Battle of the Giants: 22nd - 23rd October 2005, Holland

When the BCF’s Director of Coaching received an invitation for a County team to represent England at a tournament in Holland he passed it on to Jonathan Tuck of Sussex to put a team together. There were four age groups with four players in each and the Tournament was going to consist of teams from 5 countries, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany and England.

There was a large range of abilities on show at the Tournament, from novices to World and European Championship representatives with FIDE ratings of 2200.

On Saturday, after the Opening Ceremony where our only girl player, Polly Lambert, had to dress up as a pawn, we sat down to our first game in the league section of the tournament against our hosts SV Leiderdorp. Leiderdorp, the holders of the trophy, are one of the biggest and best clubs in Holland with talented youngsters travelling form all over the country to play for them. After a promising start, Rhys Cumming winning quickly, it became apparent we were faced with a stiff task. So it proved as we went down 10.5 to 5.5. Although there were a few games that could have gone either way.

So we had to win our remaining 2 games to qualify for the Championship semi-finals. Our next game was against Le Perchay, a chess club from just outside Paris. After a stern lecture from Jonathan, the team came out fighting, determined to prove themselves. The results reflected this and we quickly ran up a winning score going to 14-0 before Adam Prescott lost on the top board in an exciting encounter, but to a 20 year old with a much higher grading. Nevertheless at that point the whole team were relieved to be back in the game, every player had a least one win.

So the decider for a semi final place was set up with Harlem Chess Club, as they had beaten Le Perchay convincingly in the first round. Our nerves were quickly settled though and the players all played very solidly to win this round 13.5 – 2.5. So a pleasing day, Farris Ziyada, Barnaby Paul and Rhys had all scored 3 out of 3. However we knew the hardest part of the competition was to come.

In the Evening our hosts fed us a delicious Chinese meal and laid on entertainment, so we arrived back at the hostel to swap notes with our fellow competitors and get a good nights sleep.

We were drawn to play Vlaanderen from Belgium, the pre-tournament favourites, they were strong in every section and we knew we would have to play at our very best to compete with them. Although the players played solidly they were just too strong for us and we ended up losing 14-2, with only Adam Prescott and David Grant getting draws and Grant Bucher getting a fine captain’s win.

There was a surprise in the other semi-final with Zukertort, another Dutch chess club, edging out Leiderdorp in the final game to qualify for the final, so we were faced with our first opponents again in the 3rd place play-off.

After a quick chat with the Team Manager, we decided to change around the board order so all our team would play different players. Fortunately Sussex played a lot better this time and ran out narrow winners 9.5- 6.5 in a very exciting finish so we had achieved 3rd place and won a very nice trophy with medals to boot. In the final Vlaanderen beat Zukertort to take the main trophy and 400 euros.

Sussex Junior Chess would like to thank Roald Vahl and all the parents at SV Leiderdorp for their fantastic hospitality and their generosity in providing the accommodation, food and local transport for the event. We would also like to thank Schutten IT for their overall sponsorship of the event, and our own sponsors Deutsch who kindly provided the funds for our team shirts.

Sussex Junior Chess team:

Under-20 – Adam Prescott (Uckfield) 2, Joe Fraser (East Grinstead) 3,

Grant Bucher (Hustpierpoint) 3.5, Andrew Tucker (Ditchling) 2.5

Under-14 - David Grant (Balcombe) 2.5 George Salimbeni (Staplefield) 2

Tristan Blundell (Hurstpierpoint) 2, Farris Ziyada (Crawley) 3

Under-12 - Alex Galliano ( Crawley) 3.5, Rhys Cumming (Brighton) 4,

Joseph Quinn (Storrington) 3 Ben Blundell (Hurstpierpoint) 3

Under-10 - Jude Lenier (Hastings) 3, Charlie Mills (Storrington) 2,

Polly Lambert (East Grinstead) 3, Barnaby Paul (Billingshurst) 3