SE Eng Championships, Yateley Manor School - 31st January - 1st February 2009

No less than 15 Sussex Juniors made their way over to Yateley in Surrey for the South of England Chess Championships being held over the weekend of Jan 31st/Feb1st. Some of the highlights are as follows:

Under 7: Alexander Keen continues the line of the chess playing Keen family , played well scores 4 points from 6 games, for 4th place. Well done Alex.

Under 9: David Liu played in a tough Under 9 event and made a creditable 3.5 points from 6.

Under 11 Minor: Savya Aggarwal won with an excellent 5 points out of 6, no defeats and always looked favourite for this event.

Under 11 Major and an England Trial Qualifier: This event is always fiercely contested as England places are at stake. Sambhav Aggarwal lost only one game and was 3rd on 4 points from 5, half a point behind the winner.

Otto Pyper was on 2 points from 4 games and needed to win his final round game to secure his half-norm. However his opponent held Otto off and the game looked even, with all the other games in the playing hall finished the game continued for another 45 minutes and a group of spectators closely followed this tense game. Eventually Otto won in a game that was a credit to both players.

Toby Harris and Charlie Keen both just missed out on another half-norm by scoring 2 points.

Under 14: Amy Hoare and Jonny Burch all finished on a very creditable 3/5, with Ramsey Pyper on 2.5

Under 16: Thomas Fitzgerald, Oscar Schortz and Matthew Payne all competed well, with Thomas and Oscar limbering up before heading to Poland with the England team next month.

Report by Trevor Norton & Matthew Keen