IAPS National Championships 7th-9th April 2010, Aldro School, Surrey

IAPS 2010 photo IAPS 2010 photo

The sun came out and shone down on the Sussex players in Godalming at the 38th IAPS National Championships last week.  This was a national event for independent schools and children were aged 6-13.  The tournament was held in the beautiful setting of Aldro School.  Mr Archer has to be congratulated for the smooth running of the event, the Aldro catering staff for the fabulous food (I particularly liked the chocolate pudding) and Matron who managed to ensure that all children were clean with tidy bedrooms and up in time for breakfast – she is welcome to our house anytime!

Day 1 saw the start of the main Championship which comprised of 7 games 3 of which were played on day 1. Daniel Sutton, Joshua Higgs and Matthew Howell from SJC all played in this challenging tournament with a very tough field.  Between matches the players had the invaluable opportunity to get their game analysed by a Grand Master.

For all those not in the Championship it was a day of 5 rounds of rapid play to sort out the groups for the following day’s tournament. All Sussex players played their hearts out and after filling up on a good bowl of spaghetti bolognaise played with gusto right up to the end of the day. Group placing at the end of day 1 was as follows:

Freya Finnegan A
Sarena  Bhargava B
Daniel Gooda B
Oliver Howell B
Hannah Sutton B
Melissa Davy-Ericsson C
Sam Higgs C
Yelena Finnegan C
Amalia Finnegan D

That evening the children swapped their chess boards for table tennis, table football and pool tables. 

Day 2 started will a hearty breakfast and the anticipation of chess or should I say Chessington later that day?!  The Championship players had 2 further games and the group players played 3 games with great concentration – even the U7 players frequently had hour long games. 
The wonderful weather meant that most of the south of England visited Chessington that afternoon so it was busy but the kids all had a wonderful time.  DCPS kindly gave Copthorne players a lift in their minibus and donated a few players for the evening football tournament.

Day 3 – All to play for on the last day.  Last 2 games in the Championship and 3 further rounds in the group events.  Freya was feeling rather peaky on the last day but struggled through to the end.  Many of the group event games went to arbiters decision as they were played for over the hour – so many of our SJC players only had 10 minutes break before going back in to their next game.  Mr Tuck will not be asking them to play slower!

Josh and Matthew both finished with an extremely respectful 4/7 having frequent battles against England players. Hannah & Sarena played brilliantly and finished with 4/6 in group B. Amalia & Sam had a great last day both scoring 2.5/3 and Daniel stormed through his last matches with 3/3.

The prize giving:  Not to our surprise we did not win the dormitory prize (for tidiness and quiet) nor did we win the football or table tennis but our cups and medals were extremely prolific for the chess:

Congratulations to all our SJC players who participated in this 3 day National event.  Great experience and great results.

Victoria Finnegan