Patel, Joe Richardson and Neil Carter all managed comfortable wins. George Salimbeni achieved another fine win against Kent making the scores neck and neck.

Unfortunately things weren’t going so well on the other boards, Grant Bucher narrowly lost to Dana Hawrami, Joe Fraser went for the win against Callum Kilpatrick but failed to spot a tactic, and Alex Galliano lost out after being in a winning position. Andrew Tucker however got a lovely win against Warwickshire with a nice rook sacrifice. So we had ended the 2nd round with an improved score of 8.5 taking us to 15.5 in clear 3rd place. Kent scored 9 points to secure victory just ahead of Warwickshire.

Congratulations to George Galliano, Andrew Tucker, David Grant and George Salimbeni who all scored maximum points. I apologise to the team for the melted chocolate, but it should be all OK if you leave it in the fridge for a few hours!