Ampleforth Young Masters: 27th - 30th October 2005, Ampleforth

A large number of Sussex players attended this four day tournament at Ampleforth in North Yorkshire. The event, the sixth Young Masters and the last one to take place at Ampleforth draws the top talent in Junior Chess, including all 16 current British Champions. Joe Fraser, Grant Bucher and Andrew Tucker were among those with a chance of gaining a place - Joe was joint winner last year.

The event saw six rounds of up to 4 hours over the four days. Joe took an early knock, to put him out of the running. Meanwhile Andrew and Grant scored 3.5 out of 4, putting them among the six leaders. Unfortunately, the two were drawn in the fifth round, knowing that a draw would effectively put both of them out of the running for the title. The battled for almost the entire 4 hours, but eventually had to settle for the draw that neither of them wanted. Andrew eventually finished joint 3rd in the tournament.

Other notable performances came from George Salimbeni and David Grant. George's early form had him playing on one of the 8 electronic boards in the final round. He was defeated by Shiela Dines in the last round and eventually finished on 3.5 from 6, but with a playing performance of 125 (vs his grade of 92). David Grant came from behind in the last round to finish on 4 points from 6 to take a joint U13 prize with a grading performance of 132. Other Sussex players included Rhys Cumming (3), Joe Quinn (2.5), Jude Lenier(2), Sam Amis and Polly Lambert (1.5) and Barnaby Paul (1). All players performed extremely well given the standard of the tournament, and Rhys, Joe, Sam and Barnaby all played above their current grades.